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She removed her slippers, feeling the solid ground beneath her feet. Edwina could not recall the last time she walked on the bare ground, barefoot. She must have been a child, an infant even.
It feels nice. Real. She was always looking for what feels real and honest and the Earth is that. The way the grass feels between her toes is relaxing.
"Are you not cold?" Friedrich asked. February in England was odd, with the sun beaming down at them, but there was still a chill in the air.
Edwina shakes her head, "England is humid. Not warm in the way India is. Though I suppose that is the point; nothing is supposed to be the same." Her dark brown eyes held a thoughtfulness that often made Friedrich believe he was speaking to someone older.
"That is true." He acknowledged. He threw a pebble into the water, so that it hops and skips over the water before settling down the stream.
Edwina smiles, liking that she gets to see him delight in small pleasures like this. The stern Prussian diplomat who would rather be holed up with a book or looking at the stars in his observatory. He feels the same way, that he gets to see her with her hair down - dark long waves that brush against her tailbone.
Sitting on the grass, she draws her knees up to her chest, not because she's cold or shy, but she is comfortable. So comfortable with him. Too comfortable.
She ponders what his guards, armed and not too far away think they are doing. They must suspect something illicit and are extremely discreet for no one talks of it. Not even gossip pamphlets ask why a crown prince whisks an unmarried young lady with a questionable reputation away on the most random day trips or why he asks her to visit him in the country for a few days - without a chaperone.
Is it terrible that she finds she has stopped caring? The Ton will say as they please, regardless. A nun could testify to their friendship and she was sure she would still be subject to rumours that she was his mistress. But he has power enough that no one questions it.
But Edwina had been wondering why he has asked her here. Friedrich notices, because he always does. He notices the young lady watching him intently, inquisitively.
"What is it?" Friedrich finally asks. He is still looking out the stream.
Edwina shrugs, and he turns to her, "Sometimes you look at me… you look at me strangely." She says.
"I look at you strangely?" He was amused, walking towards her.
"As if you cannot possibly believe I exist."
She notices, in the quiet moments between them, when he thinks she doesn't notice or perhaps he knows she sees and wishes for her to know.
"I suppose it is merely refreshing to know someone like you." Friedrich says. He throws another pebble that skips further than the last one, "You look at me in the same way, Edwina."
Her face warms, "Well, I rather like that you are fed up of England, as am I."
"You never seem fed up."
She smiled, "I cannot be fed up. I must continue to participate in this farce otherwise I become far more ruined than I already am."
"There is nothing wrong with you."
"That is not what the Ton believes." Edwina replies, tearing some grass out of the ground. She lets the blades fall between her fingers, briefly pondering to herself what her future looks like.
A low chuckle brings her back to him and Friedrich sits down on the ground next to her, a wry smile on his face.
"No. But if one searches for common sense and empathy, you will not find it amongst the aristocracy." He observes. She smiles and offers him a blade of grass. He takes it.
"That is a lesson I learned rather well. Not last season, no. But when my father died and my mother was branded mad for her grief. Or that my sister was forced to deal with my grandparents. The world, I have learned, does not care for women. At least here."
"Have you been reading Wollenscroft?"
"Some."
"Marie de Gourney." He says, and she commits the name to memory, "A brilliant woman, much like yourself."
"I am nothing of note, Friedrich."
"You are a Diamond, Mein Schatz."
"I am shattered glass," Edwina replies but there is a smile on her face as she is up again, her head resting on her knees. Friedrich is staring at her, leaning back.
"What are you doing?" She asks.
"Commiting you to memory."
"Are you to never see me again?" Edwina asks, the fear of abandonment creeping up. He does not want her, not even as a friend. She had thought him a dear friend.
But his expression is not one of pity, not when he looks at her. No, it is grave.
"I am to tell you something." He says, "Something I should not."
He is engaged? "Then tell me." Edwina whispers.
"Napoleon has escaped his exile on the isle of St Helena."
She had not expected that. It is an odd relief, for yes, a notorious military leader despised by half of Europe has broken the terms of his imprisonment, but it gives Edwina time.
"Escaped exile?" Edwina asks, "How does one do so and could he show me?" She tries to lighten the mood, but her smile fades because he was not joking.
He was serious. He had that faraway expression in his eyes whenever he reflected on the wars and she knows it is worse than an engagement.
"You need to go." Edwina says for him.
"Yes." He looks at her again and watches her rest her head on her knees, curled up.
"What will happen?"
Friedrich sighs longingly, in a way that makes him seem much older than a man of six and twenty, "I shall be joining the British troops to meet with von Blücher in Brunswick. I will leave in a few days." He explained.
"Are you scared?"
"No."
"A fearless lion?"
"A man who is aware of what is to come. Who is angry that…" He stops himself, quietly seething as he throws another pebble that lands harshly against the water at each skip.
Edwina gently reached her hand out to him, and he turns, looking defeated. He clasped her outstretched hand, kissing it with such reverence. This unspoken bond, two broken souls working on putting themselves back together and the world would break them apart.
"I almost wish to give you a ribbon, as a favour." Edwina whispers.
"I will happily wear a pink ribbon onto a battlefield."
"No, I would give you one of my blue ribbons. For your eyes."
He huffed a laugh, her perfectionism rearing it's head, "You are ever so particular." He remarks.
"One must be around a prince." Edwina says, "Perhaps that is a good reason for you to go. I may learn to be less particular."
She sighed, withdrawing her hand from his hold and they listen to the stream, the chirping of birds in this small creek. A perfect allegory for their little world between them that was to be torn away.
"If I were to ask you to stay, would you?" Edwina whispers and this incredibly bittersweet for Friedrich.
"No." He replied honestly, which she appreciates. She craves honesty and respect. He respects her to be truthful in his conviction to fight for his country.
She does something dangerous. Rising up on her knees, she shifts to sit in front of him. "May I try anyway?" Edwina asks, looking at him through her lashes.
"Please do." Friedrich whispers.
Her fingertips dance up and down his forearms, tracing the veins and ending at his wrist to start the random circuit all over his skin, tracing the faint goosebumps. He gracefully turns her hands, much like one would do in a dance, to run his hands over her forearms, holding her ever so gently he might not touch her at all.
"Edwina…I-"
"Must leave. You have much to prepare for and meetings." Edwina finishes for him, finally looking at him. She cannot hear those dreaded three words. The words that would seal her in a tomb of madness and grief.
Much like the strategist he is, rather than retreat, he changes tactics. He does something bold. He pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead, his lips brushing her hairline affectionately and shutting his eyes to commit her to memory.
There is a hole burning in his pocket.
Does he know that she does the same? How Edwina's heart pounds in this moment and she holds back tears, pushing them deep down and saving them for her pillow. She puts the urge to grab at his shirt and pull him close. Keep him close.
The moment is over just as it begins, and she pulls away. He is already gone, at least in her mind.
His mind that is filled with all the things a soldier should think of.
But he tucks a blue ribbon in his pocket on his voyage into hell and she sits by the window of her bedroom, a collection of newspapers that grows by the day always by her side.