Hidden Spirit {Completed}

Chapter Eleven: A New Low to Abandonment

Amelia woke to soft sunlight on her cheeks. She didn't know when she'd fallen asleep. Maybe a long while after speaking with Andrew. They stayed up most of the night talking, some conversations good, some bad. Their bouts of arguing rose and fell in waves; cycles of speaking and laughing, finding some way of smiling about this or that, to finding a rough subject that drew out both defense and offense from either side. Both pointed out faults in the other. Both highlighted mostly what they didn't like about the other, because for Amelia to say what she did like about Andrew felt off, and put her on a level with him lower than she wanted to be on. But then again in that cycle, peace would be made and they would find something else to talk about. Simply because they had nothing better to do while locked in there.... Nothing either of them wanted to do, anyway.

Hours into their sentence they both began to grow tired, and Amelia quickly stated that a bed fit for five kings was much too large for Andrew to sleep in one of the chairs. She thought nothing of it. There was at least three feet of space between them, even when she could sprawl out on her belly.

Just when she began to come to a full state of consciousness, rapid knocks sounded on the door. Andrew, who had still been asleep, started at the sudden clatter.

Amelia looked over him briefly. His hair was messed from the pillows, which she thought rather funny, and he looked distraught enough to pull off the image of a night to meet the expectations of the couple, right? Surely.

The knock sounded again, just as sharp and rapid. She looked over at Andrew and motioned him closer. They couldn't be lying a length apart; someone would call the final step of the last day invalid. She scooted over and lay at least with his arm thrown over her shoulder. She stiffly leaned her head against his chest, and he called for whomever it was to enter with a voice surprised at Amelia's hasty action. She flashed him a look that demanded his focus.

Load-bearing servants filed in, followed promptly by Jed and Lucia, then another servant with a squealing pup in her arms. Bright faces were worn by the two adults, and Amelia swore she saw a dark satisfaction behind her uncle's eyes.

"Good morning my lovelies!" cried Lucia, prancing over to the bedside. "How fairs your first morning as husband and wife?"

Amelia said nothing. Andrew seemed to be still collecting the scene in his waking state. Lucia payed it no mind.

"I hope you are hungry!" she motioned to the trays held in the arms of the servants, which on queue were lifted to expose different breakfast assortments. Amelia's mouth watered.

"Everything is ready for your travels, my son. Whenever you are ready, preferably before noon, horses and aids are set for departure."

He nodded to his mother, eyes still hazy. Amelia, annoyed at the look in everyone's faces, from the servants with the same respectful looking-without-seeing expressions to the overly excited look of Lucia then to Jed. She shrugged under the meaningless weight of Andrew's arm, and accidentally brushed against something she wasn't sure she wanted to brush against. Andrew stiffened at her movement as she discreetly tried to sink back down without touching him. Jed glanced at her.

"I'll be ready before then," Andrew said, voice tight.

"Good! Then we will set these here and leave you be. See you soon!"

Amelia left Andrew to nod in his goodbyes as the servants set platters on the bed as instructed by Lucia. Jed lingered just a second after the servants.

One awkwardly stepped to the bed with the wriggling dog in her outstretched arms. "This be yours, Highnesses?" she asked in an accent unfamiliar to Amelia.