My Wild Heart (Regency Shakespeare Book 2)

by Martha Keyes

  “No!”

  His head whipped back around, and Edith let out a breath to calm herself.

  “Don’t, Matthew. I still have a few days to find another solution.”

  She had to find another solution. The thought of Elias marrying her for the sake of his own reputation had repelled her; but the thought of him doing so for the sake of hers? It was too humiliating, too painful to be entertained, even for a second. Being married out of self-interest was abhorrent to her; but being married out of chivalry was even worse.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Edith was not at dinner that evening, but all that was said on the matter was she had a headache and intended to take dinner in her room. The time after dinner was filled with games of whist. Elias found himself making thoughtless mistakes, and he felt Matthew’s eyes on him each time. The hard light had disappeared from his gaze, though, and Elias wondered if Edith had spoken with him after all.

  He bowed out of the final game, letting Viola take his place, and slipped out of the room unnoticed.

  He slept in fits again, with thoughts of Edith filling both his dreams and the time awake between them. When the morning dawned brighter than any of the mornings in recent memory, the light felt too bright for Elias’s tired eyes. As he stood from pulling on his boots, he ran a hand through his hair, blinking to dispel the weight that seemed to hang on his lids.

  He clenched his eyes shut as he stepped toward the window. Gad, he’d said terrible things to Edith in the library. And she’d deprived him of the opportunity to apologize when she had failed to come to dinner.

  No wonder she had hardly blinked when he’d said he’d loved her. How could she possibly believe it?

  He didn’t really expect her to marry him out of concern for his honor. In fact, he’d much rather she not do it with such a motivation. He had merely spoken out of pain—the pain of constantly having thrown in his face just how little she wished to marry him—and to what ends she was willing to go to avoid it.

  It hurt him—hurt him in a humiliating way that dredged up old feelings he’d tried to lay to rest. Memories of his mother powdering her face—somehow entirely free of tears—as she prepared to go out for the night, a mere two weeks after losing a child. Not all the chastising and reasoning of Elias’s father could sway her, not all of Elias’s begging—not even his father’s tears for little Caroline, the daughter he had prayed for for years. His mother had wished herself anywhere but with them, had found any excuse to be elsewhere, just as she had when Elias’s father had died years later.

  Elias repelled women. They might flirt with him and bat their eyelashes at him, but when the day of reckoning came—when he showed any hint of sincerity or any vulnerability—they were nowhere to be found.

  He gazed out over the gardens of Shipton House, punctuated as they were with blots of vibrant color in the late morning light. The blots looked to be roses, and their color felt at odds with the bleakness of the future he foresaw. A gardener knelt among the bushes, his hands in the dirt of the most colorful part of the garden, where reds, pinks, and yellows dotted the rectangular bed in the center of the small boxwood labyrinth.

  Elias hated feeling so somber and weighed down, and the order and vibrance of the gardens called to him. Almost without thinking, he made his way there, drawn to the color and the smell he imagined. Absently, he wound through the labyrinth, coming up against dead ends again and again. When he finally emerged into the center, the gardener looked up.

  “Excuse me, sir,” the man said, rising from his knees and bowing deferentially.

  “No, no,” Elias replied. “You needn’t leave.” He glanced at the pile of leaves and stems at the gardener’s feet.

  The gardener followed his gaze. “Just cleaning up a little. We have a few shy ones that need a bit of extra help.” He smiled and indicated a few of the roses that had yet to bloom.

  Elias approached them, narrowing his eyes and scanning the sea of vibrant reds around the three sealed flowers. If the gardener hadn’t drawn his eyes to them, Elias would never have noticed the buds. They blended in with the leaves, only a hint of color visible at the very tips.

  He looked at the nearest one, closed in a tight spade at the top of a stem whose thorns dared him to attempt a touch. The closed flower looked nothing like the full, cascading blooms around it. He reached for one of the open ones, just below the fist-sized bloom, then drew his hand away quickly. A speck of blood appeared on the tip of his finger.

