Roses and Flames

Chapter 1

Like every other young lady in England, Anastasia was well adept at hiding her broken emotions inside her buried so deep that no one would see except the façade the society wanted, just like she had been taught. Frustration had been building inside her for so long that she felt that she might as well explode. Anastasia wore her bonnet like her mother asked her to do and smiled at her with her teeth gritting as she went out for a walk in the maze on the lawn of their manor. She wanted to shout and scream, have a tantrum and beat her hands and fists on the ground like a toddler but Anastasia was too much of a lady to do things like that.

She finally reached the spot which was her favourite beside the bushes of the white roses and sat down on the bench, her pale face flushed from the walk tinging her cheeks with a soft pink glow. It had been only two seasons since she and her twin sister Ambrosia had come out in London. It was a year to remember, and a season to cherish for her, Anastasia thought wistfully. How she had danced and danced at every party in every ballroom making her parents proud of her unlike her sister. Men in uniforms and men with titles fawned over her and tried to win over her but she was not ready to lose herself so soon, to be snagged up in marriage at the first opportunity available. Lord Buchanon had supported her in her choices, until now.

Anastasia looked out and breathed in the smell of the roses and of the earth. It was a distinctive odour of Nature just before autumn arrived on tip-toes like child learning to walk for the first time. A brief surge of pleasure coursed through her veins with the thought that very soon the leaves would turn to gold and red making brighter. Almost immediately she felt this immense and uncontrollable urge to weep her hearts out. How would she be able to see the leaves changing their colour if father decided to marry her off to a Yankee? How could any father be so stone-hearted that they could not forgive a single mistake of their child? After all this was the twentieth century and could she not have any say in her own marriage?

Engrossed in her thoughts Anastasia shrieked out in the most unlady-like manner when an arrow came and pierced the grass near her feet. Who on Earth dared to shoot an arrow at her, thought Anastasia as she picked it up and walked out of the maze trying to find the perpetrator. She found a man just outside the fence on horse-back with a cross-bow in his hand. He had tousled brown hair which was thick and lustruous, his face was strong and defined, and as if chiseled from granite but that was all she could discern from that distance. He smiled at her and made a motion as if asking her to look at the arrow in her hand. She did so and found a small folded parchment tied to the end of the arrow with a red ribbon. Her heart started beating against her ribs as she looked up only to find the mysterious man riding away.

Anastasia could hear someone calling out her name and she quickly hid the letter in her hair and the arrow beneath the rose bushes before anyone saw anything.

“There you are Ana, I have been looking for you since so long. Come on in, it’s time for tea,” said Ambrosia as she huffed with the book in her hand.

“I could not hear you at all, believe me, or you would not have to walk this much for my sake,” said Anastasia with a guilty smile on her face as she rose up too quickly from the bench and walked towards her twin.

“Is everything alright? You seem a bit perturbed Ana,” said Ambrosia as they both walked back to the manor.

“I am really not sure of that Amber. I shall tell you all of it when I am sure of it myself,” said Anastasia hoping that her sister would not ask her anymore. But sisters never stopped there, did they now?

“Oh my God Ana!! Why did you not tell me earlier? Who is it?” asked her sister her eyes bright with excitement and curiosity.

“What are you even talking about Amber? Who shall it be?” asked Anastasia in a hoarse whisper, trying to play all innocent but the acct did not work that well with her twin.

“It is alright if you do not want to share with me but as your sister I might very well be your only confidante in this cruel cruel world,” said Ambrosia, dreamily as they both walked up the steps to the manor.

“Oh Amber!! You ought to get your heads out of the clouds…everything now is not a Shakespearean romantic comedy, so why not stop searching a semblance of the same in real life?” asked Anastasia as her sister’s face darkened considerably.

The afternoon tea was probably one of the most suffocating times that Anastasia had ever spent in the nineteen summers of her life.

