Page 61 of The Lord who Captured Her Innocent Heart
Lady Chesterton made no motion of surprise. She cut a small sigh from between her lips and leaned forward. “You look exhausted, if you don’t mind me saying so, Lord Holloway. What have you been doing? I don’t suppose you rode all night.”
“In fact, I did, Lady Chesterton,” Peter returned. “It’s a bit of a gruff story, one I shan’t imagine would be entirely interesting for you to listen to. That said, I would very much like to request an audience with your younger daughter, Lady Ella.”
“You wish to see Ella,” Lady Chesterton returned. The words echoed through the room with finality. It seemed she was trying to draw them out, to ensure Peter didn’t want to whip them back into his mouth and return to where he’d come from. “Are you quite sure about that, Lord Holloway?”
“Absolutely,” Peter affirmed. “To be frank with you, Lady Chesterton, I can’t imagine why this is such a hard thing to understand.”
Lady Chesterton drew her fingers along the soft area between her eyebrows. She took a long, staggering breath, and then allowed a little smile to snake between her hollow cheeks.
“I didn’t imagine Ella would ever have anyone,” she murmured, perhaps mostly speaking only to herself. “Always such a difficult child. Never one to tell me a single thing that runs around in her head.”
Peter felt a wave of strange love emanating from Lady Chesterton. He marvelled at this, at a parent’s inability to truly see a child, one they’re meant to love so much.
“You’ll need a chaperone, of course.” Lady Chesterton sighed. “I imagine you won’t wish to speak to her in my presence.”
“Whatever you wish,” Peter said.
Lady Chesterton instructed Tiffany to alert Ella of Peter’s arrival. Again, she rubbed her forehead, seemingly heavy with memory, with loss. Tiffany returned minutes later to the empty sitting room, stating that Ella would be prepared to greet Lord Holloway in the garden in fifteen minutes’ time. Tiffany’s eyes switched to Peter, seemingly trying to deduce his reaction. Now, with the ticking clock, Peter felt himself attempting to draw up some sort of plot, a sort of dialogue. What on earth would he say to Ella, the moment he saw her?
Peter and Tiffany walked to the rose garden. Above, the strangely bright blue morning sky had faded slightly, growing hazy at the horizon. Tiffany mentioned something about coming rain. She said she could feel it in her chest, the heaviness of a late-summer storm. Peter shifted his weight, remembering the day he’d stood in that very garden, fresh off of Ella intercepting him from telling Tatiana his “true feelings.” How he’d ached to kiss Ella that day. How quickly his feelings had flashed to the other side, to the opposite sister.
“Shall we go in, then?” Tiffany asked, her voice thick with annoyance. “I shan’t wish to have rain muss my hair.”
“Let’s wait a moment more,” Peter murmured. His eyes traced the rusted gate of the rose garden, aching for Ella’s appearance.
A large raindrop splattered itself across his nose. Tiffany let out a little gruff sigh, showing her distaste. On cue, there was a shuffle at the gate. Soft yellow fabric swirled alongside the rusted bars. A tender, small hand swept over the top, unlatching the opening. Ella’s sweet, porcelain face gazed back at him, her eyes enormous and wet, reflecting like pools. For a long moment, Peter hadn’t the energy to breathe. Everything crashed into him — the weight of the evening before, the fact that he’d very nearly died on his journey. He held his hat against his chest, feeling the rain spit itself across his shoulders, his hair, his forehead.
Ella paused as she slipped the gate closed behind her. Her red curls whipped across her shoulders, showing the severity of the coming wind. Still, there remained about fifteen feet between them. Peter felt the air grow taut. He sensed he was meant to speak, but his tongue felt useless, sloppy. His lips parted. How he yearned to slip his hand against the small of her waist, to draw her body against his. How he wished to have her soft whisper in his ear, telling him — what?
That she loved him?
That she loved no one else but him?
Tiffany let out yet another moan. She cut under the yonder tree, drawing her hands over her head. Her eyes burned towards Peter, seemingly demanding his action. It was now or never.
Chapter 27
Ella hadn’t believed Tiffany when she’d appeared in the shadow of her doorway, announcing Lord Peter Holloway’s arrival.
“What do you mean?” Ella had said, perched as she was upon the edge of her bed, her eyes routing their way across yet another book.
“Lord Peter Holloway requests your audience, Miss,” Tiffany said, stammering it this time. “And I shan’t think I can say the words again. If you’ve forgotten the English language, that is, perhaps, not entirely my problem.”
Ella pursed her lips and dropped her feet to the ground. A shiver erupted up and down her spine. “What on earth does Peter Holloway want?” she asked, her voice a bit sharp. “I thought surely he was away.”
“That’s what your mother thought as well,” Tiffany said, lending a soft shrug. “But I shan’t care one way or the other what you heard, or what you assumed, because I can tell you very surely — the man you were secretly corresponding in letters with, the very man who abruptly stopped sending you those letters — is currently downstairs, awaiting your audience. And I’m to be the chaperone. How ridiculously lucky of me.”
Ella’s eyes turned to the mirror. She took stock of her current looks, wondering if she had any relation to the Ella Peter had known weeks prior. Certainly, she felt a bit thinner, as though her body was whittling itself away in his absence. Her mind had called upon the vision of him almost constantly. She hadn’t been sure if that calling had been a kind of violence towards her inner self — a constant reminder that she wasn’t good enough. That certainly, she wasn’t Tatiana, and never would be.
“What shall I tell him, Lady Ella?” Tiffany finally sighed, showing the effect of all this wasted time.
“I will join him in fifteen minutes,” Ella heard herself say, an amount of time she felt necessary to compose herself. She hadn’t a clue what she might do if she didn’t allow herself those fifteen minutes. She might immediately leap into his arms, toss her nose into his neck, inhale his scent. She might tell him, without sound reason, that she’d craved him endlessly. She didn’t wish to be so pathetic. “In the rose garden.”
It was their special place. Surely, he would remember that, although she didn’t wish to assume. Perhaps his thought would be, “Oh, of course. The place where I realised I could never love another creature except Tatiana.” Perhaps he hadn’t a similar memory of the emotion between them at all. All of life was projection.
She traced the familiar route to the rose garden, her mind spitting anxious thoughts. The rain crowded itself in thick, darkening clouds, before rolling forth and dotting itself, freckle-like, across her skin. She kept her nose high, her shoulders back. She felt akin to a warrior, poised to alter the course of the battle at hand.
At the gate of the garden, she clanked open the familiar latch and peered out towards the ivy. Peter stood — gallant and strong, his muscles thick beneath his white, billowy shirt. His hair was windswept, oddly wild for the early nature of the day. His eyes traced her body. In sight of him, she felt she could never escape him. No matter who she married, or where on this earth she trod, she would belong to him. At least, in her own mind.