  “Aye,” the gardener said with a smile. “They hide their claws well.” He displayed his gloved hands, wiggling his fingers a bit. “It’s why I wear these.”

  Elias chuckled and reached for one of the green buds curiously. “Why have all the others bloomed while these have not?”

  The gardener surveyed the flowerbeds with a discerning eye. “Some of them need a little extra warmth and light—often they’ve been blocked by overgrown leaves or other flowers.” He gave the pile of cut leaves a nudge with his dirty boot.

  “But you can make them bloom?”

  “If I’ve done my job, these buds will bloom every bit as bright as the others in a week—maybe two.” He touched the tip of a closed bud with his gloved finger. “Once you know what the problem is, it isn’t too difficult to fix it.”

  The sound of footsteps brought their heads around.

  Edith looked back and forth between them. She wore a yellow dress that might have been intentionally selected for how well it matched some of the roses. “Do you have ambitions to become a gardener, Elias?” She was teasing him—a fact which relieved him greatly—but there was something in her demeanor that spoke unease. Was she regretting what she had said as much as he was?

  “Not unless a garden full of dead plants becomes the fashion. I am glad you’ve come, though. I was hoping to have a word with you.”

  The gardener looked back and forth between them, then sprang to motion. “Well, I’m done here, so I’ll be on my merry way.” He gathered up his things and excused himself.

  Edith watched his retreat, her fingers fiddling with the skirts of her gown. Elias hated that he had said anything that might have hurt her.

  “I am sorry,” he said.

  Her fingers stopped, and her gaze moved toward him slowly.

  He shook his head. “I would never wish you to sacrifice yourself for my honor, Edith, and I shouldn’t have said the things I did.” He met her gaze squarely, and his heart began to pound.

  “We were both angry,” she said with a lift of the shoulders.

  He shook his head. “It was more than that, Edith. I suspect you don’t wish to hear it again, but I cannot be silent until I am sure you understand.” He swallowed, forcing himself to hold her gaze, to welcome her reaction, whatever it might be. “I love you.” He smiled wryly, casting his eyes up at the sky. “Heaven help this besotted fool, but I do.” He wanted to step toward her, to wrap her in his arms, and show her—to remove any doubt about how he felt.

  But she stood feet away from him, rigid.

  “I will not ask you to marry me to save your reputation or mine. But I would be dishonest if I did not confess that I do wish to marry you.”

  She swallowed, and her eyes flickered before she looked away. “You think you love me. That is all.”

  He took a step toward her, noting how she pulled back ever so slightly. “Can a man not know his own mind, then? Or his own heart?”

  She took a full step back, and he stopped in place, frozen by her defensive action.

  She wouldn’t look at him, instead training her gaze on her gloved fingers, which fiddled in front of her abdomen. “Did you know that my parents fancied themselves in love when they married?”

  He shook his head. He had never seen Mr. and Mrs. Donne give any indication that they were more than occupants in the same home, holding each other in civil but mutual dislike.

  Edith’s gaze moved to the flowers. “They did. I imagine it hasn’t escaped your notice that they are hardly in
love anymore.”

  He pressed his lips together, aware of what she was really saying. “We are not your parents, Edith.”

  “We are not. But we already argue as much as they do. Did you know that my sister Lydia married her husband for love? They have been married five years now, and they spend their time at estates in different parts of the country, her with the children, him with his mistress.”

  “I did not know that.”

  “She is miserable,” she said softly.

  “I am very sorry, Edith. But that need not be our story.”

  She finally met his gaze, her eyes steely. “And what of the women whose affections you have toyed with? Why should I be any different from them?”

  His brows snapped together. “What?”

  “Come. You are handsome, good with words, confident, and well-to-do. You speak of women with the greatest disdain. I hardly needed Matthew to tell me of your conquests—or that you have bragged about them.”

