Even now, as the sun flickered up over the horizon, Ernest was awash with the memory of how it had felt to have Diana pressed up against him—her breasts full, her nipples tight against the fabric of her nightgown, her eyes glowing with want for him. This was nothing he could dismiss.
Throughout Ernest’s entire life, he’d always followed the rules. He’d upheld his father’s orders without question; he’d cared for his friends and his family without pause. He’d done everything that was ever required of him, until now. And now, he’d had a taste of what lay beyond what was expected of him—he’d had a taste of what it meant to take and take and take what he yearned for.
Now, he wasn’t sure if he could return to the other form of living. It felt shadowed when compared to this version.
Sometime after seven, he heard clattering in the kitchen, news that the cooks were awake, that breakfast would soon be set out. Ernest blinked at the closed door, marvelling at what it would take for him to go sit at the breakfast table, make humble and normal conversation with Diana’s father and aunt, without breaking out with the inner rage that stirred within him.
He imagined himself flipping over the table, screaming out that he couldn’t possibly abide by society’s rules any longer. “I’m only a man!” he imagined himself crying. “I cannot hold up my subjects, all their demands. And I certainly cannot marry that wretched woman… I look at her and I feel nothing but darkness in my heart…”
Yet, of course, this was nothing he could possibly do.
There was a rap at the door. Ernest felt sure he’d imagined it. After the second knock, he cleared his throat and allowed entrance, placing himself in the chair beside the desk, hopeful that this would make him look more ordinary.
When the door opened, Rose’s sunny face appeared in the crack. She hopped within, clipping the door shut behind her. In her hand flapped a white letter, which she dangled over Ernest’s head as though they were much younger siblings—rather than 28 and 15 years old.
“I don’t suppose you’d like your mail, dear brother?” she teased. “I apprehended it from the rider outside.”
Ernest arched his brow. “What were you doing outside so early in the morning?”
Rose shrugged. “I wasn’t able to sleep much. All that chaos last night, you know. Makes my thoughts swirl.” She paused for a moment, seeming to assess him. “I don’t mean to be rude, brother, but…”
“Isn’t that precisely what you’re always trying to be?” Ernest asked.
“Perhaps. But, in this case, the state of your face… You look as though you deserved a bit more slumber, as well. And those clothes! Weren’t you only just wearing them last evening?” Rose’s cheeks scrunched tight. “I suppose this means you didn’t even find yourself in bed for a moment, did you?”
Ernest shifted. His fingers snaked through his gnarled black hair. He hated that his sister saw him so clearly, although this was something that made him feel less alone. In the weeks after his father’s death, he wouldn’t have survived without her—continually pressing food into his hands, ensuring he drank water. “I wouldn’t be alive without you,” were words that had poured frequently from his mouth throughout that time.
Now, he felt they lingered in the air—he didn’t have to say them for her to know them.
Rose sighed and sat across from him, tossing the letter to the wooden desktop near his elbows. He gripped the letter, recognizing the handwriting as Grace’s. This caused another shiver to race up his spine.
“It’s her,” Rose said. “She always knows exactly when to strike, doesn’t she?”
“You really must be kind to her, Rose,” Ernest heard himself say, unwilling to believe his own words.
“Kind? If she even knew the meaning of the word, perhaps I would attempt it,” Rose retorted. “But the woman hasn’t a single clue how to operate around us. She blabbers on and on about—about gossip. About how little she understands your friends. And beyond that”—Rose crept closer, drawing her elbows across the desk—“she must sense what’s going on between you and Diana.”
Ernest cut open the envelope and brought out the letter. He refused to blink up at his sister. He grunted, saying, “I’m really not sure what you’re referring to, Rose,” before scanning the note.
“Darling,
“I wish only to invite you to our family’s garden party in two days’ time. I understand it’s rather short notice, but Mother had the idea this morning and I simply couldn’t wait to send out an invitation. Of course, I recognize that this is a difficult time in your household, what with your endless amounts of giving. Know that, for this reason, it would be our unique pleasure to extend the invitation not only to your beautiful sister, Rose, but also to your houseguests—Lord Harrington, Lady Harrington, his sister, and, of course, that silly girl, Diana. Mother can’t possibly get over the fact that she raced into a burning mansion, for a maid! What sort of world did she grow up in? Perhaps she lives only in her head.
“Looking ever so forward to seeing you, my dear,
“Yours, Grace.”
Ernest tapped his tongue against his front teeth, cinching his brows together. It filled him with a sense of panic, knowing that Grace had invited the Harringtons to this affair. He’d thought, initially, that he could simply sneak out, perform his duties as future husband and son-in-law, and then sneak back—perhaps unnoticed by Diana. But now, he couldn’t refuse this possibility. Grace would surely do something rash in the wake of it. He imagined her appearing at the estate that afternoon, even, announcing how her delight that all would be in attendance for her garden party. Then, Ernest would have a great deal to explain…
“Your head looks like it’s swimming with thoughts,” remarked Rose.
