Page 40 of The Lord who Captured Her Innocent Heart
Perhaps this was the sort of event they wouldn’t speak of, later on. Frederick wasn’t the sort to insist on dwelling on the past.
“Yes, Frederick. Yes. I suppose I’ll see you there.”
“You know,” Frederick began, “it’s not as though forcing you together with Ella is my prerogative. There will be countless other women there. Women who would absolutely adore you. Who would treat you like the king himself, given the chance.”
“I dare say I don’t wish to be treated like the king.” Peter sighed. He felt suddenly as though he was forty-seven years old, unsure about the remaining days of his life. With slow, methodical movements, he drew himself up from the bed and took heavy steps towards the door. The birds chirped outside the window, demanding that they do something. Namely: begin the day.
Peter didn’t bother to say another word. He hadn’t the courage, nor the strength for it. He tapped down the steps and returned to the stable, where he stood, feeling no longer a part of his body, his nose pressed against the long, soft bridge of his horse’s nose for a full minute. He felt the horse’s inhales, and he matched them, trying to fall into a sort of meditation.
When Peter arrived back at his father’s estate, he was surprised to find the old man — Lord Holloway himself — sitting upon the front stretch of the house, sipping a mug of warm coffee. He gazed at his son with hollow eyes. It had been ages since Peter and his father had had a single conversation, as, it seemed, Peter had spent the majority of the previous few weeks latched in his room, daydreaming, or else seated at the pianoforte, stumbling through countless masterpieces, wondering who on earth he was practicing for.
Certainly, it wasn’t like those previous summers, when he’d been practicing for Tatiana. He’d craved rushing to her house, his fingers sizzling, anxious to spread out across the keys and tantalise her with his ridiculous poetics.
Now, in the back of those memories, he could almost feel Ella like a shadow. Perhaps she’d marched past the parlour, her own head swimming with new information, with the Greek alphabet. Perhaps she’d scoffed at his idiocy, muttering it to Frederick himself, asking just how people could waste their lives in such a manner!
“Peter,” his father said, his voice rumbling, seemingly coming out of a black hole where his soul was meant to be. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Peter gaped at him. He felt, for the first time in years, that his father was a stranger.
“Hello, Father,” he returned. He wondered if his own voice sounded strange to his father, as foreign as it did in his own ears.
“Peter, I wanted to speak with you about something. Won’t you sit with me?”
Peter ambled forward and dropped himself on the chair beside him. He cast his eyes towards the road, where his father had seemed to be staring. Nothing echoed back. It was just the empty road that led to Central London, the one he’d travelled countless times.
“Peter, you’re very much a man now,” his father said.
“I didn’t suppose you were counting the years till my death,” Peter offered, thinking himself funny. His father didn’t laugh.
“Rather, I was thinking that it may come time for you to begin taking up your portion of the business,” his father continued. “I dare say your mother has told me what you’ve been up to these last few weeks. It seems you’ve taken up residence in the back rooms of your mind, without a care for the rest of us. You know you need to find your worth in this world. Especially if you aren’t going to bother finding a wife.”
Peter felt his eyes lurch back. He wanted to utter something sarcastic, but he held the words tightly within him, knowing that they wouldn’t do him any good.
“I have a business meeting upcoming in Brighton,” his father continued. “It’s a few days following Frederick’s wedding. It would mean that you would have to leave London for several days, perhaps two weeks. It’s a rather prolonged operation, one that I would like your opinion on. Rather than view you as a layabout I’d like to groom you for a greater purpose. And I do respect your opinion, although I know I don’t always show it.”
Peter felt as though someone was ramming his fist into his stomach, over and over again. He felt the coming tide of adulthood, of loneliness, of perhaps latching himself to whatever woman he could find to fill the hole of “wife,” knowing fully, his entire life, that he could never love her the way he loved Ella.
“Father, I don’t know if–”
“This really isn’t an issue to argue about,” his father continued, “have a fine time this weekend at the wedding, son. And after that, know that we will be working together, incredibly closely. That you will become the kind of son I can be proud of. Whether you like it or not.”
It was a difficult thing for Peter to drag himself from the porch without screaming. He didn’t utter a single response to his father, but instead found a path towards his bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed, and sat in his own private desolation. Nothing could have felt worse than this. He felt pressed towards an impossible, lonely future, without a single path for reprieve.
A half-hour before the garden party, Peter dressed slowly, methodically. He felt akin to a soldier going to war. He hardly glanced at himself in the mirror, sensing that he wouldn’t necessarily like what gazed back. Whatever it was he was presenting to the party, it wasn’t the sort of man Ella would ever involve herself with. He had to make peace with that.
He rode his horse towards the Chesterton estate. It was unseasonably hot, as it had been much of the summer, and sweat billowed across his lower back. How he suddenly craved winter, the excuse to stay inside, the excuse to dream and dream without action. He’d envisioned this summer as his summer of love, of finally finding Tatiana and making her his own. But now, he yearned for a far different bride. He remembered what he’d said to Ella with a jolt — that she was different, but equally as beautiful, equally as intelligent. The sister who’d been overlooked. The sister nobody saw.
He saw her, now.
Again, he delivered his horse to the stableboy and strutted towards the sound of the garden party. He heard the clunk of mallets against croquet balls, the silly giggles of countless girls. He sought the now-familiar laugh of Ella in the hubbub but couldn’t find it. It was like looking for a single fish in the big, wide open sea.
Peter appeared at the edge of the garden party, grateful to find that Frederick was very near the side as well, gripping a glass of wine as though he clung to it for dear life. His knuckles were white. Peter sidled towards him. Frederick’s eyes beamed at him, nearly bulging out of his head.
“Good afternoon, Freddy,” Peter said, arching his brow. He wanted to seem the cool, calculated man Frederick normally regarded him as being, rather than the crazed lunatic who’d entered his bedroom that morning. Love made men do ridiculous things.
“Wonderful to see you,” Frederick said, his words wavering a bit.
They stood like that, side by side, for nearly a minute without speaking. Peter fumbled within his own mind, wondering if he should bring up the morning. But suddenly, a croquet ball shot towards his feet, landing directly in the middle. He stood, blinking down at it. Ursula trampled forward, reaching for the ball. She cast eyes at him, giving him a ridiculous, but infectious laugh.
