Page 43 of The Lord who Captured Her Innocent Heart
The sharp voice of her sister pulled Ella from her reverie. Eve’s song had grown in volume, ensuring Ella was the only one to sweep around to gape at Tatiana in the centre of the hallway, her cheeks rogue-red from weeping. She snapped her hands on her hips, allowing her eyes to skate up and down Ella’s strange, watery disposition.
“I don’t suppose you decided to take a bath in your party dress?” she demanded, her voice sharp.
Ella felt the words like a smack. Her knees bent a bit too far, casting her forward. Her cheek dripped against her sister’s chest. She let out a wail, one that grew like a weed from her inner throat.
“Let me help you.” Tatiana sighed.
Ella felt a presence on the other side of her sister. She drew up just enough, so that her eyes cut across Tatiana’s shoulder to see Frederick, sheepish but beaming. It was clear whatever issue they’d had had been rectified. The bitterness between them at the party now seemed like an aching memory, something Ella couldn’t quite place in time, despite it really only having happened a little while ago. Her entire body spasmed with chills.
“Were you out in the rain?” Frederick demanded, his own voice laced with fear. “I hadn’t imagined. After you came to find me, didn’t you return to the house with the others? Really, Ella, how absolutely … Suffice it to say, I’m unaccustomed to you making such foolish decisions.”
“Shhh.” Tatiana swept her arm across Ella’s shoulder, drawing her towards the staircase. Ella felt no older than eight years old, reprimanded by both her sister and the ex-“love of her life.” She imagined Peter like a sun, dipping lower in the horizon, allowing her to live in impossible darkness. Something within her told her he would never return, not as long as she lived.
Tatiana forced Frederick to remain at the bottom of the stairs. “Attend to the guests,” she scolded him. “I can’t be the only social one in this marriage. Take some initiative, Frederick, and go have a single conversation with one of my friends! They’re all dying to know you better. They keep asking me if you’re a — a kind of mannequin.”
Ella had a vague sensation of thinking this sort of behaviour towards Frederick was still not entirely kind. But she allowed herself to be guided to the top of the steps, into the shadow of her bedroom. Tatiana knocked the door shut behind her and began to busy herself with the buttons that lined themselves down Ella’s dress. She hummed as she undid them, allowing the garment to rush down Ella’s shoulders and to the ground.
Ella stepped from the soaked dress. It had weighed far more wet than dry, and stepping out of it felt akin to removing herself from her own body. She floated, her skin porcelain white and gleaming with tight little cold chills.
Tatiana reached for a towel near the window and swept it around Ella, rubbing it across her shoulders. “Come now. I don’t know if we’ll ever find a way to stop your shivering.” Tatiana sighed. “Hold this there. Yes, like that. Let me see if I can order you a pot of tea. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Sit on the bed.”
The orders fell over Ella, much like the rain outside. She blinked at the grey clouds that remained on the horizon, falling all over the tip-tops of the trees. She felt they were wrapped in a kind of weather-cloud, that they would never see the true sky again.
Tiffany arrived momentarily with a pot of steaming tea. She blinked strange, glassy eyes towards Ella, seemingly judging the situation before darting back — assuredly to tell the other servants what she’d seen. Ella’s hands wrapped around the cup, shaking a bit. Tatiana perched beside her on the bed, watching with anxious eyes whilst Ella sipped the black liquid.
“I’m terribly sorry for reacting the way I did downstairs.” Tatiana sighed.
The apology wasn’t anything Ella had expected. She pursed her lips, wondering if there would be an insult tossed in afterwards. But Tatiana pushed forward, her own face crumpling a bit as she spoke.
“You can’t possibly imagine what it’s like for me, knowing that I’ll never have these evenings with you again,” she murmured. “It’s as though every day I’m celebrating a beautiful union, the very thing I’ve always thought my life was moving towards. But I’m saying goodbye to you. And thus — the garden parties, the dinners — they’re all celebrations for one of the most wretched things of my life.”
