Angelica had silently ached ever since that night, ever since she had realized that she would have to give up her dear Alexander for her even dearer little sister. She would bear it with a smile. She would never tell Eliza that she still thought about Alexander. She wasn't that sort of a woman.

But damn if it didn't hurt. Alexander was the only man who had ever managed to match her on a deeper level, as well as the only man she would have considered her intellectual equal, and probably would ever. Her eyes showed the way that she truly felt at the wedding.

She stood alone on the balcony, listening to the sound of music and merrymaking drift out into the night from inside. She was lost in her head, her ever racing mind yet to be still. All the old and buried emotions had been brought to the surface by their marriage becoming legally binding.

It had begun to hit her as she put on her lovely, tailored dress, of course, but it didn't seem truly real until that moment, when the I dos had been said and the rings exchanged.

The door opened, and it snapped Angelica out of her thoughts. You stepped outside. One of Alexander's friends, she remembered vaguely. She greeted you softly. "Tired of the festivities?" She leaned on the balcony railing.