Re: The Companion/The Regret-me-not
Charlotte knew girls of both dispositions, the quiet and the silly. The quiet endured. That was their allotment in life, when society expected women to be demure creatures who served with civility, or sparkling diamonds filled with wit and good humor and both expected to produce issue without objection. She was neither. Fortitude surrounded her like a cloak she had left in her room, stubbornness was her character and her fault. The flush faded. He bore no embarrassment and neither would she, Charlotte decided.
"It is my first," she said, unabashedly. It was. It was also not hers, but that point seemed largely irrelevant to a shirtless man in the snow. "And my only, probably. I felt it was better out here than in there. But you're cold." And he looked happy enough to continue being so to extend their conversation. She took another inhale and this time, it choked her less. It was vile, but it was what people did. It was freedom, desultory and limited.
She considered his statement. "Some more naked than others." Which was the way of society.