Thread: Southern Girl [ Ariamella & Reydan ]

RE Southern Girl Ariamella Reydan Lucille Rayne. Part of him wanted to shriek with laughter. Lucille Rayne. His ex-fiancee. Not officially, of course, more of a promise and understanding as was the way in the South. Five years of his life dissolved before his eyes. Suddenly they were back in Virginia. 1860. Him seventeen, attempting elegance but achieving just an awkward youthful charm. She sixteen, all blonde girls and demure simpering. So Master Abernathy, will you love me forever? she teased, giving him one of her sharp looks from beneath beautifully arched eyebrows. They'd stopped beneath the shade of a willow tree, alongside the brook that ran through his father's plantation. The wind rustled the spring leaves and, in the distance, a lilting song carried from the fields of tobacco. Whilst many families in the South, the stereotype ran, were built on cotton, the Abernathy's fortune was based on tobacco. He paused, looking down at her shinning face. They'd been thrown together, he and Lucille, arranged since childhood, but there was, they both felt, something between them... He'd looked down at her, all youthful gallantry, and smiled. He'd reached down, brushing a lock of hair out of her faced. I'll love you forever if you'll let me Miss Rayne he said quietly and then he'd kissed her. It had been youthful and chaste but, suddenly, she'd thrown her arms around his head and pressed herself to him as the slave song lifted and swelled on the breeze around them... The slave song. Just like that five years came rushing back. He stood, Camilla staring at him surprised, and inclined his head. Stiff and polite. Miss Rayne he murmured, still unable to suppress the Virginia lilt in his voice, welcome to our house. I trust your journey was not too harsh in such weather. He turned to Camilla, hardly hearing whatever Lucille said in reply, and glanced at his New England wife. A woman who represented everything of the five years between he and Lucille. Darling Camilla, I shall be in my office. I have business to attend to. He turned back to Lucille. Please forgive my abrupt absence Miss Rayne. My office is just across the hall. It wasn't until he stepped out to the Hall that he realised he had added that last section. Why? Camilla knew where his office was. Then why....had he wanted Lucille to follow. He sighed deeply, fingering the ache in his side, and pushed through the door ahead, closing the heavy oak behind him. His mind wandered again as he sat at the desk. Because it is WRONG! he had practically screamed at Lucille, standing by the creek in a cold December morning. December 1860. Things had shifted so quickly. Tears were streaking her face, agony painted across both of their visages, and he frowned at her. To keep people as objects...can't you see Lucille? He couldn't replay her words in his mind, too painful, but nor could he avoid the final action of that scene. He had pressed a locket on her. His hair, set behind glass, on a thin silver locket and chain. And Lucille, so unable to understand, had hurled it across the creek into the water. Virgil sighed again, frowning, as he sat behind his desk. What a mess. What a bloody mess.