Page 14 of The Lord who Captured Her Innocent Heart
“All right,” she said, shrugging her little shoulders. “I suppose I’d like to hear your proposition.”
Peter again checked to ensure he wasn’t overheard. He took a slight step forward once more, leaning a bit forward. “At the moment, you’re in love with Frederick, and I’m in love with your dear sister, Tatiana. But we both know their personalities perhaps better than they, themselves, know. Therefore, we have to convince both of them that they’re making a horrendous mistake. That they’re going to be miserable for the remainder of their lives if they actually go through with this marriage.”
Ella began to nod. She brought her knees up in her gown, wrapping her arms around them, cinching the fabric tight. “Make them realise what is so clear to us.”
“Precisely,” Peter said. “If we’re being fully honest here – which, I think, we’ve come too far not to – imagining Tatiana and Frederick alone in a big mansion, both of them hankering for very different ways of living, it’s almost poisonous.”
“She would annoy him endlessly,” Ella murmured. “She talks all the time while I’m trying to read alone. Of course, I don’t care. She’s my sister. And I love her…”
Ella scrambled to cover up her true feelings, blinking wildly.
“I understand. And can you imagine how bored Tatiana will be, every single day of her life? She’ll struggle with Frederick, yearning for him to go to one ball or party or another, and he’ll refuse time and time again. He’ll tell her he has too many books to read, or – or whatever it is you get up to.”
“There’s so much to learn!” Ella said, almost erupting with it. “I can’t imagine why you’d will yourself out to yet another ball when a book is akin to travelling to a million faraway lands. It’s akin to having a billion conversations. When you go to one of these balls, it’s like going to the one you went to last time, or the one you’re going to go to the following week. The only thing that changes is you. You grow older, sadder. And there’s nothing that the ball offers you except understanding of the passage of time.”
“You really are a great deal of fun, aren’t you?” Peter chuckled.
Ella rolled her eyes. She hopped up and said, “I know you’re picking fun right now, and that’s all right. It is. It’s not as though I’m in this to spend any more time with you than is necessary.”
“Does that mean we have a partnership?” Peter asked.
In the distance, someone had apparently cracked a splendid joke. Several members of the party laughed wildly, and their laughter beamed over their heads, becoming like a kind of glow over everything. He yearned to bat it away, to fall back into silence. How wretched it was, the humour and life of another. That happiness was meant to be his.
“What will we do?” Ella murmured, seemingly caught in a similar thought.
“We will cultivate a plan that will ensure they see what we see,” Peter continued. “Bit by bit, you will remind Tatiana of the sort of woman she is. And I will remind Frederick of who he is. And at the end of it all, they will look at one another and realise that the sort of life they bring to one another isn’t what they’ve longed for. Not in the slightest.”
Ella held onto Peter’s eyes for a long moment before moving towards him, her hand outstretched. They latched hands and shook, deciding upon this union, deciding that it was their last chance. In this handshake, Peter tried to uphold his vision for his life: that Tatiana would be his wife. That he wouldn’t allow her to fall into this menial, child-like trap of marriage with a man that could never be good enough for her.
“Good luck, Peter,” Ella murmured, her eyes sparkling.
“And good luck to you, Ella,” Peter returned.
Their hands fell back to their sides. In the distance, another swell of laughter rose, seemingly like the wind, like the weather. No one was safe, now that Peter and Ella had decided upon altering the course of this marriage forever. Peter simmered with excitement, knowing the world was about to shift.
Chapter 7
It wasn’t the sort of night she’d imagined it to be.
Ella arrived back at the party in time for the final toasts, the final goodbyes. She watched as her sister wrapped her fluid arms around partygoers, around friends and family they’d known for years, dotting little kisses upon their cheeks and crying, “So lovely of you to come to help us celebrate!” Between each kiss, Tatiana cast her eyes back towards Frederick, like a drowning woman looking for shore. It tugged at Ella’s stomach, watching this. Knowing that Tatiana sought such strength in Frederick, yet knowing that Frederick couldn’t be the sort to give it back.
For, at his core, Frederick could never comprehend Tatiana, and Tatiana could never comprehend Frederick. This was truth. Peter was correct.
As they turned back to the house, Ella and Peter exchanged glances once more. Peter bowed his head, again enunciating their union. Ella cast her eyes away immediately, anxious. She couldn’t allow anyone to see their newfound relationship. In past years, Ella had thought very little of Peter, Frederick’s cousin, and now considered him even less of a fruitful, beautiful person. True, he was a genius, finding a path for them to both achieve their dreams.
But it wasn’t as though she agreed with his inner heart. Could she genuinely allow Tatiana to marry the likes of him? She wasn’t entirely sure.
Still, she watched as he bid both Tatiana and Frederick goodbye, with the purest sounding laugh and a jocular, “Cannot wait till the real festivities begin, lovely cousin!”
What a laughable thing, this. Could she really live her life on-par with this man who so easily lied in the face of Frederick and Tatiana? She watched Peter’s eyes as they lingered upon Tatiana’s for a long moment, seemingly demanding something from her.
“Goodbye, Tatiana. Absolutely wonderful to see you again,” Peter said.
“And you, Pete,” Tatiana returned. The comment was all-but throwaway, the sort of thing Tatiana said to anyone. This was apparent to Ella’s ears, but she wondered if Peter had added his own nuance to the way she’d said it – the way Ella, herself, had added various context to her and Frederick’s relationship.
The world spun on with various perspectives. Ella felt she was caught in one of her novels, analysing everything from far above. The only difficult part, of course, was that in this case: she was one of the players. And she currently wasn’t entirely sure if she felt that her character had any sort of power, in this dynamic. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was the main character in her own life.
Ella didn’t wait for the remaining goodbyes. She hobbled towards the staircase, shuffling up the steps and rushing towards the landing, where she ultimately thrust herself into her bedroom, slammed the door closed behind her, and then huddled near the window. Perhaps it was masochism, keeping her there. She watched as the remaining people left, all of them kissing and hugging Tatiana and Frederick goodbye.
