"The moment I saw her, a part of me walked out of my body and wrapped itself around her. And there it still remains." Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

---- 

IV.

"Claire!" cried Grace, who promptly flew down the stairs to receive her sister and the new baby inside the Ashwood House foyer.

Peter did his best to avoid the footmen who were in the midst of carrying in the trunks belonging to the travellers, and in doing so, inadvertently looked up at the magnificent ceiling that stretched two floors above. One could never fully prepare themselves for setting foot in a house such as this, and considering their modest upbringing, he wondered if Grace had ever properly become used to it.

His eldest sister, he observed, did look very well, and every bit a young duchess, right down to the glittering earbobs which hung from her lobes. Grace kissed Claire's cheek before she delicately placed a hand on little Maria's head, softly cooing over the precious infant.

"Oh, what a treasure!" she gushed,

Both Jack and Claire were terribly proud. Neither one of them had stopped smiling in the two weeks since Maria had been born. Peter did not think that he had ever seen two people who were more pleased with their brood than Jack and Claire.

"And that hair! Denham features, do you think? Or is that Jack's colouring?" Grace wondered.

"Of course, it is Jack's colouring," Claire said confidently. "Maria is his double. I cannot see anyone else."

"I think you are right," Grace agreed, before she looked up at the rest of the party and gave them all an apologetic expression. "Do forgive my rudeness."

"It is allowed when there is precious cargo," Jack teased as he received his sister-in-law, kissing her cheek.

Grace kissed Jackie's cheeks and fussed over her a little before she arrived at Peter and pulled her brother in for a tight hug. Peter had to lean down to kiss Grace's cheek, as Grace murmured, "You have gotten taller."

Peter chuckled. "Perhaps you have shrunk."

"It has been too long," she continued. "You work too hard. Do not forget about us in quiet, old Hertfordshire, while you build your empire in town."

"I could never," Peter assured her. Despite living in London, and loving the work that he did, the natural thoughts that passed through his mind as they travelled through the Hertfordshire countryside was that this was home. No matter where he lived, Ashwood would always be home.

"Jack! Claire!"

A blonde woman streaked down the stairs so quickly she might have been a blur as Susanna appeared before them with the biggest expression of anticipation on her face. Oddly, she was dressed in a rather dull, shade of beige. The dress itself was pretty, but the fabric appeared quite out of character for someone as usually fashionable as Susanna was.

But Susanna had changed in between now and the time that Peter had last seen her, and he supposed her choices of clothing had perhaps changed, too. She was a little darker in her complexion, with a dusting of freckles across her nose, indicative of someone who spent a great deal of time outdoors. What shone the most, perhaps, was her radiance. She was happy, and the Susanna that Peter had last known in London was terribly frustrated with her lot in life. Despite the rather arduous adventure that she had gone through, she did not seem to regret any of it, and Peter was glad for her.

Susanna was the next one to fuss over the baby, and soon the entire household became aware of Jack and Claire's arrival, as Adam and Cecily descended upon them as well. The moment Cecily appeared, nobody else could claim the baby. Maria was in her grandmother's arms for the foreseeable future.

Peter was received warmly by them all as well, and heard several reprimands about how hard he worked, and how he needed to visit more often, to which Jack defended him fervently. Peter was grateful for his partner.

"Congratulations, by the way, Susanna," Peter said, when he finally came to speak to her in and amongst the chaos of the reunited family. "I was so pleased to hear that everything worked out as it did for you and Mr Whitfield."

Susanna knitted her fingers together and held them in front of her as her cheeks flushed a little. "So am I," she replied. "Thank you, Peter. It is so nice to see you again. I cannot believe it has been so long. Are you happy in London? I hope Jack isn't working you too hard."

Peter grinned. "I must look like I am afraid of hard work or something," he mused. "Really, what I do now is less physically strenuous than what I used to do, and nobody seemed to worry about me beating on an anvil all day," Peter joked.

Susanna rolled her eyes as she laughed. "I suppose that is the beauty of having a family who love you. They worry about us incessantly, worry about our decisions and choices, and they are desperate to protect us when we go abroad, to London, or to the Caribbean." She teased a knowing smile. "But you are happy?" she checked.

Peter nodded. "Very," he promised. "When do I get to meet your Mr Whitfield?" he queried curiously.

"Oh, Alex will be along for dinner soon. Everyone comes for Sunday dinner." She suddenly gasped as she gripped the skirt of her beige dress. "Oh, I need to change! This is my wedding gown!"

Peter frowned. He would never pretend to be an expert in women's fashions, but certainly Susanna could have found something a little nicer to wear for her wedding than a gown that looked like it had been made out of a beige flour sack. "Your dress is lovely," he managed to compliment.

