Love & Misunderstanding

Chapter Thirteen - Jonathan's POV

The Seymour family's estate was quite similar in size to my family's, although there were a couple differences. One of them being that theirs was much less extravagant, and the other was that they had less land than we did. Despite this, the manor was still impressive. Not too elaborate, but still enough to signify that they were among the class of nobility. My family had been friends with them for as long as I could remember. They had a son who was around the same age as me named Edward, but I did not know him very well, aside from the rumours that he was a clumsy dancer. However, that did not bother me.

What did bother me was the thought of my friend's arrival. After the encounter that he had with Miss Hoffman last week, he had not been able to stop complaining about her, and it had not started with that. He had been complaining about her nonstop for the past month. It was starting to drive me insane, and I was sure that seeing her with the mysterious Mr. Johnson tonight would only add to his complaints.

"You look happy," Vincent noted, stepping directly in front of me.

"I am dreading the moment that Matthew walks through the door," I replied.

"I thought you enjoyed his company," he commented.

Yes, there were times when I could tolerate being around him, but there were also times when I felt like strangling him. If he had anything to complain about at all, you could not get him to be quiet even if your life depended on it. He was a bit like my mother in that aspect, excluding the whole perfectionist issue. That was one flaw that Matthew did not possess. He knew that he was not perfect, even though he sometimes tried to appear perfect in his father's eyes.

"It depends greatly on the situation," I told him.

Just then, the Caldwell's made their entrance, and just as I had feared, the moment that Matthew saw me, he left his parents side and began to make his way through the crowd toward me. I was tempted to take Miss Hoffman's example and pull the vanishing trick on him, but at the same time I did not feel like spending my entire evening running about and hiding in various locations. Although, it apparently was not very hard to hide from him. According to what Miss Hoffman had told me, she had once hid behind a curtain two feet in front of him without being discovered.

"Try to resist the urge to strangle him," my brother said, patting me on the shoulder before vanishing back into the crowd.

"Can you believe how Miss Hoffman is acting?" Matthew fumed.

"What has she done now?" I asked.

"Flinging herself at a man she has only known for a few days. She is clearly trying to make me miserable."

I gave a frustrated sigh. "You were staring at her. She probably just wanted to get away from you."

He glared at me, but I just ignored him. At this point I did not care whether I hurt him with my words. He needed to wake up and face reality. This was his own fault. He had been too ignorant to realize that she was not interested in him, and now he wrongly believed that she was flinging herself at different men to make him jealous. He claimed that he was not, but nothing could have been further from the truth, for he had become the green-eyed-monster himself. He even got jealous of Mr. Wilcox!

"Perhaps he would be a good match for her. They are both undoubtedly rude. Did you not see how he refused your father's handshake?"

"I certainly did; however, I also saw the look on his face. He was frightened by something."

"Lots of people are afraid of your father. It seems to run in the family."

"Why does everyone enjoy insulting me?" I asked, sounding slightly offended.