Page 38 of The Lord who Captured Her Innocent Heart
Tiffany leered at her now, recognising the plot Ella seemed to stir within. “I see,” she uttered.
“What do you see?” Ella demanded.
“You think he carried on writing you. Don’t you?” Tiffany said.
Ella’s heart felt squeezed. “It’s not that,” she whispered, suddenly feeling as though someone had smashed a mallet into her stomach.
“Well, if it is, I do hope you’ll fight these feelings, Lady Ella,” Tiffany said, suddenly sounding bored. “It’s nothing to me if he wrote you or didn’t write you, of course. Only that I haven’t a single letter arriving for you, not in quite some time. I dare say it would be grounds to be fired, for keeping a letter from you. And I would never put myself into such a position. Do you understand?”
Ella felt as though she was sinking. Tiffany smirked once more before drawing her hand across the door of the cupboard and pressing hard until it gave way. The cupboard gave in to them both, sending them back onto the hardwood in the foyer. Ella forced herself to inhale, realising she’d been holding her breath.
“Ella?”
Her name sizzled across the foyer, thrusting itself into her ear. Ella froze, hearing her mother’s quick footsteps escalate behind her. Tiffany gave her a knowing look and then skirted around, hurrying towards the kitchen. Her hands danced along her sides, as though she was celebrating the fact that she didn’t have to linger in the moment for a second more. Ella craved her life, suddenly: a life without obligation to class. Of course, she knew this was inconsiderate, in and of itself.
She bit her tongue, feeling her mother approaching faster, like a wave. “Ella Chesterton!”
Finally, Ella tipped her weight, turning slowly to face her mother. Her mother’s face beamed back anger mixed with confusion. Grey hairs spilled from behind her ears.
“What on earth are you doing?” she demanded. “Hiding there in the closet, with the likes of a maid?”
Ella hadn’t a clue what to say next. It was admittedly very strange, finding one’s child latched in a cupboard. Just behind her mother, a selection of other maids streamed into the foyer, all of them holding bouquets of flowers for tomorrow’s garden party.
“It was regarding something for the wedding, Mother,” Ella said, her words harried.
“For the wedding?” her mother chimed back. The furrow between her brows grew still deeper. “For the wedding, you say? Why, I must tell you, I’ve spent the majority of the previous month thinking and dreaming and speaking only of this wedding, and I haven’t spent a single of those moments latched in a cupboard.”
Ella slipped her shoulders towards her ear. Her thoughts raced. Wasn’t she meant to be the clever one? The one who could easily sweep she and Tatiana out of any unfortunate incident with a few well-placed words?
“Mother, it’s regarding a present I have for Tatiana, directly from me,” Ella said, her heart hammering. “It has nothing to do with you. And it is really better if it’s all kept a secret.”
The maids swept past, clinging to the bouquets. One of them — the youngest of the crew, and the shortest and stoutest, allowed a few of her blossoms to flutter to the ground. Immediately, Ella’s mother sprang into action, drawing the little pink droplets of flowers from the ground and holding them aloft. Her screech could have woken the dead.
“Do you really think it appropriate to march about here, flinging flowers on the ground? Do you really think we’ll be the talk of London, said to have had the most beautiful wedding of the year — with that sort of carelessness?”
Ella took this opportunity to dash. She rushed around her mother, surging towards the front door, her head down. She didn’t stop her run until she flailed back towards the rose garden, hunkered against the red brick wall, in precisely the same position Peter had stood. She turned her eyes back towards the house, marvelling at the anger in her own mother — the anger that surged only when she sensed the world was on the brink of speaking about her, judging her. How she wished she could give her mother something else to think about.
But for now, she was grateful to have escaped what was sure to have been a rather strange conversation. She allowed her shoulders to drape forward, swimming in fear. And then, as she pressed forward, she was reminded all over again of the truth.
That Peter Holloway hadn’t given her a single thought over the previous few weeks. That no letters had arrived for her, not since their intense conversation. They would begin their trajectory as two very different humans, pushing forward towards a separate reality.
It was simply the way of the future.
Chapter 18
The morning of the very final garden party prior to the grand affair of Frederick and Tatiana’s wedding (gosh, how quickly the time flew!), Peter didn’t have to awaken: rather, he’d spent the majority of the night drawn over the top of a sheet of paper, attempting and failing, attempting and failing to write a letter to none other than the bride’s sister —
Lady Ella Chesterton.
How was anyone meant to translate the innermost desires of his heart? And certainly, in words on the page. How could they ever be enough?
He tore up the third attempt, tossing the sheets into the waste basin. He tapped his quill several times into the ink, accruing far too much black. It streamed from his quill, falling to the table below. He burst up from the chair, toppling the chair out behind him, huffing. A glance out the window told him everything he needed to know:
It was dawn, yet again, and he’d had yet to craft anything worthy for Ella.
The first attempt remained lying in the corner of the desk, still, perhaps, the closest in relation to his pure beating heart. He scanned it again, his movements a bit manic.
“Dearest Ella,
