The engagement ball was just as how the Earl of Abberton wanted it to be: grand and exhaustingly long.

The five-day long party was indeed interesting for Daniel, Emmeline, and their two younger sisters, Eliza and Elizabeth, twenty-one and nineteen of age, respectively, who did not take long to adapt to the Stratfords and their way of life.

Abberton House was filled with guests. Even the Poppets (yes, with Charity who would not miss the chance to celebrate the occasion for the world), who lived just a short distance away, were given rooms to stay in for the duration of the party, along with Pauline and Mrs. Baker who came from Coulway just for the occasion.

All Stratford grandchildren celebrated in their own chaotic way, with the men organizing riding parties, hunting afternoons, and, of course, gaming rooms at night.

The ladies, together with the Cavendish sisters who had not just adapted but embraced the Stratfords and their wonderful home, went on picnics, walks, and even painting sessions with Lydia.

Roxie and Freda, however, held the most successful activities. Given the liberty of setting up their own little theater in one of the drawing rooms, they showed their creative talent in storytelling, acting, and persuasion. The actors comprised servants (anyone they could spare), the guests (anyone willing), and their cousins (obliged by blood and tears), and stuffed animals (to play the animals if the real ones were a little wider than the doorway).

They divided the story of a prince's adventure in the woods in five parts, which effectively garnered everyone's attention and avid interest. By the end of the second night, everyone was talking about the story over breakfast and tea. Some guests even found some of the actor servants to ask how the story shall end, to which the said servants merely replied that they were only given their lines hours before the play and that they had no inkling of how the story shall progress. And no, they were quite certain that the prince and the talking frog were not one and the same, and that the princess he was forced to search for was not trapped in a tower sewing dresses "because that story has been told too many times to be original for our talented Roxie and Freda," as Leroy said.

Learning Daniel was once an actor, Roxie and Freda approached him and asked if he could act as one of their characters. Gracefully refusing, he offered to help them direct their succeeding plays instead and did a remarkable job in incorporating mystery that enticed more audience. So much so that Price and Gale suggested they sell tickets to control the number of guests who would all squeeze into the drawing room for a chance to see the play every night. That did not sit well with Simone, so the theater was moved to the courtyard to accommodate everyone.

Daniel understood when Simone was a little fretful over his involvement in the said play, but he laughingly assured her he was having fun with Roxie and Freda more than the hunting trips with Web and the others.

"Then will you tell me where the princess is?" she had asked, obviously trying to be nonchalant.

He had laughed and playfully pinched her nose. "No."

"Very well," she had replied, turning away from him. "I must have you know that I'm auditioning for the role."

Everyone in the party knew that Roxie and Freda were looking for someone to play the adult princess for the final day of the play.

"You are?"

"Yes."

He grinned. "I heard I'll be the one to pick the actor."

Simone gave him a stern look. "I should have you know, Your Grace, that I would not condone biases. You cannot pick me simply because I am to be your wife."

"What a relief."

The night before the final day, however, Daniel found out that his future wife was indeed a bad sport. She was a terrible actress, and he had to make the painful decision to choose Geneva Withers instead. The woman, to his utter surprise, was a natural.

"I'm quite certain he only chose her because Damon is playing the prince," said Lydia the morning of the last showing. They were in the secret western parlor where they, the Stratfords and those closest to them, escaped to whenever they needed some quiet.

Simone frowned. "But I thought Damon became the prince after Geneva was chosen."

"Well, now that you mentioned it," Lydia said, eyes narrowing with curiosity, "it's interesting."

Price threw a biscuit into his mouth and asked, "Did we invite Geneva Withers because of what Roxie and Freda allegedly did to her?"

"Which allegation are you talking about? The frog, the bunny, or the bug? And let's not forget the donkey!" Gale asked with a laugh.

Simone was about to add something when the door opened and Daniel walked in. Her smile instantly disappeared and she picked up her tea, aware that he was walking toward her. She scooted to the right where he intended to sit, clearing her throat and throwing him a sharp look when he just chuckled.

"I thought you said I should not have biases?" he asked, bending down to plant a kiss on her cheek. "I'm sorry. I had to make certain the play ends perfectly as your cousins intend it to be. And you said you needed more time to finish your wedding dress."