Ella felt a tear drip down her cheek, gliding towards the black tea below.
“I knew it,” Tatiana murmured, almost beaming at what she assumed was understanding. “I knew the moment I saw you, completely drenched in the rain. You feel it, too. You feel wretched I’m leaving. It’s eating you up inside.”
Ella’s stomach clenched with panic. This final notion was a knife through her heart, a remembrance that what she’d pinned as her “reason of pain” wasn’t entirely Peter Holloway. Rather, it was very true that her life was very nearly ready to pitch out of control.
Fat tears spat down her face, now. Tatiana slipped back into bed with Ella, so that her massive party dress was tucked beneath the covers. She dropped her head against Ella’s pillow, gazing at the ceiling. Ella remained upright, her mostly-naked frame beneath the covers, as well. They’d shared many beds as girls, yet there was something about this time that ached with finality.
Ella placed her mug of tea on the bedside table and laid back, crossing her arms over her chest. Still, she shivered, whist Tatiana gave herself over to mourning what once was. They both held themselves, staring forth at a future that they couldn’t fully comprehend. Ella wouldn’t have Peter — this she was certain of. And Tatiana wouldn’t have her sister. Not entirely. Never again.
Chapter 20
It was the day of the wedding. Peter blinked awake after perhaps a single hour of sleep, if that, and gaped at the ceiling, wondering if he had the strength to push through the day ahead. He couldn’t comprehend seeing Ella again, knowing the love that pulsed through him wasn’t matched in her heart. It was a wretched thing not to know one’s self, and still more wretched to finally learn — knowing one could do very little to change the circumstances.
Peter’s limbs ached as he stretched his legs towards the window. The weather was absolutely blissful. Egg-shell blue crept an arch over the world, cupping them all to the green grass and shifting trees. “Why not try it with Eve?” a voice in the back of his head recited, as though it was reading a page from a textbook. But immediately, the notion of courting Eve made his stomach clench. The girl was a tease, one apt to flirt with anyone at the party. Peter knew this better than most, as, he sensed, Eve was a great deal like him, like Tatiana. But he didn’t wish to be like this any longer.
Besides. His father had told him, in no uncertain terms, that he would find himself very infrequently in London in the coming months, meaning that any such “courting” of Eve, or of anyone, would be lacklustre, at best. He simply couldn’t give his heart to any one concept, one person. Not now.
Frederick had asked that Peter arrive at the Braxton estate several hours prior to the ceremony — and since the ceremony would be at the London church at 10, Frederick meant: rather early. Peter set his head to what he knew the next hours would contain: endless conversations with Frederick, assuring him he was “good enough” for Tatiana, that he was “making the proper choice.” He sighed, rubbing his fingers at his temples, willing the hours to pass easily. He would eat at the wedding breakfast, bow his head in greeting to Ella, and then return home. That evening, he would allow himself to down a few extra glasses of whisky, just for the good of his health. His mental health, that was.
His mother was perched in the sitting room downstairs, just alongside the foyer. Her head was draped forward, her eyes scanning the pages of a book. Peter paused in the doorway, dressed in his first suit of the day. His ceremony clothes had been packed up the previous day and sent to the Braxton estate, where he would fully prepare himself. “The Braxtons uphold the greatest in all finery.” He’d heard this whispered from the lips of a stranger at the previous garden party, a near-constant reminder that his cousin’s family was a good deal more powerful than his would ever be, despite their close alignment. Whatever he looked like at the wedding ceremony, it had to fit with the entire “package” of the deal.
“There you are.” His mother sighed before glancing up from her book. “Are you quite prepared for the day ahead?”
“I suppose I’m as prepared as I could ever possibly be,” Peter said, his voice sizzling with sarcasm.
“Don’t be cross,” his mother said, drawing her eyebrows low. “You know I hate when you use that tone of voice.”