  He blinked. “My conquests?”

  She raised her brows at him.

  He rubbed his cheek harshly. When he had told his first untruth about his experience with women, he had suspected that it might come back to haunt him. But he had never imagined it would be the woman he loved confronting him about it. Gad, he had never expected to love a woman! “These conquests you speak of—they are conquests I fabricated to appease people like your brother who are forever goading me to give in to the women pretending they care the snap of their fingers for me. I did it to make them stop.”

  She let out a disbelieving scoff.

  “You are too ready to believe anything but the truth, Edith.” He stepped toward her. “I love you. Only you. For all you make me wish to tear my hair out at times, I love you.”

  She put up her hands to stop him, clenching her eyes shut. “Please. We cannot marry.” Her hands dropped to her sides, and she lifted her chin, that determined look filling her gaze. “And I ask you not to speak of it to me again. You may hate me and think me the most selfish creature alive for jeopardizing your honor—and I won’t even argue that with you—but I assure you it is preferable to our marrying.” She swallowed. “I merely came to tell you that I paid a visit to Miss Perry yesterday.”

  He said nothing. He already knew her reason for going. Miss Perry was her only chance at salvaging her reputation—the one person who might save her from Elias.

  “Mr. Stratton managed to find her—and threaten her—until she put into writing that both your character and mine had been ruined by our time at The Old Dog.”

  Elias pinched his lips into a line, wishing a fate befitting such a cur to befall Mr. Stratton. “What, then? You brave your father’s ire by refusing to marry?”

  Edith balled her hands into fists, looking away. “There is one more thing I can do.”

  “What? Your father will have the license within the next two days.”

  She avoided his eye. “I am going to speak with Mr. Stratton directly.”

  His jaw went slack.

  She glanced at him. “Don’t try to dissuade me. My mind is quite set. He is a villain, but even a villain has a heart somewhere inside.”

  “And you think yourself capable of appealing to this supposed heart of his? Gad, Edith, Mr. Stratton is the last person in the world I would wish you to grovel to, even were you capable of such a thing. The man is dangerous. You mustn’t go anywhere near him.”

  “I am quite capable of—”

  “Taking care of yourself, yes, I know. And yet, somehow we find ourselves here.” He shook his head, fixing his eyes upon her intently. “Don’t go, Edith.”

  Her nostrils flared. “I shall make no such promise.”

  “Then allow me to go with you.”

  Her brows drew together. “I hardly think that would be conducive to the purpose of the visit. I trust you not to interfere.” There was no mistaking the threat in her words.

  And how could Elias interfere? How could he thwart Edith when it would mean forcing her into marrying him?

  She held his eyes for one more moment, then turned back into the labyrinth.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Edith’s body quaked as she walked the familiar path through the labyrinth. She found it impossible to swallow. She put out a hand in front of her, watching it tremble, then clenched it. She had never felt less in command of herself.

  She had nearly yielded in the garden. She had not been prepared for Elias to renew his declaration of love. Every reason she had carefully gathered to feel justified in her decision not to marry him had been assailed. She had only one reason to refuse him at this point, and she was certain Elias saw right to the core of it. She had made it easy enough, after all.

  He saw that she was not strong—she was weak. She was fragile. She was terrified.

  And she had felt so fearful of the impulse inside her—the one that told her to walk straight into his arms and admit that she returned his regard, that she had never wanted anything so much as to love him and be loved in return—that she had spoken her fears for the first time. Fears ill-masked as reasons for not marrying.

  And she was such a coward that she would allow the man she loved to face Society’s ill opinion rather than confront those fears. But she would rather be a coward than watch as Elias’s love and her own love faded, only to be replaced with resentment or apathy. That she couldn’t bear.

  She dashed away an angry tear, trying to draw in a deep breath and finding that it shook just like her hands and legs.

  Her heart urged her to return to the rose garden, and she stood just beyond the entrance to the maze, her fears and desires battling within her fiercely. But she knew the truth: she would lose no matter which won out in the end.