"And how is that going?" Price asked, laughing when Simone threw him a look. The dress was still in the same state it was in for years. Daniel said it could stay that way and he would not mind, but she wanted it to be perfect. "And maybe it already is," Lydia had said two days ago, looking at all the marks where she once sewn ribbons, laces, and other ornaments. "It shows the traces of the years you've been waiting for him."

She rolled her eyes at her brother's taunt and sighed when Daniel squeezed himself between her and the arm of the chaise.

"Does Damon know?" Lydia asked Daniel. "That Geneva is going to be the princess?"

"He should know by now," replied Daniel. "I just spotted them walking to a room to rehearse their lines." When Price, Gale, Lydia, and Simone became alert, he blinked and asked, "What?"

Lydia was the first to jump to her feet, followed by Simone who placed her tea on the table. "Where?" she asked him.

As Price and Gale walked to the door, Daniel suspiciously narrowed his eyes. "The eastern library—Where are you going?" He stood and followed the quartet out the door. He caught up with his fiancée, grabbed her hand, and asked, "Should we go for a walk?"

"You go ahead," Simone absently replied, pulling away from him to loop her arm around Lydia's. Up ahead, Price and Gale walked, head turning left and right to check the premises.

"Oh, Lord," he groaned under his breath as he followed them to the eastern library.

It still amazed him how they worked as one unit. Price and Gale stood at the end of the corridor, nonchalantly talking, elbows on the balustrade that overlooked the hall below, while Lydia and Simone continued down the corridor, Simone pulling at the ribbon on Lydia's hair, saying, "Oh, your ribbon, Lydia!" in a terrible act.

"You're all insane," Daniel said to Price and Gale before he aimlessly turned, scratching his head, unsure of what to do. Over his shoulder, he saw Lydia already pressing her ears against the library door, Simone tying the ribbon around her hair from behind. And just as he turned, he saw Harry and Web walking together, talking to Arabella Poppet.

He whirled around just in time to disappear into the corridor, leaving Price and Gale who both jumped to distract the newcomers. "What are you two doing here? Luncheon is being served downstairs," Harry was saying as Daniel rushed toward Simone and Lydia, whose eyes were wide as she listened to the conversation behind the door.

"Sisi," he whispered to Simone. "Harry and Web are here."

The two women did not seem to hear him, so he cupped Simone's cheek and forced her to face him. "Harry's here."

Finally hearing him, Lydia threw herself to the opposite wall while Daniel caught Simone just before her face landed on the floor. Looking up, he saw Harry and Web at the end of the corridor, staring at them with a frown. Gale tried to distract Harry, but the man entered the corridor with a suspicious look on his face. "You'll have to pay me for this later," he murmured to Simone before he turned to the library door and knocked. "Damon?" he called and waited, sending Harry a smile as the man approached.

Footsteps on the other side. Then the door opened. Damon's eyes jumped to his sister, then Lydia, then back to Daniel. "What is it?"

Daniel's hand tightened around Simone's in warning when she craned her neck to look over her brother's shoulder.

"Luncheon is being served downstairs," Daniel said with a smile. "You and Miss Withers may continue your rehearsal after."

"We'll be done in a while," the man said with a suspicious look at his sister.

"Go," Daniel ordered Simone and Lydia when the door firmly closed.

"What was that?" Harry asked when they met him midway.

"We were on our way down, but Daniel remembered Damon and Miss Withers are rehearsing in the library. We stopped by to remind them it's time for luncheon," Simone replied, hooking her hand around Daniel's arm. Up ahead, Lydia looped arms with Price and Gale, engaging Arabella Poppet in an innocent conversation about tonight's final play.

As they all made their way to luncheon, Daniel looked down at Simone and found her already grinning up at him. "Would you like to take a walk in the woods?"

He rolled his eyes. "Why?"

She slowed down and urged him to do the same. As the distance between them and the rest of the group widened, she leaned closer and whispered, "Damon and Geneva Withers were talking about a house just on the other side of the woods and it sounded a bit mysterious—"

"No."

"But—"

"Sisi," he sternly said, eyes narrowed.

She let out a dramatic sigh. "Oh, well."

He frowned. "Does that mean you will not go, or you will go without me?"

