The Girl with the Fire Heart
Chapter 29

The fireworks end and the crowd cheers. They applaud before making their way back into the house and heading to the front door. Valentina and Damon are the last to leave, their carriage being the final one to pull in front of the stairs.

Before climbing into the carriage, Valentina turns to look back at the house, seeing Elliot and Ava standing at the top of the stairs looking down the long steps. Valentina wants to say something, but decides against it, shaking her head and allowing the two chaperones and Damon to help her into the carriage.

When they arrive at the country home, Valentina wastes no time taking her heels off and walking barefoot to the front of the house and up the few steps to the front door. Mr. Brown lets them in, noting Valentina carrying her shoes and Damon holding up the train of her dress before slowly letting it go once inside the house. The two make quick work of getting up the stairs and walking to their respective wings of the house.

Damon undresses, bathes, and changes into his sleeping clothes for the night quickly, not wanting to spend any more time in his suit than he has to. He climbs into the bed and slips under the covers, resting his head on his pillows before taking a deep breath, feeling his body relax into the mattress. He feels the familiar tinge in his back from having been on his feet for most of the evening.

He allows his eyes to shut, counting slowly to ten before his mind takes him back to the moment by the fountain. He retraces the lines of Valentina's face from his memory, remembering the way her eyes had been so vivid, so expressive as he told the story of the elements of old. He thinks back to the first time he had heard the story, how he had looked down at his own necklace and felt the weight of centuries of other people just like him who had been chosen to carry the weight of the water now residing in him. No one knew why certain people were chosen.

The person before him had died long before he was born and it was believed the water element would never resurface. The same had been true for the fire element as well. Damon feels the same childish excitement rising up in him at the possibility of there being an earth element and an air element somewhere in the world but before he lets himself get carried away, he shifts his thoughts to Elliot.

No one knows of the man’s history with Valentina that much is evident from his conversation with Ava. But Damon can't shake the feeling that Elliot hasn't quite given up his efforts for Valentina's hand. While it is unusual, even uncommon for someone of their statuses to take mistresses, it isn't impossible.

Having someone like Valentina as a mistress would not only boost Elliot's position, but it would certainly boost his ego. A weird kind of fear grows inside of Damon's chest. He wants so desperately to marry Valentina that he doesn't realize for a moment that what he is feeling is just that, fear. He now has something to lose and he would rather die before he lost her to someone else, especially if that someone is Elliot. Damon drifts off to sleep with that thought ringing in his head.

Valentina hates nighttime routines but there is something about this one that has her submitting to the maids ordering her about. She is stripped of her dress, the jewelry taken away from her, and her shoes and gloves stored in safe places. She goes into the bathroom to bathe and when she finishes, she is ushered to the vanity for one of the older maids to lather her skin with various fragrances and oils and lotions.

By the time Valentina climbs into bed, the maids leaving in a single file line, she can barely keep her eyes open. Before she drifts off to sleep, however, she feels a sudden coldness wash over her at the reminder of Elliot's declarations. She knows he told her that she was the only thing he wanted, but something in her knows this conversation tonight will not be the end of it. If she's learned anything about him, it is that things always end on his terms.

It isn't long before the shades are being drawn open and the sun goes from a dream to reality, shining brightly in the direction of Valentina's bed. She scrunches her face up, not wanting to be awake at some ungodly hour and mumbling to what she assumes is the chorus of maids in her room that she needs a few more minutes of sleep.

Instead of letting her be, the covers are pulled away from her body and before she knows it, she is standing and moving towards the bathroom with her eyes shut. Half an hour later, two knocks sound against her door and she goes to open it, stumbling slightly in her tan kitten heels. Standing on the other side is Mr. Brown, wearing a formal suit that is a few shades lighter than the previous night’s black suit. Valentina wonders, for a brief moment, if black suits are all the man owns.

Mr. Brown smiles down at the shepherd’s daughter, the first smile he graces her with since her arrival.

“Breakfast is ready in the sunroom, Miss Valentina,” he tells her.

“Thank you, Mr. Brown,” she smiles brightly back. She feels a slight headache pressing into the space between her eyebrows at the lack of caffeine since starting her morning. Mr. Brown stretches his arm out for her to take and together they walk out of the north wing and into the main house, turning away from the main foyer down a small hallway that leads them to a brightly lit room, rightly named the sunroom.