  When Elias finally left the rose garden, he spent twice as long in the labyrinth as he had on his journey in, despite knowing the way better this time. He came upon impassible hedge after impassible hedge, but he was too numb to muster the concentration necessary to mind which turns he had already taken.

  Should he leave Shipton House or stay? To leave felt cowardly—and in direct opposition to Mr. Donne, who would no doubt be returning soon with the license.

  And yet, what was the point in staying? Edith was determined not to marry him, whether or not her visit to Mr. Stratton was a success. His stomach clenched at the thought of her confronting the man. He didn’t know John Stratton apart from their brief encounters at The Old Dog, but Edith’s and Oxley’s words had been enough to get a fair idea of him. Elias knew enough men like him—men who were willing to go to any length to propel their interests forward—that it made him sick to think what Edith might endure during such an encounter. She was more likely to make Stratton angry than to persuade him against his own interests.

  In a few days, it would be the second anniversary of the passing of Elias’s father. He ached to have him there, to lay his predicament before him and receive his counsel. He sent a glance heavenward, wishing he could hear his father’s voice one more time, his father who knew exactly what it was to deal with an intractable woman.

  But the heavens were quiet—a mass of gray clouds, rolling inexorably across the sky.

  He stopped in the courtyard in front of Shipton House. He didn’t want to go inside—he might suffocate there. Instead, he ordered his horse to be saddled, hardly aware of the opening and closing of the front door nearby.

  “Eli!” Matthew hurried toward him. “Been looking for you everywhere. I wanted to speak with you last night after dinner, but you disappeared during cards.” His eyes moved to Elias’s horse. “Are you going for a ride?”

  Elias looked at Matthew’s lip. It was less swollen than it had been yesterday, but it was still a visible reminder of the wedge between them.

  “Yes, I need some fresh air.”

  Matthew called to the stable hand, ordering his own horse to be readied. “I shall join you. Oh, don’t look at me like that! I need to talk to you.”

  Elias nodded, irked that his ride wou
ld no longer be a solo one yet too drained to combat Matthew over it. Apparently, he would be read a lecture. Ah well, better in the fresh air than in the oppressive indoors.

  They made their way to the stables in silence, the only talk occurring between them and the servants who were preparing the horses. Elias had nothing to say. He considered apologizing for Matthew’s lip, but the truth was he didn’t regret it. Matthew had been insufferable for talking to Edith like he did—they had been harsh words from a man who had no idea what he was talking about.

  They swung their legs over the saddles in unison and urged their horses forward, Matthew set slightly back, making it clear that he was expecting Elias to lead the way.

  “Listen, Eli,” Matthew finally said as they followed the long drive away from the house. “I wanted to apologize for the way I’ve been acting.”

  Elias held up a hand to stop him.

  “No,” Matthew said. “Let me finish. When I found out you and Edith had run off, I was furious.” He gave a wry chuckle. “I crushed her note and threw it against the wall, then had the carriage prepared so I could run after you and teach you a lesson. But I see now what was under that fury—my own terror.”

  Elias glanced at him, and he could see the apology in Matthew’s eyes.

  “I saw two people I love making the worst decision of their lives. I knew you and Edith would make each other miserable, and I couldn’t understand how you could have persuaded yourselves otherwise.”

  Elias turned his head away, his heart panging at the words. Everyone but Elias seemed convinced he couldn’t make Edith happy, and it hurt in places he had never felt before to hear that people thought him incapable of doing the one thing he wanted to do more than anything.

  “But my mother told me to leave it be. She ordered me not to go after you, and I was mad as fire, trying to tell her what I’d seen in the library and how you were playing with Edith’s heart. But she insisted.” He lifted his shoulders. “And somehow she made me think that maybe you didn’t have the worst of intentions, since all I could think of was the story of you and Miss Franklin and the way you led her such a pretty dance.”