She laughed. "We can go there some other time," she said, laughing once more when he stopped and gave her a wry look. "I'm jesting, Your Grace. Lydia and I are planning to go next week."

He could not help but snort and chuckle. Taking her hand, he squeezed and leaned down to plant a kiss on her head. "You're getting married next week."

"Ah, all the more exciting."

***

Roxie and Freda's play ended in splendid success and surprise. Not only did Geneva Withers make everyone drop their mouths in awe of her beauty—dressed in white with a flower crown around her head—she also made them cry. As a princess lost in the woods for years, who had been longing for someone to find her and rescue her from the endless circle the witch cursed her in, Geneva played the part perfectly and delivered her lines so effectively that even Damon, the unwilling prince who finally found her, was left speechless for a few breathless seconds.

The earl could never be so proud of his two youngest grandchildren, being the first to stand and cheer when finally, the prince pulled the princess atop his horse (Damon's real horse by the name of Maple) and rode off into the night. Everyone who had been part of the five-day play was close to tears when Roxie and Freda walked up the stage built for their show and bowed.

"This will not be their last," Price said matter-of-factly as he looked at their youngest cousins with a pained look on his face. And he was right. The earl soon announced that his two little angels were working on another play for the Abberton Christmas Ball.

"I won't be home for Christmas," Gale said with dread. "I will not even be in Sutherland for the occasion."

"But they'll need another tree for their next play, Gale," said Lydia, laughing. "You were an effective pine tree three days ago, remember? You'll be just as excellent with a star on top of your head!"

"At the very least, he would be a finished Christmas tree," a voice said behind Lydia.

Simone and the others turned to find Quincy Foy and his grandfather standing behind them. With black hair and olive green eyes, the man looked a bit striking in Simone's eyes. But there was just something about him, and the way his mouth curled in a condescending kind of way that made him so reasonably unlikable, like his grandfather. Again, she wondered how he was even friends with her brother and cousin and why, if they seemed to be so much alike in many ways, did he and the viscount seem to despise each other?

The viscount looked at Lydia and like his grandson, whom he hated in most occasion except on rare moments like this one where he agreed (apparently) with the young man, he narrowed his eyes at Lydia and said, "How long will you get to the part where you actually paint my face, young lady?"

Lydia allowed a very fake smile toward Quincy Foy and then a slightly genuine one at the older man, saying, "When I figure out how your brows work, my lord."

Price laughed and slapped Quincy on the shoulder in greeting, saying, "You're late."

"Someone was a little slow tonight," Quincy said, motioning toward his grandfather.

The viscount grumbled under his breath and turned away, shouting for everyone else to step aside, then adding, in an oddly sweet voice, "Ah, there you are, my dear Roxie and Freda! Great show! Great show!"

Simone turned to look at Daniel. "Did he just ignore you?"

"He once ignored the king, Sisi," said Gale with a laugh.

Daniel just smiled and shrugged. He could not care more about what others thought about his birthright.

"He is simply arrogant," Quincy said, already turning away to join Price and Gale inside the manor.

"Takes one to know one, I assume," Lydia retorted, also turning away with a tight smile to rush after Pauline and Emmeline, who were in one corner with the Poppets, helping Leroy out of his tree costume.

Daniel took Simone's hand in his and guided her out of the courtyard. They walked at an easy pace, taking the opposite direction from the ballroom where music was already playing to welcome back the guests.

"Finally, the last day," she said with a sigh.

He smiled, squeezing her hand. "Another day closer to the wedding."

They did not have to talk to know where they were headed. They simply found their way to the woods, stepping over traps (most of them exposed after guests fell into them), his hand firm around her arm in case she tripped.

"I have something for you," he said, fishing something out of his coat pocket. He stopped and faced her with a shy smile as he opened his hand. "Please forgive me. I stole this from you."

She frowned down at it, taking a moment to recognize what it was under the moonlight. And when she finally did realize what it was, her head snapped up to him, eyes wide. "No, you didn't."

"I did," he said with a chuckle.

"But was it not pe—"

"Pearl, yes," he said, pinning the silver into her hair. "I think emerald suits you best." He leaned back to study his work. A meadow resting on sunlight, he thought with a silly smile. "I'm glad I kept it."

"After you stole it!" she said in disbelief.

His shoulders shook with laughter. "Yes," he replied, stealing a kiss.

