Page 154 of The Governess of My Heart
“What good would I have done to tell you about my feelings? He does not love me, you know that.”
“You disgust me; you could have married and left us alone. But all these years, you have been a part of our lives with such a thought in your heart. What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for me to die so that you could marry him?”
Lady Isabella looked at her friend in shock.
“How could you accuse me of such a thing? We have known each other since we were children. Do you think I am capable of hurting you?”
“But you have done it so artfully; every time I sat in the same room with you and Philip, I could sense the longing in your eyes, the sadness. All these years, I assumed you felt sad that you could not find the same love as ours. But now I know you wanted to steal my love from me.”
“Stop it! You have no right to say such a thing. I have never spent one moment alone with him, and, yes, I did not distance myself from you, but if you think the reason was that I wanted to see your husband, you are belittling the friendship we have shared for more than twenty years. I could not distance myself from you because of my feelings for him; I value your friendship more than anything in my life. Why don’t you understand?”
“I don’t understand because I felt the same way till now. But you chose to hide this from me. Every word I read in this diary shows how much you love him, and I am ashamed to say, maybe more than I do. You could have told me, Isabella, all these years you have suffered, and now the burden is on me. Do you think I can be peaceful after knowing this if I could ever look into my husband’s eyes without guilt? You ruined my life.”
“I have not done anything wrong. This secret was supposed to be buried in my heart till my death. You have to trust me; I have never dreamt of taking him away from you. Even if you accuse me of that, in your heart, you must know that I could never hurt you that way. Sophia, I may love him, but my friendship with you is beyond that.”
“Today, I realized that I don’t know a thing about who you are, and maybe nobody will even believe me if I say so. You have deceived all of us for so long that I will expose you. I have this to prove my point: I wish I had never known you, Isabella,not as a friend but even as an acquaintance. Today will be the last I see you; I will expose your secret to the whole world, and you will never be allowed to touch our lives again.”…
“And that was the last I saw of her; she ran out of the room and promised to reveal my secret to everyone. I sat in my room the whole night, expecting to be summoned by the Ashton family, trembling at the thought of facing Philip. Never did I know that she had bled to death the same night. I should have gone after her; it was all my fault.”
“Who found her in the morning?”
“The servants, and there was no way we could help her; she was long dead before anyone found her. All of us assumed it was an accident, but I knew it was an accident after she had fought with me. You cannot imagine the amount of guilt I had to endure after her passing.”
“But you married her husband very soon, didn’t you?” Elizabeth questioned immediately.
“Again, that stands against me, but it is not as it seems.”
“As per her accusation, you married him right after her death; how could you?”
“Please trust me, considering how close you are with his mother, I am certain she must have confided about our marriage.”
“She merely stated that you had to marry as she saw you in a compromising situation.”
“That is what she assumed, and I do not blame her. It was nothing but a moment of comfort we shared that morning in the drawing room. I could see that he was hurting so much from Sophia’s loss, and with all the feelings bottled in my heart, I could not leave without comforting him. As we spoke, he rested his head on my shoulder, and nothing else happened; that was when his mother saw us. She was furious, and a few servants heard the matter, and we had to marry.”
“It seems very tough to believe.”
“You can ask Philip. I did not want to marry him, but the situation was such, and Lady Martha agreed to safeguard his reputation.”
“At some point, you could have revealed everything to him; from the little I know of Lord Ashton, he would have understood.”
“I wanted to, trust me, I did. But when I started receiving the letters, I realized he wouldn’t believe me even if I confided in him. If Sophia did write a letter before ending her life, then I am the one who caused her death.”
“How long has this blackmail been going on?”
“A few months.”
“What do they want from you?”
“Money, to keep quiet about Isabella’s letter, and my diary is in the possession of the blackmailer.”
“Then, it must be someone from this house.”
“I do not know; when she left my room that night, she took it with her. But later, I could not find it anywhere, not even near the stairs where she was found dead. After my marriage, I also searched her chamber; still could not find it. So, the person who is threatening must have it.”
“But the letter?”
“I still cannot believe she committed suicide. I knew her; she was determined to reveal my secret to Philip and the entire household. She was not a coward like me; there is no reason she would have ended her life leaving behind a beautiful family as her children were her world.”
