Page 11 of The Lord who Captured Her Innocent Heart
“Tatiana? Your neighbour, Tatiana?” he’d asked.
“Do we know another Tatiana?” Frederick had returned, his mouth opening wider with a smile, a laugh.
“I suppose not,” Peter had said, his heart dipping lower in his chest. “I just. I suppose I never envisioned anything between the two of you. You were always spending so much time –”
“I know, I know. Reading books,” Frederick had answered. “Everyone continues to remind me of that. That I might have been able to have Tatiana much earlier if only I hadn’t locked myself away for so long. But I promise you, Peter, this is who I’m meant to marry. I’ve never been happier, not once. She reminds me that there’s life and vitality outside the pages of a book.”
Peter had longed to grip his cousin, to shake him. He longed to blare, Of course, you imbecile! There’s always been life out here. Tatiana and Peter – they both knew this better than most! How often had Tatiana and Peter locked eyes over the top of Frederick’s bent head, both rolling their eyes back as a kind of sigh. “Can you believe he’s like this?” they both seemed to say, incredulous. “It’s remarkable that he even stays afloat, remembers to breathe.”
Peter continued down the little garden path, clunking his shoes against various rocks and kicking them up. He felt destructive, wilder, still, than he’d been in his youth. He longed to smash a glass, to kick a wall, to tear the fabric of his shirt in two. When he’d been a child, he’d been the loudest, brashest one in his family, tearing his mother’s head to bits with anxiety. “He’s all boy. All man, now,” his father had said of this, recently, smashing his hand across Peter’s shoulders, seemingly proud.
Peter had written Tatiana several letters whilst in Bristol. He remembered this with a jolt, now. He’d thought this was an appropriate way to woo her, to assure that she waited for his return before being with anyone. In the letters, he’d detailed some of the beautiful surroundings, describing the way the water lapped up on the beach, talked of his future and what he yearned for the most. “It’s funny to be this old, 27 years old, and still feel like a boat without a shore,” he’d actually written, as though Tatiana could understand something like that.
Peter had revealed too much of himself. He’d given her his personality, his deepest secrets. And in return, she’d rebuked him, decided to marry his quiet, bookish cousin.
It was too great a smack.
Peter stumbled to the right, falling into the shadow of a rose garden. The late-afternoon sunlight snuck through the delicate, light skin of the rose petals, casting soft pink and yellow and red splotches across the stones at his feet. He hummed, slipping his hands down his stomach. Perhaps he could remain here, drink alone. Perhaps no one would notice how little he yearned to be at the engagement party for his cousin and the woman he so terribly loved.
“We’ve been creating a bit of a romance,” Frederick had told him, his voice simmering, sounding like some sort of child’s. “Tatiana and I. I dare say, I never thought I was good enough for her. I never thought that she would see anything in me but a quiet, tight-lipped idiot. But you should see the letters she sent me whilst I was away. It felt as though we were pining for one another. As though we ached for a reality in which we could be together for good.”
Peter had simply gaped at him. Ordinarily, he wasn’t one to avoid his true feelings, was one to blurt out whatever came to his mind, in the moment. But in this case, watching the way Frederick’s eyes glittered with a promise of a future – a future with Tatiana – his tongue stopped cold. He thought back to the letters he’d received in response to his, all from Tatiana, how he’d latched such romance to them – when really, she’d done very little than simply tell her his day to day experiences, explain the paintings she painted and the parties she attended.
He’d perhaps added more weight to each word than had been necessary.
He took several more steps into the garden, listening as the violins and cellos swelled in the distance. His fingers hunted through his pockets, looking for his pipe. Apparently, he’d left it at the table. He tried to picture his life ahead, without the likes of Tatiana at his side. Could he possibly bring himself to marry anyone else? Could he ever declare any woman in any way equal to Tatiana, in measure of personality, of life, of artistry? No. He couldn’t imagine it.
It was with this simmering sense of anxiety that he all-but stumbled into the laid-out form of Ella Chesterton, the younger sister of Tatiana Chesterton, who’d taken it upon herself to stretch out in the grass between the flower bushes, her nose cast toward the sky. Peter’s thick shoe nearly crunched her nose. But, with only a split second to spare, she let out a little shriek, cast her hands around his shoe, and pressed up on him, so that he nearly hobbled over to the side.
What on earth? Peter forced his shoes onto the grass and leaned heavily forward, blinking down at the little form of Ella, a girl he’d only ever noticed as very much that: a girl, one unworthy of his passing glance. Now, her eyebrows crept low on her forehead; her eyes were cinched tight, angry. She burst up from the grass, huffing, seemingly directing a wave of anger towards him.
“What on earth are you doing? Trying to walk all over me?” she cried, sounding wild, inarticulate.
Peter couldn’t control his face: a smile crept across it, making his cheeks bulge. He glanced towards the edge of the garden, where three people sat, seemingly busy in their own conversation, yet nonetheless watching over the pair of them. He hardly recognised any of them, although two might have been second aunts (he was never certain).
“I dare say it’s appropriate to walk all over someone if she’s laid out in the grass, as you are,” Peter said, sniffing.
“It’s not as though I was right in the centre of the path!” Ella cried. She scrunched herself up, struggling to place her feet on the grass and change her weight, so that she was standing upright. Her brows creased, showing her struggle. “I simply came here to have a moment – alone –” At this, she fully sprung up, nearly tearing the bottom of her gown as she did.
Peter let out a little guffaw. Ella’s face grew crumpled with rage. “How dare you?” she whispered. “Laughing at me like that. And on this – the beautiful celebration of my sister’s wedding?”
“It isn’t her wedding quite yet, now, is it?” Peter asked, sensing a strange emotion behind her words. “And why on earth are you all the way here, at the furthest garden, when you could be over there – watching your sister and her new fiancé dance the evening away?”
Ella cleared her throat. This seemed to be a difficult question for her to answer. She turned her eyes from one corner of the garden to the next. Peter took a slight step back, inspecting her further. It became clear to him, after a strange, silent moment, that this Ella Chesterton wasn’t necessarily similar to the Ella Chesterton he’d known throughout their youth.
Rather, the woman before him – red-haired, as usual, but rather womanly, rather than girlish, with wild curls, a beautiful gown, a cinched waist, and gorgeous curves – was entirely something else, someone he might have admired, had he not been so caught up with the sort of real, lasting love he held for her sister.
“Forgive me. I simply needed to take a few moments to myself.” Ella took a slight step back, swiping her fingers along the bottom of her eyes.
If Peter hadn’t been more intelligent, he might have thought she was crying, or had spent the previous few minutes doing so.
In fact, with her cheeks flushed, her eyes watery –
Perhaps that had been what she was doing.
“Wait a moment,” Peter began, lifting his brows. “I dare say you’re not entirely yourself this evening, are you?”
Ella cast her eyes downward, before rolling them. Peter had a sister and was incredibly read in the language of nuance. He knew, more than many, when women were lying, or pretending that they didn’t want attention (but so clearly did).