“You could say that.” Ernest passed her the letter and watched as she read it, her own eyes growing into enormous orbs.
“She’s always scheming, isn’t she?” Rose said, her voice heavy.
“Do you think she has something planned?” Ernest asked.
“I’m sure she does,” Rose returned. She smacked the letter back on the desk and gave Ernest her most rueful expression. “You can’t possibly allow this to continue, Ernest. You’re a mess. You’re going to lose all your hair before your 30th year. She’s going to do it to you, too. She’s going to enjoy every single moment…”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Ernest said. He stood and collected the letter, marching toward the window. The office faced out over the back gardens, with a view of the roses that had begun to sprout, their thorns glittering in the morning light.
“You’ll come to breakfast, won’t you?” Rose finally asked, sensing, perhaps, that he wasn’t in the mood to discuss the garden party a moment more.
“I can’t possibly,” Ernest whispered. “I haven’t slept. I’m a complete and utter mess. My life is crumbling in on itself. And I haven’t the energy to do anything about it.”
Ernest expected Rose to fight back at this fact, to inform him just how idiotic he was being. But instead, he heard the creak of the door as she opened it and closed it behind her, casting him back in the solitude of the room.
He hadn’t the energy to leave the study that morning, and ultimately snuck back to his bedroom sometime before lunch, careful to ensure that he didn’t walk past Diana’s bedroom, nor get in the way of her.
This continued on for the next days. Ernest asked Rose to invite the Harringtons to the event at the Bragg’s estate. This was something he felt rather wretched about, as though he was hiding from reality, behind his sister. Yet after Rose told the Harringtons about the party, she returned to him in the study to inform him that they overmuch wanted to attend.
“Was there any hesitation on the part of Diana?” Ernest asked, surprising himself with his boldness.
Rose shrugged. “She didn’t say much. It was mostly Lord Harrington and Renata who responded. I suppose Diana feels she’s along for the ride, especially as you’re avoiding her. She’s a bit of a captive here in t
he house, isn’t she?”
“She’s no captive…” Ernest tried.
Rose scoffed. “Where else could she possibly go?”
The evening before the garden party, Ernest snuck into the back garden. An orange sun looked heavy and bloated along the horizon, as though it might burst like a juicy fruit. Ernest scratched at his beard, his shoulders sagging. Already, he dreaded tomorrow, could almost hear Grace’s screeching voice in his ears. He imagined yanking himself through yet another banal conversation, something frantic and drawn up by his fiancée’s chaotic brain.
Behind him, the back door creaked. He drew his eyes toward it, expecting to find one of the maids creeping outside, perhaps to toss out the compost from dinner. Instead, he found himself peering into the beautiful eyes of Diana. She paused in the crack of the door, seemingly unwilling or unable to approach him.
It seemed as though there was a wall between them, a thick, impenetrable one. And yet still, Ernest ached with an impossible desire to throw himself toward her, to wrap his arm around her lower back and tug her close. He yearned to draw his lips across her ear, to lick at the tender skin. He so wanted her to let out that soft little moan that was uniquely hers.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Diana murmured. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
Ernest’s throat ached with sadness. How he wanted to tell her to interrupt him forever, to always stumble into him when he was awash with chaotic thoughts. He inhaled the smell of her—so light and floral—and felt immediately calm in ways he hadn’t thought possible.
“Perhaps I’ll return to my bedroom,” Diana murmured. Her eyebrows cinched together. “I wouldn’t want to bother…”
“Diana…” Ernest whispered.
But already, Diana flashed back into the house, drawing the door closed behind her. Ernest blinked at the solidity of the door, willing himself to race after her, to draw her against him. How he yearned to feel the fluttering of her wild, frenetic heart against his. “You can’t possibly understand what you do to me,” he might mutter to her, praying that she could possibly understand, that she could possibly feel it, too.
The following late afternoon, Ernest, Rose, Diana, Lord Harrington, and Renata gathered near the stables and hunkered into two different carriages, with the purpose of heading to the Bragg garden party. Ernest was careful to pile into a carriage with Lord Harrington, allowing Renata, Diana, and Rose their time alone.
Ernest and Lord Harrington sat across from one another in the carriage. Lord Harrington clutched his cane with a skeletal hand, gazing out the window.
“It’s the first time since the fire we’ve left your estate,” he noted. He said it contemplatively, making it difficult for Ernest to read its full value.
“It must be strange, locked into my home, in a sense,” Ernest replied, unable to look at Lord Harrington fully. “You know the carriage is yours. My men are yours. You can go into London whenever you please.”
