Battlefields to Ball-gowns (A Bridgerton Fanfiction)

Chapter 16

"She denied the timely marriage!" Daphne raved as she stormed into Artemis' room. 

The princess sprung awake startled by the noise. "Well good morning to you too." She grumbled, turning over and hiding beneath her covers.

"Did you hear me?" 

A sigh came from beneath the quilt before it was harshly flipped down revealing the disgruntled princess, "Fine... I'll bite. Who has denied you what?" 

"The Queen! She refuses to give us permission for an expedited license for the wedding!" 

"She's probably just cross you denied the prince. Though I don't know why she bothers he is clearly taken with Aphrodite. I think they would actually make a rather handsome couple -"

"FOCUS ARTEMIS!" Daphne roared in frustration. 

"Why? Just go talk to her! Tell her a story, entertain her! Tell her how you both are desperately in love and a moment apart is agony. Tell her he fills your dreams with carnal desire and to be without him is to be without half of your soul." Artemis rattled on as she stood and began getting ready for the day. 

"Talk to her?" Daphne asked, blushing at the rest of what Artemis said. 

"Yes. She is dramatic but not completely unreasonable. Just take the duke and talk with her..." Artemis turned to look at her friend, allowing the silence to engulf them.

"That is not all that is bothering you, is it?" Artemis asked softly as she watched sadness come over Daphne's face. 

Tears filled her eyes as Daphne looked at her friend, "He can not have children." 

Without another word, Daphne was in her arms crying softly at the loss of a life not yet made. 

Eloise Bridgerton was receiving very strange looks as she stood impatiently outside of the men's club. 

She was sure her mother and brothers would murder her if they knew she was here but desperation outweighed the consequences. 

 Just as she was about to give up, the target of her search stumbled outside, the smell of smoke and alcohol permeating from him. 

"Apollo Black!" Eloise roared startling the man. 

"FUCK! What the hell demoness? Why do you haunt me?"  Apollo cried out in Illyrian. 

"You have been avoiding me!" Eloise growled cornering her friend. 

It was true, Apollo had been avoiding Eloise Bridgerton like the plague. After his little realization that he was in fact in love with Eloise, he abandoned all friendship and ran like a coward. His feeling hung like a curse on his soul and he refused to be in such agony. 

Apollo was known to love frivolously, but he knew the difference between the infatuation he had felt a thousand times and what he was experiencing now. 

He had heard his mother talk about it a million times. He saw it in the marriages of his soldiers during the war. 

That deep longing is different from lust or friendship. 

He was not naive nor was he an idiot, he knew it would be far too easy to fall irreversibly in love with Eloise so he needed to remove the problem from its source.