Susanna stared at Peter, as though he had grown an extra head, before she laughed. "Oh, this is not my wedding gown, it is just Belle's practise dress. But still, Alex cannot see me in the design. It is meant to be a surprise!" Susanna promptly turned on her heel and scampered back up the stairs.

How expensive it must be to pay for a wardrobe if one had to make practise examples of dresses before real ones, Peter mused. Belle, which sounded like a French name, must have been the woman making Susanna's wedding gown.

Evening soon dawned on the Ashwood estate and the additional members to the Beresford party soon arrived for dinner. Peter was animatedly received by his elder sister, Kate, and her husband, Jim, his younger brother, Jem, as well as his mother, Mrs Denham.

When he saw his mother walking towards him, supported by her cane owing to her lame leg from that injury year ago, Peter did feel a large pang of guilt for not visiting more often. How quickly time flew while he worked in London. It was hard to believe he had not been home in eight months or so.

"You are taller!" cried Mrs Denham, who had tears in her eyes.

"Grace said the same thing," Peter chuckled as he kissed his mother's cheek.

"Are you eating well enough? If you are having growth spurts you must be eating enough to support yourself! Just look at Jem! Look at how tall he is now. Practically eating me out of house and home, he is!"

Peter grinned at his brother, who looked quite sheepish. True enough, Jem looked to be about a foot taller than he was at Christmas. He looked a little gangly, as he was only seventeen, as though his weight had not yet caught up with him. Peter shook Jem's hand, before he hugged his little brother.

"Are you well?" Jem asked.

"Yes, you?"

Again, Jem appeared a little sheepish, which Peter thought was odd. It really could only mean one thing. "Anyone on your mind, Jemmy?" Peter asked quietly.

"Christ! Not in front of Mother," Jem hissed, hitting Peter in the shoulder, and dragging him a few steps away from everybody else.

"I asked you quietly! What did you want me to do? Communicate via thought?" Peter retorted. "Go on then. Who is she?" he urged.

Peter could not quite believe his eyes as Jem appeared to blush at the question. Lord, who was this girl, indeed. Jem seemed to be quite smitten.

"Don't get too excited," Jem said dismissively. "She doesn't exactly know I exist." He shrugged his shoulders, attempting to put on a bit of bravado to mask his disappointment.

"Who is she? Have you even spoken to her?"

Jem shook his head after a moment. "Well, no ..."

"How is the poor girl supposed to know of your existence if you have not even spoken to her?" Peter challenged.

"I have a plan!" Jem insisted. "I am going to ask her to dance at the Winter Assembly ... and if everything goes the way I plan in my head she will fall madly in love with me and think I'm the best-looking lad she's ever seen." Jem shrugged his shoulders, masking his bashfulness.

Peter grinned. Now he was desperately curious. "Who is she? Have I met her? What's her name?"

"No, you don't know her. She and her mother only recently moved to the area. Her name is –"

"What are you two boys whispering about?" Mrs Denham asked, interrupting the conversation.

Peter and Jem exchanged a glance, and Peter could see that Jem's mind was as empty as his own when it came to thinking up a lie. Thankfully, Peter's brother was primed to drop him in it.

"Peter's after a wife, Mother," Jem announced. "Got his eyes peeled for a fancy dame in London!"

Peter had a sudden urge to take his mother's cane and bash his brother over the head with it.

Mrs Denham's eyes lit up. "Oh, really?" she cried. "Well, how wonderful! I suppose town is filled with lovely girls at the moment, what with it being the Season and all. Do you have anyone in mind? There are certainly some lovely girls in Ashwood who would make fine wives, to be certain."

"No, Mother, I can assure you that I do not have my eye on anyone. I am the farthest thing from attached at the minute and I cannot foresee my situation changing anytime soon." Peter glared at Jem, who did look thoroughly amused and impressed with himself.

Were Peter a vengeful person, he might be tempted to go to that assembly just to drop Jem in it with whomever this mystery girl was. But he wasn't. Jem was lucky. That certainly did not mean that Peter wouldn't whack him one if he got the chance.

Before dinner, Peter was introduced to Alex Whitfield, who was perhaps the largest man that he had ever seen. He could have been a strongman in a circus performance, he was so large. Susanna looked quite the fairy beside him, but she did look so desperately happy. As did he. It was easy to see in the expression on Alex's face that he was quite devoted to his fiancée. Peter had never seen a black man before, at least not that he could recall. But he did read, and he did know of what went on about the world. What was worse was that he did know of how they were looked down upon because of their race. One only had to hear of some of the words that were used against Alex when his engagement to Susanna had been announced. And those were the words that had reached London. Peter was ashamed to think of what had been said in his own village.

But Alex Whitfield stood proudly in and amongst a room of genteel, white people, and Peter admired him.