Lord Harrington hadn’t the energy to respond, it seemed. Ernest knew that they were driving down the same road that would return them to Lord Harrington’s estate, yet they wouldn’t be going quite so far. It must be a funny thing, Ernest thought now, to be so familiar with a single route only to stop talking it abruptly after so many years.
“This woman you’re marrying,” Lord Harrington said now, his voice gritty and low. “She’s quite… I’m not terribly sure I understand the match, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Ernest’s cheeks grew hot. He turned his eyes to the ground, saying, “She often comes off a bit strangely. I know she’ll be a marvellous wife. A perfect countess.”
“’Perfect’ is quite a word,” Lord Harrington said. His eyelashes flickered. “It’s not a word I ever used to describe my late wife. Nor is it a word I’ve used to describe either of my daughters, no matter how much I love them. It seems an ill-constructed word. A word that you wouldn’t use unless you didn’t really mean it.”
Ernest didn’t have the energy to respond. He felt singled out, as though Lord Harrington saw him far more clearly than even Ernest’s father ever had. He shifted and cast his eyes out the window, marking the space along the horizon where Grace Bragg’s estate popped up.
“There it is,” Ernest announced. Doom and gloom permeated his voice.
Ernest and Lord Harrington followed the women through the front of the Bragg mansion, toward the garden party in the back. Grace had, of course, invited quite a selection of family members and friends, all of which, of course, Ernest had met at one of the engagement parties they’d held in previous months. However, bringing Diana into the proverbial lion’s den of this chaos felt akin to alienating her forever.
His eyes burned into her back, willing her to turn around, to look at him. But as she entered the folds of the garden party, Diana seemed to greet everyone with a serene smile, a woefully beautiful, “Hello, everyone. Greetings. Thank you so much for inviting my family and I to this marvellous affair.” How did she have such poise in the midst of this? She was certainly someone to be studied. But, of course, Ernest was far past the “studying” portion of knowing her. He longed to love her the way she deserved.
Across the garden party, members of London society were dressed in immaculate late-spring attire, their eyes alight with the promise of summer and their cheeks rosy with the early drops of wine. Each one spun their heads quickly to look at Ernest and greet him with resounding calls.
Grace was situated in the centre of it all, as was her custom. She wore a pristine bright yellow gown, one that dropped just around her ankle, perfect for later-night dancing. She swirled round to spot him, putting on a show of looking entirely pleased to see him—as though she’d never been happier to see anyone before in her life. She was quite the actress, something Ernest felt unsure he could stand for the rest of the night—let alone the remainder of his life.
“Come along, darling,” Grace called, drawing him toward her and two of her cousins, as well as her father.
Ernest reached forward and shook the hand of Lord Bragg, careful to make eye contact for a firm moment before falling away. He had to play the part.
“I was just telling Sarah and Penelope about your marvellous feat,” Grace began. “Rushing into that mansion fire without any sort of regard for your own safety!”
“You must be crazy, Lord Bannerman,” Penelope said, her voice even higher pitched than Grace’s. “And Gracie, you must have been wild with apprehension, knowing that your love was within the fire.” She drew her head tighter toward Grace, her eyes growing conspiratorial. “You know, that’s how Lord Zane passed away two years ago? No one came to wake him when his house caught. They say he died in his room. Couldn’t get through the flames. The smoke filled his lungs—”
“I don’t suppose you’ve had any sort of health problems in the wake of the disaster?” Lord Bragg asked Ernest, his voice booming.
“I’ve been quite well, thank you,” Ernest returned. “I can’t speak for my guests, of course. They took the brunt of the fire. Lady Harrington, for one, was in a coma for several days.”
Lord Bragg’s eyes flickered toward Diana. Ernest watched him assess her, much like a doctor would: analysing the shape of her waist, her breasts, her enormous eyes. He sniffed. “Good evening, Lady Harrington,” he offered. “Thank you for coming to my home.”
Diana curtsied fluidly, bowing her head. “It’s my pleasure to be here.”
God, Ernest ached to march up to her, wrap his hand around her waist, press her against him. His member throbbed against his leg with want. Almost as though she could sense it, Grace flashed her head back toward him, ogling him.
“Darling, would you like a spot of wine? I’m heading to the table.”
“Why don’t you join her? Bring us all fresh glasses,” Lord Bragg put in, almost as an order. “I must greet who I presume to be Lord Harrington?”
Lord Bragg stepped between Ernest and Diana, marching toward the hobbling Lord Harrington. Lord Harrington lent a s
trong smile, upping the volume of his voice to match Lord Bragg’s. In a sense, Ernest was regretful that Lord Harrington felt he had to perform in such a manner. However, he knew that Lord Harrington had been a part of society and its dreadful ways for his entire life; this was surely second nature to him.
A Seductive Lady Rescued From Flames (Historical Regency Romance) Page 12
