The Heart of the Pearl

It would have been much easier if I hated him, but I don't. He's charming and witty and funny and very good looking and wants what's best for both of our families and very well liked and if we had just been friends I think we would have made a very good team but

but he's not Albemarle.

And I can't help that my eyes follow him around the room. I can't help that he is a compass to my true self. And I know that it's selfish of me not to think of my family and do what is expected and needed and for heaven's sake we at Kensington Palace and there is a baby on that dais who will one day be queen and everything should be wonderful and marvellous and beautiful but why do I feel so empty and lost? 

Mother won't discuss with me what I need to talk about. She and Nelson have been very good at avoiding me when what I need, now, as soon as possible, is to speak with them. Both. Either. Both. Eventually. Alone.

I meant what I said. If to be with Albemarle means to be cut away from my family then...then to hell with it. How can I want a life full of finery and beauty and still be so so miserable? 

Now that I have seen the mask I hold to my face, I cannot live within it.

Now that I know what it is to live without that mask - to be free of the desperation of society - to be lovely without it...

(they called me lovely)

Now that I know this face, how do I cover it?

My eyes scan the room whenever Albemarle leaves my view for a moment and I look up into the face of my attentive husband, desperate to please and I wish I could hate him. I peer into those emerald eyes wishing I could find some way to despise their hue, to feel the urge to pluck them from their sockets and cast them onto the floor for daring to try to see past my mask and - 

I cannot.

How strange it is...how hard it is to see everything that everyone sees - the wonder that is the perfect husband, a king of men and yet not see the flush of love and need I saw as I kneeled upon a rock before Albemarle. Even as my eyes rest upon my husband, even as the ghost of a smile crosses my mouth I feel the pull of my soul across the room as they return to view and the ghost - even the ghost - is dedicated to him.

It always was. Carved into my heart as the ten commandments upon stone.

Thou shalt love.

I do not know what they said to Zainab, but they are fraught and unhappy and I wish to run to his aid and soothe, but... but we both know I cannot.

Please, my love. Please do not send my soul from your side. It already cracks from the strain of being so far from you now.