Page 74 of Surrendering to a Fiery Lady

As Celeste revealed her secret to him, Elliot felt his lips part in shock.

No, no… surely it is not possible.

Yet Celeste’s smile grew, as though she was thoroughly overjoyed at this news.

“What do you make of this news, Your Grace?” she asked. “Surely you can see as I do, you cannot be rid of me so easily now.”

Elliot backed up. He had no answer for her, nothing to say, for he couldn’t understand how this had happened. He entered the theatre and found himself hurrying so fast through the corridors that he was practically running.

This has to be a lie! Surely! What other explanation is there?

Yet his mind was reeling with shock too much to be able to make any good sense of it.

He slowed his pace as he reached the box, stepped inside, and sat down beside Ophelia so fast that she jumped in her seat.

“Elliot? Is all well?”

He couldn’t look at her. He trained his eyes on the stage, breathing heavily.

I must think about this. I need time. This cannot be possible!

“Yes, all is well,” he said tightly.

“Who was it you had to meet? You were gone a while,” Ophelia whispered to him. He was aware out of the corner of his eye that her hands fidgeted together, restlessly.

“It was a business associate regarding the investments I have made. They are here tonight and took the opportunity to speak to me. The man simply wanted more money. I sent him on his way.”

He prayed that Ophelia believed him, but judging by the way she fixed her gaze on the stage quite woodenly, he didn’t think she did.

What have I done?

They watched the rest of the play in silence. When Elliot leaned toward Ophelia, wanting to establish some touch between them, she leaned away from him. The movement gutted him. He supposed she was angry at him leaving in the middle of the play, something he couldn’t really blame her for, though the matter would soon get worse.

Elliot had to face one harsh truth. If Celeste had been honest in what she had told him, then his and Ophelia’s lives were changed for good.

Can she ever love me after I tell her what has happened with Celeste?

Chapter 24

“Your Grace?”

“Yes?” Ophelia looked up from the breakfast table to Mr Wilder, who stood a short distance away.

“Forgive me, Your Grace, but there is someone here to see you.”

“At this hour?” Ophelia thought it odd as she heard the chiming of the clock on a nearby mantelpiece. It was only nine o’clock, surely too early for visitors.

Grace looked equally perplexed on the other side of the table. “How strange,” she murmured. “Could it be your stepmother again?”

“I pray it is not.” Ophelia placed down her teacup, rather louder than she had intended. The last meeting she’d had with Gertrude had been so awful, it had left Ophelia in little doubt that the relationship could not be remedied at all. She hoped someday when she met her father again in the afterlife, he would forgive her the divide that had grown between them.

“Is it my stepmother?” she asked Mr Wilder.

“It is a woman, Your Grace, but no. It is not Mrs Townsend.” It was then Mr Wilder’s behaviour became even stranger. Ophelia noticed a redness to his cheeks and the rather frenetic way that he pulled on the lapels of his tailcoat, seeming thoroughly out of sorts. “I have attempted to send her away, but if she does not see you now, she has made all sorts of threats she will enact.”

“Threats?” Ophelia did not like the sound of such a thing. She stood to her feet, making the chair scrape back across the wood floor.

“Yes. I asked her to leave, but she has refused.” He shifted and fidgeted with the arm of his coat, revealing that his cuff was torn.

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