Chapter 2

                                    

                                          
"When I get married, I'm gonna have the most beautiful dress and the biggest bouquet."
"The difference between you and (Y/N) is that you actually want to get married." 
I looked up from the book I was reading in the corner of the sitting room to glance at my sisters. I arched an eyebrow, shifting a bit to a more comfortable position in the roomy armchair near the hearth. 
"Who said anything about my 'getting married'??" I asked, a bit confused as to how their conversation had sparked. 
"You didn't hear?" Rosetta asked me smugly, making a face down at her piece she was embroidering. 
I was beginning to grow impatient and a bit worried. "Didn't hear what?" 
"Papa has been discussing the dowery with Alessio." 
My blood ran cold and my heart sank as I blinked at my younger sister. 
"But, I thought they were going to wait until the spring!" I managed to choke out, the shock from how soon my inevitable wedding seemed to be looming over my head. 
Chiara shrugged, glancing up at me from the large quilt she was stitching together. "I'm not sure, but if that's the case, they're discussing it awfully early." She gave me a sympathetic look before going back to sewing. 
I frowned down at my book, the words swimming and meaningless on the page, now. My brain was muddled as it tried to find some way, any way, out of this predicament. I thought about saying I had been seeing another man, and therefore would bring dishonor on Alessio. I knew my father would see right through that lie, though. 
I didn't even really and truly know much of anything about Alessio, either. Just that he was old and had four children from his now-deceased wife. I wasn't ready to be a wife, much less a mother to four young girls. I could barely even handle the immense pressure of being a "motherly" figure to my two younger sisters. 
With a huff, I closed my book shut and stood from the chair, deciding it would be best to sort through my tangle of thoughts without the company of my sisters. I made my way up the stairs and down the hallway, my feet slowing almost on their own when I came to pass my parents' room. I stared at the door for a moment before opening the door and quietly crossing over the threshold. 
My father had moved his bedroom to one of the downstairs studies, not being able to stay in the room that my mother had spent her last days in. Even now, things remained practically untouched. I opened the curtains slightly, blinding light filtering in in strips. Tiny dust particles flew through the air around me, and my nose scrunched up as I breathed in some of them. 
I ran my hands over some of the surfaces, sending dust flying, where they floated in the air of the room as if they were stars dotting the night sky. Nothing had been disturbed in so many years, and I was fairly certain no one had even set foot in this room since around three years prior, when my father moved downstairs. I couldn't exactly blame him for not wanting to stay in this room; there seemed to be some sort of hazy, sickening, nostalgic overlay that the room had adopted after Mama died. It made me sad. 
I shook myself out of the little daze I had settled in and walked out of the room, gently clicking the door closed behind me. 
Finally making it into my own bedroom, I abandoned my novel on my bedside table and went to sit over in the window seat. I always found it easier to think when nature was close by. Something about fresh air and the greens of life seemed to clear my head and put me at ease. Hugging my knees to my chest, I gazed out the window and prayed that the ivy trailing outside my window and the clouds drifting lazily in the atmosphere above would grant me some of that comfort, now.