Five Sentence Fiction: Candy

They say no good ever comes from eavesdropping, “Major Ingleby is quite fond of her…and Lord Farrell has made his partiality known…” but from behind the door Amelia Lockwood could bear the talk no more and charged, in a most unladylike way, into the drawing room.
“I will not be spoken of as if I am sweetmeats to be offered on a silver tray, like sugared mice at Christmas-time…” she paused trying to keep her fury neatly restrained beneath her tightly bound corset and skirts, her bosom heaved and fell within the confines of her bodice and she stepped towards the window overlooking the vast estate’s immaculate gardens.
“Both would be acceptable matches…” her mother began calmly patting her perfectly coiffured, icing sugar hair and raising one eyebrow at her wayward daughter.
Amelia placed her unsteady hand against the cold glass pane and stared across the manicured lawns; in an unusually wild stretch of bedding stood the gardener leaning on his spade and returning her gaze, she took in his unruly mop of hair and unbuttoned shirt and smiled. “The Major…and the Lord for that matter, have nothing on the raw, unrefined sweetness of nature…”

Photo by Lisa Shambrook