He took her hand, and they continued walking. "Someday, our children should consider this piece a treasure," she said. "It's the one thing from me they'll keep in their treasure chest."

He laughed. "And of me?"

"They can keep my letters," she said, chin high in confidence. "I'm quite certain you kept them."

Another round of laughter rumbled in his chest and he swooped down to steal another kiss from her mouth. "I love you, Simone Priest," he whispered, smiling lips brushing against hers.

"I'm quite certain about that, too," she said, kissing him. "I love you, too, Daniel Cavendish."

He straightened, realizing she was leading him to the same cabin where the Stratfords kept their treasures. When they entered it moments later, the laughter in her eyes slowly clouded with sadness.

Turning to him, Simone asked, "Will you help me?" He nodded, his throat tight seeing the sorrow in her eyes. Perhaps this place, this one little cabin, would always be the loneliest place in the woods for the Stratfords. They could build traps and have fun adventures all over, but this spot here would always have a heavy mist of grief around it.

They hauled the chest out of its hiding place and he stepped back when she sat on the floor in her light blue dress, and revealed their painful treasures. Pulling out a pillowcase and a bottle of perfume, she motioned for him to join her. He hesitated, but then he also wanted to share this moment with her. "Scents tell us many things, don't you think?" she asked as he settled beside her.

He smiled at her gently, awed that he was discovering more sides of her. Tonight, it was her weakness. Her sorrow. "Like the rain?" he quietly asked.

She nodded, a tear dropping free from her eyes. She lifted the pillowcase to her nose with a pained smile. "He smelled like this. Always," she murmured, sniffling as she lifted her face with a smile. "And she sprayed this on the day she left," she added, turning the bottle in her hand. She looked up at him, her smile fading, melting into tight regret and sadness. "There are portraits of them. I'm quite sure you know their faces," she said. "But these items are the closest you can get to actually knowing what it would have been like to be in their presence."

Daniel's heart felt like it was being crushed, for he understood the grief and pain and longing. He suffered the same, still suffering the same over the loss of his own parents. He reached out to wipe her cheeks and leaned down to kiss both. "I'm glad to meet them through you. I'm certain you have so much of them in you," he whispered. He did not have to pick them up and sniff, because the scent from the pillowcase and the perfume bottle enclosed them. Musk and lavender. As he wrapped his arms around Simone, he ached for her even more. Someday, their scent would fade and there would be nothing to hold on to.

"They would have loved you," Simone murmured in his chest. "They would have been very proud of you."

"Sisi," he said, voice cracking as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, their shared grief a comfort on its own. He wanted to say many things at once. He wanted to tell her he wanted her pain as much as he wanted everything else. She could show her grief and he would do the same. But words seemed lacking at that moment. None could be more powerful than the memories of the past and the sorrow of the moment.

Presence. That's all he could offer for now.

And so they stayed like so for quite some time, crying and telling tales, laughing and smelling scents. Through the grief, they repeated the process. They cried, they talked, then laughed and sniffed. And they would do it all over again because as much as there was pain here, there was also overwhelming love.

Very much later, they walked back to the manor, hand in hand.

"Once we marry, we should return to Coulway. I wish to meet Mrs. Craig."

"She may like you more than she likes me," he said, chuckling.

A peaceful quiet fell between them. Their week had been exhausting, and this night had been especially emotionally draining. Perhaps he should get used to it. With the Stratfords, something was always happening. Ideas were always running around before one began.

"Let's live in the woods," she said suddenly, tone excited, eyes puffy from tears.

"Let's build a theater," he added with a grin.

"And a dress shop," she replied.

"Or a bazaar," he said. "You can make clothes for men, too. And, of course, children."

"Or a school! Let's build a school!" she said with a laugh.

Daniel squeezed her hand and laughed because it all seemed silly. But then, with Simone Priest, silly was reality wrapped in fun undertakings.

He paused and tucked her locks behind her ear and smiled at the white feather earrings she was wearing. "Tell me more," he said with a smile. "What else do you want?"

Her cheeks puffed as her smile stretched. "How about more reinvented dreams?"

His eyes watered as he saw endless rays of sunshine in her eyes. "Reinvented dreams," he smiled as he bent down to plant his lips on hers. "Well, why not?"

-end-