Page 4 of The Lord who Captured Her Innocent Heart
The girls roamed past the stables, each placing little kisses on their horses’ noses, and then cast themselves past the gardens, inhaling the sweet smells of roses. Tatiana chatted easily, fully filling up the silence that seemed to latch around Ella’s throat. Was it anticipation? Fear? As they eased out of the stables, Tatiana gripped Ella’s hand, whispering, “I really am very sorry about your hair, Ella. Know that it will grow back. It will grow back, and it will be luscious, just as it always was and is. You know I’ve always been so endlessly jealous of it. The colour, the way the light reflects off it.”
Ella had fully decided to forgive her sister. Her tongue hesitated, heavy with the truth she so wanted to blurt: that in actuality, she couldn’t wait for Frederick to return. That the moment he did, she felt sure something would finally happen between them. He was hers; she was his. She felt it bubbling beneath the words they’d sent one another.
But she kept her words to herself, feeling as though she was marching along the edge of a cliff, conscious that she was very much able to fix the situation, yet couldn’t.
The girls returned to the house. They walked along the little stone path that led between the gardens, with Ella counting the stones, just as she’d done when she was a girl. One, two, all the way to thirteen. At number ten, the path pulled to the right, towards the mansion. And at eleven, Ella was struck with a beautiful view – one of Frederick, of her parents, standing at the end of the stones, in a line, watching both her and Tatiana approach.
Ella’s heart fluttered wildly. Her eyes connected with Frederick’s almost immediately. It was as though a fire erupted in her stomach, assuring her that everything, everything in the world, would be hers. Her parents gazed upon their daughters proudly: her father tall, his shoulders pulled back, and her mother trim and still terribly beautiful, very much reminiscent of Tatiana herself. Tatiana snaked her arm through Ella’s once more, linking them. But Ella wanted to tell her that it would soon be over. That rather soon she would be latched to Frederick, rather than Tatiana.
“Girls! We wondered where you were,” their father, Lord Marvin Chesterton, called. He glanced sidelong towards his wife and Frederick, all-but beaming.
Ella felt a skip in her step. She so wanted to rush towards Frederick, to toss her arms around him. She so wanted to whisper in his ear that his letters had gotten her through a particularly rough winter; that she was fully ready for the sun and the love and the splendour of his company.
But before she could dart forward, her sister – Tatiana – sprung forth, looking like some sort of fairy, rushing towards her parents and Frederick. Ella stopped, stunned, watching as Tatiana snaked her arm – the very arm that had just been through hers – through Frederick’s. And he cupped her hand with his, beaming down upon her.
What was going on?
Ella felt as though she was being punched repeatedly, as though the world around her had stopped spinning. A shadow was cast over everything. The trees seemed to whisper amongst themselves, noting that everything had shifted, the rules had changed.
Again, her parents beamed at Tatiana and Frederick, looking at them with glowing eyes. Ella’s lips parted, heavy with questions.
"I suppose the two of you have a great deal to discuss,” her father said, his voice booming.
“I suppose we do,” Tatiana all but cooed, gazing up at Frederick.
Ella felt she was going to vomit. She searched her mother’s face, looking for some sort of empathy, anything. But it seemed that yet again, Ella was all but forgotten. As she stood there, a stuttering fool, Tatiana and Frederick whirled back towards the house.
As a kind of insult from the stars above, Frederick took this moment to turn back, albeit briefly, and link eyes with Ella. He gave her that cutting smile she loved so much, a knife through the heart. “Hello, Ella,” he said, his voice teasing. “What’s happened to your hair?”
“Yes,” Ella’s mother chimed in, turning her gaze back to her younger daughter. “Darling, what is it? You’re covering it with a hat, but I see something… Goodness, what have you done.”
But it was too late to protest, to alert Tatiana of the mess. Tatiana and Frederick had already passed along, darting up the steps of the mansion and disappearing behind the enormous red door. Ella blinked several times, her hands tightening into fists. Her mother drew closer to her, pulling her hat off her head with a flourish. Her face scrunched up, growing menacing.
“Darling, how many times do I have to tell you?” she demanded, her eyes black dots. “You aren’t to mess with your hair without my say first. And this, right before all the events –”
“What sort of events?” Ella asked, her throat tightening. She was playing the fool, and she knew it.
Her mother and father exchanged a glance, one that spoke of their apparent realisation that their youngest daughter was a buffoon. Her father cleared his throat, taking a full step towards her. His heavy feet crunched against the stones beneath.
“Frederick has asked for your sister’s hand,” he said.
The words were deafening. Ella felt her knees quiver beneath her, apt to cast her to the ground. Would her body truly give out on her now, during her biggest moment of need?
“Oh,” Ella said.
Her mother tittered. “Is that all you have to say? Your sister has found a marvellous match. Lord Frederick Braxton, our future son-in-law! Can you imagine?”
Actually, Ella had imagined that. But the story had been far different, one of whispered poetics and secrets told. Her secrets. Not her sister’s.
“I didn’t quite know they ever had a…” Ella began, conscious that this wasn’t the sort of thing she should have been verbalising to her parents.
“Well, apparently so,” her mother said, arching her brow. “And now we busy ourselves with planning a wedding, don’t we? But first, an engagement party.” She reached again for Ella’s forehead, swiping her palm across it. “And you, looking like some sort of animal…”
“Mother…”
“It’s not as though we don’t think you’ll ever find anyone,” her father piped in, seemingly trying to assist. “It’s just that we want to make sure—”
“You don’t take our advice, Ella,” her mother said, drawing her little arms over her chest. “Tatiana has never needed it, of course. Although I dare say it’s good she waited for the proper suitor. Don’t you, Father?”
