Page 32 of The Lord who Captured Her Innocent Heart
Peter’s eyes glittered. He turned once more towards Tatiana and Frederick, seemingly assessing them.
“Don’t you agree? I think we’re off-bounds completely,” Ella whispered. “It seems unnecessary for us to continue on this course. It’s much better for us — for us to take our separate miseries and eventually put them to bed. Perhaps we can find our own loves, our own mistakes. Even if they are making a ridiculous error in marrying one another, we must allow it to happen.”
Peter bit down hard on his lower lip. Ella expected a bit of blood to spew and was surprised when it didn’t. She yearned to reach up, to sweep her fingers across his cheek, to draw his eyes back towards hers.
“Don’t you feel ashamed?” Ella asked now, conscious that she was the only one speaking. Perhaps she was speaking out of turn. “It’s not as though whatever relationship we would have with either of them could be so blissful. Don’t you think?”
Finally, Peter directed his eyes back towards Ella. They seemed sombre, far away.
“In fact, Ella, I dare say I still disagree with you,” he said, his words a bit hard. “It’s not as though I don’t feel a bit of shame for what we’re doing. I do. But honestly, let’s put everything on paper once more.”
He shimmied his hands together, preparing for a sort of presentation, or so it seemed. “You’re entirely too bright for your own good. Perhaps you know that.”
Ella snuck her arms across her chest. She glowered at him.
“Regardless of if you know it or not, it’s certainly true,” Peter continued. “And that sort of mindset is absolutely essential for that cousin of mine. I know he’ll grow bored of Tatiana’s glittering niceties — along with that temper of hers. Did you see the way she stormed out of the croquet game? I’ve never seen anything so childish.”
“It’s simply her way,” Ella returned.
“Well, it’s no way that Frederick will be able to keep up with. Not for long,” Peter said. Again, he snuck his teeth into his bottom lip.
Ella waited. She hadn’t any sort of response. Above them, the wind shifted across the hedge leaves. She yearned to be anywhere else, outside of this conversation. For, tied up within this conversation, she felt a hesitance in Peter — a hesitance towards her, towards Ella. Perhaps, in asking Peter to call off the operation, she’d yearned for him to see her in a different light. But it was an idiotic thing, demanding this of him. She knew better. All men were endlessly attracted to Tatiana, eager to cast Ella into the dirt.
It had been the story for years. Nothing could be different.
“So you’re saying that I belong with Frederick, and therefore, you still belong with Tatiana?” Ella asked, her voice lost somewhere in her throat.
“I suppose so,” Peter returned. “She’s artistic and wild and unruly, much like myself. I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful and reckless union. It’s the sort I’ve always dreamed of.”
Ella’s stomach squeezed tight. She blinked several times, willing herself not to cry. She couldn’t reveal any sort of emotion towards Peter, not now. She tried to hear some sort of hesitation in his voice, some sort of alert that he was trying to convince himself, just as much as he was trying to convince her.
“So, you really wish to continue with this tiring charade?” she asked, her voice dry.
“I dare say we owe it to them, just as much as we owe it to ourselves,” Peter returned.
Ella swallowed hard. She blinked towards her sister, who was in the midst of a genuine cackle, one that forced her mouth wide open, flashing her white teeth. Frederick gave her a glowing look, then reached up, sweeping a black curl around her ear. They were a perfect portrait. Would Ella ever have the sort of happiness that swirled around them? Even if it was temporary, even if they found themselves in a marriage void of love, at least they would have these memories.
Perhaps Ella wouldn’t even have them herself. She would never find a link, her eternal, forever match — or even her match for a few months of bliss. She sighed, allowing her shoulders to drape forward.
“What? You really won’t give yourself this hope?” Peter demanded, his voice growing increasingly volatile.
Ella recognised that his anger was similar to Tatiana’s. That it came in a sudden burst, without warning. Accustomed to this, she pressed her lips together, studying him. She knew better than to give into it.
“I simply don’t believe we should press forward. If you’d like to do it alone, then you have every right, I suppose,” Ella whispered.
Again, another whipping wind tore through the top of the hedges. Clouds formed above them, thick and heavy. Ella’s eyebrows stitched lower.
“I suppose this ends our partnership, then,” Peter said, his eyes darkening.
“It’s not as though our partnership was ever for an appropriate cause,” Ella returned.
“It was your idea, wasn’t it?” Peter demanded.
“No! Absolutely not,” Ella muttered.
“You’re casting all the blame in this situation upon me. I can feel it, Ella. You’re saying that I’m the only one who wanted to tear them apart? That’s absolutely ridiculous. You were heartbroken when I discovered you at the engagement party. Bemoaning your own existence. This was our strategy. Our one way out of heartbreak. And you’re telling me that you’re so willing to just tear yourself away from it? I didn’t think you were so willing to give up. I expected more from you.”
Ella sighed. Big droplets of rain sputtered across her cheek, and then also his. It looked as though they were crying. Ella felt as though she might. A rift seemed to form between them, a darkness she couldn’t quite see through. She shifted, yearning to stitch the rift together, to say something — anything — that might link them back together as partners.