Peter was also introduced to Madame Amélie Archambeau, Alex's mother. He had heard much about her from his mother's letters, as Amélie resided with her in the village. Her English was quite broken, but by all accounts, improved from when she had first arrived in England, and her son was quite attentive in translating much of the conversation into French for her.

"Where is Belle?"

Peter overheard Alex asks Susanna the question, and Peter recalled Susanna making the reference to Belle earlier. Was the dressmaker expected?

"Upstairs," Susanna replied. "I tried to coax her down, but she did not want to intrude. She thinks it's a family affair, and I couldn't convince her otherwise. I think she is just being a little timid."

Alex whispered something in Susanna's hear, to which she nodded, before promptly going over to her mother.

"– sweetbreads, I tell you!" Peter heard Cecily say as he tuned into the conversation that she was having with Claire, Jack and Grace. "I read about it. Apparently, stewed or roasted, they are excellent sources of the internal ingredients needed to have a son!"

"Codswallop!" Jack declared. "Where on earth did you read that, Mother? I think you must have imagined it."

"I did not!" Cecily retorted. She was still rocking baby Maria in her arms. "I read it in the newspaper."

"If she actually read that in a newspaper, I shall eat my hat," Jack said, rolling his eyes. "I am not going to feed my wife sweetbreads, whatever the bloody hell they are, and neither shall Adam. A son will come when he wants to. Don't you approve of Maria?"

Cecily gasped a most offended gasp. "Approve of her? How dare you! How could I not approve of my precious Maria?" Cecily cuddled her granddaughter to her chest. "Honestly, Jack. I don't know where you get your ideas from."

"Probably the same place you do when you read about sweetbreads," Jack muttered, to which Claire stifled a laugh, disguising it poorly as a cough.

"Mama," Susanna interrupted, before she ducked down to whisper something in her mother's ear, no doubt passing on whatever Alex's message had been.

"Susanna, take the baby," Cecily instructed, passing Susanna Maria. "I shall have her back, mind!" Cecily then rose from the settee where she had been sitting and marched out of the room and towards the stairs with purpose.

Not a minute later, Mr Cole, the butler, arrived to announce that dinner was being served in the dining room. The large family party began to make their way from the drawing room to the dining room, where the impossibly long table was laden with crockery, silverware, glasses, and tureens of fruit.

Peter found his name on a place card written in a neat hand as he took his seat. To his left sat his mother, which he knew had to be calculated on Mrs Denham's part, and to his right, the chair was empty. The place card read: Belle Desjardins.

"Dez-jar-dinz," Peter struggled to read under his breath. The dressmaker upstairs, anyway, was going to be on his right. Across from him sat Jem, who had already helped himself to a pear, which Peter was certain was meant to be decorative.

"So, darling, are you quite certain there have not been any young ladies that have turned your head recently?" Mrs Denham pressed.

"No, Mother –" but before Peter could finish articulating his response, the dining room door was opened for Cecily, and another young woman.

Peter's mouth opened as he quickly became entranced. Never before had he seen a woman like her before. How beautiful, she was, but that word did not seem strong enough.

Her skin was what had struck him first, such a cool, dark complexion that appeared smooth and flawless. Her small, delicate hands were clasped together nervously against the flat plane of her belly.

Everything about her seemed small and delicate. She did not stand very tall at all, reaching only Cecily's shoulder in height. She was thin and dainty, as though a strong wind would blow her over.

Her head was bowed slightly, and her eyes were down, and Peter longed for her to look up. Her hair was ebony in colour and curled in tight spirals. While she had the majority of her hair pinned away from her delicate face, several shorter curls framed her forehead and temples. Her cheekbones and jawline were angular, but her full lips, her nose, and the apples of her cheek perfectly softened her features.

From where he was sitting, Peter could see that she had a set of dark, thick lashes that shielded her eyes. Look up, he willed.

And she did.

Peter did not know what he had been expecting, but he had not been expecting those eyes. She took in the room with eyes of molten gold, a colour that he had never before seen on another person. But Peter quickly decided that they suited her perfectly, and they made her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

---

Hope you enjoyed it!!

I noticed a few people confused about my upload schedule at the moment and I forgot to tell you that I'm on school holidays! That's why I'm able to write a bit more. However, I have been really, really struggling with arm and wrist pain in the last few weeks, I think exacerbated by working from home. Doing the most simple things kills me, like unscrewing a lid on a water bottle. I had to rotate my mattress today and that nearly killed me. I've got both my arms bandaged right now with compression bandages to try and relieve some of the pain but typing is a real struggle and I'm going to pay for this tomorrow. 

I really shouldn't have written tonight but I wanted to find out what Peter thought of Belle, same as youuuuuuu!!! 

So if I'm not able to write as often, that's why. 

Vote and comment xxx