Page 20 of The Lord who Captured Her Innocent Heart
“You mean, did I read through all 1000 pages of Roman Historical text that you casually lent me, silly Ella?” he asked.
Ella giggled. Peter wanted to roll his eyes, but he maintained their strict gaze towards the far window. How disgusting! How boring! If the two of them truly ended up together, they would surely bore one another to death.
“Are you saying that you didn’t commit?” Ella said, her eyes sparkling.
“Actually, I very much DID commit,” Frederick said. “I knew it was a bit of a challenge, coming from you. And I have been very much waiting for the day that you ask me if I ever got round to reading it. Darling Ella, of course I got round to reading it. I tear through books. As do you.”
“You absolutely both do.” Tatiana sighed. She slurped up the last of her soup and pressed it away from her. Her expression was a bit strained. “I can’t imagine spending an entire day inside a book like that. The fall of the Roman Empire! How endlessly boring. Quite frankly, why would you want to fill your head with things that happened a million years ago, rather than…”
“I must say, I agree with you,” Peter said, seeing his window of opportunity.
Ella’s eyes burned towards him. He felt they were spies, sent here on a specific operation. Perhaps they were the perfect partners.
“I can’t imagine why you would want to read 1000 pages of anything,” he continued. “It’s as though there isn’t a big world of opportunity and beauty awaiting you out there. It’s as though music and art don’t exist.”
“Precisely!” Tatiana said. She cast her eyes towards Frederick, lending him a sort of, “See? See what I mean?” look, although Peter couldn’t be exactly sure.
“I must say, I can only recommend it,” Frederick continued. For the first time in the evening, he seemed to glow. “During chapter 16, when…”
“The chapter about the Colosseum?” Ella asked, her eyes bright.
“Absolutely. I tore through it. I think I read it four times,” he said, almost spitting with excitement.
“My goodness. I don’t know what I’ll do with you when we’re married.” Tatiana sighed, a smile stretching across her face. “Can you imagine? I’ll want to walk through the garden, and you’ll be rereading something about Peter Augustus for the twelfth time.”
“Now, now, now,” Frederick said, stammering. He spoke a bit too loudly, as though he recognised his mistake and wanted to alleviate it. “I should insert something here. For years, I spent hour after hour in my bedroom, reading and writing, reading and writing. Ella can attest to this.”
“Absolutely,” Ella said, matching his smile.
It was clear, at least to Peter, that she was floating on a cloud.
“But when I began to speak with Tatiana more and more about the way she saw the world,” Frederick began, “it became clear to me that perhaps I spent too much time indoors. That perhaps I wasn’t listening to the proper emotional music. That I wasn’t giving my internal, emotional life enough power. It was a magical thing to think of, to realise.”
As he spoke, Ella’s smile turned downward progressively, as though someone had reached up and tugged it down. The entire image was almost humorous, making Peter long to chuckle. It was his own, private joke.
At this, Frederick reached across the table and swept his hand along Tatiana’s wrist. She shivered, casting him a longing gaze.
“She’s given me a softer perspective on life. Reminded me that there’s much more to consider than politics or history or old, stuffy books,” Frederick considered.
Ella’s eyes were completely towards her half-eaten soup. She seemed to gaze at it as though she were peering into a lake, hunting for the murky bottom below.
“And I will be forever appreciative of that,” Frederick finished.
There was silence. Ella’s shoulders hunched forward. In this strange pause, Peter had a first thought, a realisation that perhaps, all this time, he hadn’t given Ella her due credit. Had she actually spent all those hours reading 1000 pages about the fall of the Roman Empire? He imagined her curved over the book, her shoulders hunched forward. He imagined the rest of the world running on without her while she filled her head with knowledge that would have no bearing on her actual life.
For whatever reason, for the first time, this caused a fire to stir in the back of his mind.
What was it about this that caused him such sudden interest? He pressed against it, shoving it away. The next course arrived, and Ursula made some sort of comment about disliking whatever herb had been in the soup. The conversation carried along without him, allowing Peter to regroup. Again, time raced forward, seemingly leaving him behind.
Within seconds, it seemed, they were dapping napkins across their lips, sojourning into the next room for whatever would bring them to the next era of the evening. Peter rose from his chair. Frederick turned his elbow towards Tatiana, and Peter watched as she snaked a light hand through it — linking herself with him. Peter wondered if the conversation about the Roman Empire had strengthened their bond, rather than begun its untying. He reckoned it had.
Peter drew himself closer to Ella as they walked towards the other room. She gave him a sombre look, shrugging her shoulders. “I suppose that didn’t work,” she muttered.
“It was a valiant effort, though,” Peter said. He ducked a bit lower, to whisper in her ear. “And to be frank with you, I hadn’t a clue you were so clever. 1000 pages? And you spoke about it brilliantly.”
Ella looked as though she’d won something, even if it was a consolation prize. “Do you think Frederick doesn’t care about that any longer?”
“He certainly must,” Peter said. “It’s a part of his strange soul. It’ll stick with him. You can be sure of that.”
