Page 39 of The Lord who Captured Her Innocent Heart
I’m writing to you from the depths of the night, thinking only of the conversation we had days before, in the rose garden. I know you must find this rather silly, so apt you are to uphold only logic and intellect. But I tell you, this is the purest thing I’ve felt in my entire life. And therefore, I’m putting pen to paper to explain to you just how I feel.”
God, even now it seemed abysmal, stupid. He thrust the paper towards the window, half-imagining himself throwing it into the open air and watching it waft down below. But no — of course, the thought now led to someone finding it, someone doing something wretched with it, like taking it directly to Ella and telling him what was on his mind.
London was a ravenous place, a place filled with gossip and people willing to trade that gossip for their own personal gain. He couldn’t possibly allow HIS gossip to be someone else’s gain.
Peter scrubbed his hair and fled towards the door of his bedroom, pulling it open and darting to the staircase. Sweat bolted down the back of his neck. Downstairs, he heard his father’s normal authoritative walk, to and fro, to and fro, in the study. It seemed that Peter’s father hadn’t proper sleeping patterns, either. Peter would almost give anything for his father’s problems, as he suspected they didn’t involve love, or any elements of the heart. He’d been happily married to his mother for the previous 30 years, perhaps more.
Peter sauntered towards the stable as the sun crept higher along the horizon, casting oranges and pinks across the fields. The Braxton estate was a mere few miles down the road, and Peter knew the ride like the back of his hand. In actuality, he felt he could have raced there with his eyes closed. But after latching the saddle to his horse, he kept his eyes wide open as he galloped down, down, down, towards the enormous mansion, his tongue heavy with things unsaid, things he shouldn’t possibly say.
Frederick being Frederick, he very rarely had a difficult time sleeping. After one of the maids allowed Peter entrance, despite the earliness of the hour, Peter bolted into Frederick’s bedroom, surprising Frederick awake. He looked all blustery, bolting up from bed, his curls falling askew. He gazed at Peter, without recognising him, for several seconds.
Finally, he said, “Oh, my goodness, Peter. I thought I was having some sort of nightmare.”
“Really?” Peter asked, his voice bright. He was very much aware that he, himself, was having some sort of internal panic. Why was he acting so strangely? Was he having a panic attack? “You thought I was a part of your nightmare? Am I really so horrendous looking? Do you look at me and imagine the darkest depths of your own soul? Is that how it is these days?”
Frederick looked strange, like a child put on the spot. He swept his hands across his stomach. Peter pressed his lips together, trying to calm his racing thoughts. He recognised he was acting a complete imbecile. He just wasn’t entirely sure how to stop.
“Peter? Are you — are you entirely all right?” Frederick asked, stuttering. He backed towards the far end of the room, his shoulders slumping. “Peter, if you need to sit down. I can have a pot of coffee prepared for us. We can talk this out. Whatever it is.”
Peter rolled his eyes back. He strutted towards the end of the bed and fell back. He couldn’t imagine a reality in which he and Frederick could truly see eye to eye, despite loving one another more than they both could verbalise.
“Can you tell me something, Frederick?” Peter asked, sniffing. He drew his finger along the base of his nose. “Can you tell me what you think of Ella Chesterton?”
The blood drained out of Frederick’s face. He scrubbed his left ear, turning his eyes left, right. Left, right.
“What is this about, Peter?”
“Just answer the question, Frederick,” Peter demanded.
Frederick stuttered again. Frankly, the stuttering was growing annoying, like a bug in Peter’s ear. Frederick cast against the wall, turning his eyes towards the window. The sun was a full inch — for perspective’s sake — above the horizon, now, burning into the summer morning.
“I suppose I always assumed I would fall in love with her,” Frederick said then, his voice soft, wispy.
Peter’s ears nearly ripped up with adrenaline. He turned his head swiftly, gazing at Frederick, aghast. So, perhaps Ella had been correct in her assumption? Perhaps nothing was ever one-dimensional, after all?
“In fact, all those hours we spent together, I felt sure I would eventually fall in love with her.” Frederick sighed. “I felt that our brains ticked along on the same tempo. I felt that perhaps we thought similar things about the world. But in essence, we were simply too alike. There was nothing I could show her that she didn’t already know, and vice versa. Perhaps, if I had chosen to be in love with her, it would have been just that — a choice. And everyone knows that love can never truly be a choice. It’s more of a — a feeling. It’s never something you handpick for yourself. At least, not in my case.”
“And in your case, love for Tatiana just–”
“It was as natural as a river,” Frederick whispered back. He ruffled the top of his hair. “One day, I just looked at her, and I could see our entire future together. I understood it within my soul. It’s not as though we ever needed to speak of it, either. It was just written out for us.”
“And it was never like that with Ella?” Peter murmured.
“No. It simply wasn’t.” Frederick sighed. “Even though, intellectually, I think I wanted that. Isn’t that funny? The heart always just tells you what you want.”
Peter pondered this for a long time. He could hardly believe that Frederick had had a similar thought process as he had, although his had involved Tatiana, instead. On paper, relationships seemed so sure, so clean. But in the real world? They were messy, strange, the stuff of nightmares and heartache and also beauty. Peter longed to craft something similar.
He longed to do it with Ella. But he couldn’t imagine how.
Again, Frederick peered at him, his eyes searching. “Why is it you ask me this, Peter?”
“It isn’t drawing up old wounds, is it?” Peter asked, genuinely frightened, now, that perhaps this would allow Frederick a moment to glimpse back at his old emotions, question them once more. He didn’t want to push the future groom from the edge. He sensed that, on the brink of making an enormous decision, one was continually apt to change one’s mind.
“No. There aren’t any wounds regarding Ella. Only hope for her, truly,” Frederick offered. “I want her to have the same happiness of everyone I love, or have loved. I want her to find someone who sees her for who she is, in the truest sense.”
Peter fell back upon the mattress. It shook beneath him. He gaped at the ceiling, suddenly falling into the reality that perhaps stumbling into Frederick’s bedroom in the wee hours of the morning was a bit worrisome behaviour. He couldn’t take it back now.
“You’re attending the garden party this afternoon. Aren’t you?” Frederick asked now. HIs voice scratched but seeming to be returning to normalcy.