“Your father is very upset with you Anastasia and it pains to tell me such that he is quite determined to not allow you to the Seasons in London this time. Although he is not going to share it with me but I am pretty sure that my Lord has some very good reason for not allowing you so, so pray tell me the reason of his annoyance with you!!” her mother said as she sipped the tea from their beautiful porcelain cup.

Anastasia had no idea how she was supposed to say that she was sympathetic to the Suffragette Movement started by the women in London and she was seen by the acquaintance of her father’s at one of their rallies. She knew pretty well that once this piece of information came out then there were chances that their entire family would be shunned by the English aristocracy and would not be welcome to any place or any party and balls anymore. But she did not want that either.

“It is nothing very important Mother. Father just wants me to take some responsibility now that I am older which is why he is asking me to stay away from all the frivolities and take a decision, make a choice, that is all,” said Anastasia, trying to sugar-coat the truth as much as possible. She knew that lying was a sin undoubtedly but surely the Lord would forgive her under such dire circumstances.

“Oh dear!!! That must be why he is speaking to all those aristocrats every weekend,” said her mother, thoughtfully as Amber carefully absorbed in all the conversation that passed before her.

Anastasia looked at both of them and the hidden note in her hair was feeling as heavy as the weight of that of a piece of lead and she said,” Mother, if you will excuse me. I think I am getting a bad headache and would like to take some rest before supper if you would allow me to…”

“Of course Ana….go upstairs and take rest. Amber go with your sister and help her with whatever she needs,” said Lady Buchanon, looking at her daughter in a concerned manner.

“Oh no no, it’s alright Mother…she can keep you company…I shall just sleep for a few hours and hope that I am better before Father arrives home,” said Anastasia as she carefully rose from the couch feigning weakness and went upstairs to her room.

The first thing she did was to securely lock the room and tie a kerchief covering the keyhole so that no one could spy on her. She tore off the bonnet from her head and threw it away which landed somewhere in the room and pulled off the pins from her hair which came down tumbling in waves on her back and the ribbon-tied note fell on the floor as well.

Anastasia felt her heart would stop beating for this was probably a first love note she had ever received from someone in secret. Not like the letters she had received from those men who met her at balls and parties describing their heart-felt emotions which never touched her at all.

She carefully opened the note, untying the ribbon and read it with growing horror that there has been a horrific mistake.

Dearest Ambrosia,

You do not know who I am.

Every night I dream about you,

I drown in the ocean of love.

Every time my thoughts wander,

they always come back to you

Every time I see you in secret,

your angel carved face makes me want to cry.

Every time you speak with your companion,

my heart literally stops.

Every time I doubt my feelings,

all I have to do is look before I fall back under your spell again

You may not know me, but I know you. I love you.

If you have some notion of the feelings that I harbor for you, my darling,

Write a note and tie it to the third branch of the cherry tree from bottom by your fence

Three days from now.

I shall await your reply with bated breath

From,

Someone forever yours.

Could Fate be any more cruel? The first time she receives a note from a handsome stranger that is not for her, it is for her sister. The man had clearly mistaken her to be Ambrosia in the lawn today afternoon seeing her at distance.

But wait…Amber did not know that she had a secret admirer, neither would she know if Anastasia took her place and wrote on behalf of her sister. Would she?

Dearest Stranger,

I do not know your name…neither have I made your acquaintance but I have never felt before today what I am feeling now while I pen down these words.

I love you with my aura, placing it about you like the deepest star-filled sky. Space and time have no meaning for my love, for it is boundless, eternal. It is a love that self-sustains through even the meanest of winters, its own heat and light being the warmth, the hope. Even if you were cold to the core, my love, I would wake you like the spring wakes a flower and watch you grow, watch you bloom. Everything that I am is yours... all I ask is that you take care of yourself in the same way you would care for a person you love completely, in the same way I love you. I wish we can be together for eternity.

It might seem strange but that is how I feel from the deepest core of my heart.

I shall await your reply at the same place where your arrow struck my heart, three days hence.

Yours for eternity,

Ambrosia