Perhaps it was already too late. Grace’s eyes lingered upon him, even as her smile fell away. It seemed she couldn’t possibly remain with such a bright smile for so long, as her heart was entirely black.
Ernest was grateful that the dinner ended not long after that, allowing them all to dart away from the table and fumble back to the other garden. He gripped a glass of wine and cast his eyes toward the far gardens, where he spotted Diana and Rose walking slowly, arm in arm. He suspected he knew what they were talking about. Him. Grace. The situation that he struggled finding a solution for.
And, already, it seemed that Grace had found a solution for him. There was no answer, except for Diana leaving his life for good. But would he truly just fall to whatever Grace wanted for him, for the rest of his life?
As he stood at the edge of the party, he felt a presence sidle up beside him. He glanced down at the figure of Aunt Renata, who was peering at him in a manner that was quite different than usual. Ordinarily, Ernest thought she was a bit of an airhead—although entirely lovely and lovable, of course. He blinked at her several times, almost incredulous, waiting. He sensed she was on the brink of saying something.
But what was it? What could it possibly be?
“I see you, you know,” Aunt Renata uttered then. She drew her tongue across her cracked lips in a manner that might have been appealing, had she been much younger.
As it stood, of course, she was much over the limit for such a thing, operating with the same mechanics of a younger woman. Ernest was frozen, unable to move from where she’d pegged him.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“You know,” Aunt Renata said, arching her brow. “I see how generous Grace is, regarding this fresh offer from her uncle… It’s almost as though she crafted it out of thin air, isn’t it?”
“No, no,” Ernest stammered, his words stuttering and crashing into one another. “It’s not that at all…” He sensed that she was being speculative, that she heard the anger and triumph in Grace’s words.
He couldn’t have Aunt Renata seeing his weakness. Could he?
“I see the way you and my niece look at one another,” Aunt Renata continued, giving him a playful nudge with her elbow. “It’s not like I was born yesterday, although I wish I was. Life is such a gift. And I don’t want you to squander it.”
“I’m not—” Ernest began.
Renata stretched her hand across his chest, clucking her tongue. “That’s ridiculous, and we both know it,” she said, cutting him off. “You’re allowing yourself to be roped into a marriage that you don’t want. You know fully that marriage is your entire life, don’t you? That each and every day, you’ll be reminded of a decision that you made ten, twenty, thirty years ago… Not that I was ever allowed such a beautiful thing.
“And truly, it can be beautiful, if you allow it to be. I’ve seen countless marriages that should never have formed. Ordinarily, you know it from the outset, even at the wedding itself. You sit in the church and watch them merge their lives together—all the while with a heaviness in your heart, for you know they’re making a mistake that they can’t return from. You wish you could race up to the pulpit and tear them apart. You imagine they’ll be angry, at least at first. But then, you know they’ll thank you, in the long run. That if they were only thinking clearly—outside the bounds of parties and society’s rules—they would recognize how ill-suited they are.”
Aunt Renata stepped closer to him, in a manner that made Ernest half-believe she wanted to kiss him.
“I know you don’t want to marry Grace, Lord Bannerman. I see it in every motion you make with your body, in the way you hold your face. So, this is me, just a few weeks before you stand before the entire church and pledge your undying love to Grace Bragg, till death do you part.”
Renata winked at him when she said this, as though she was celebrating her own cleverness.
After Renata’s seemingly endless tirade, Ernest longed to blare that she hadn’t a real clue about any of this—that she’d never been married, herself. How could she say that those people she said didn’t have enough “love” to marry weren’t better off with one another, rather than with someone else?
But, of course, this wasn’t fair. Ernest hadn’t a clue what had gone on in Renata’s personal life. She’d been living with Lord Harrington and Diana since the death of her sister and mother—yet Ernest would probably never know the chaos of Aunt Renata’s life before then.
Perhaps she was speaking from experience. Perhaps she’d had an engagement that hadn’t gone through. Perhaps her fiancé had died before they’d been able to merge their worlds together.
There was no way to know. And Ernest had long-ago given up on the idea of assuming anything. It was poisonous, to do such a thing.
“Don’t you wish to live in her uncle’s estate?” Ernest asked, his voice raspy. Why didn’t he have the confidence to interrupt her, to tell her she was incorrect in all things? Perhaps he didn’t have the energy to lie any longer.
“Well, I don’t see how it could be any better than our current situation, Lord Bannerman,” Renata replied. “Truly, your estate is entirely too large for just a few people. My brother is quite proud, of course, but he hasn’t uttered a single complaint in the wake of arriving to your mansion. Even still, if I’m honest with you—which I see no reason not to be—it seems to me that the increased socializing has done some good for my brother. Also, he’s up walking, enjoying nature, far more than he was back home. I would never go as far to say that the fire was a good thing for us at the Harrington household. How could I possibly? But it certainly shifted us from our humdrum existence. Perhaps God always knows the proper way.”
Again, Ernest’s eyes traced the path toward Diana and Rose. Renata’s elbow found his arm, stabbing into him.
“Go to her. Speak with her. She’s endlessly upset. Our Diana doesn’t exhibit her emotions in the same manner as most women. Perhaps you want her to scream at you, to cry. But she would never ask you to do anything. She would never put herself between you and your future, if she felt you wanted it.”
After a pause, Renata continued, “You must make up your mind, Lord Bannerman. As the earl, I know that your life is filled with endless numbers of decisions. You probably wanted the ease of falling into a marriage with the woman your father wanted. Yet life and the love you find within it are the most complex things of all.”
She pressed her nose forward, her eyes glittering. “Go to her. Now.”
Ernest felt the words like a punch.
Chapter 14
Diana felt she was walking through a horrific nightmare. Grass striped itself across her ankles as she scampered from the gardens, her head thudding with panic. Beside her, Rose scuttled along, her voice ripping in and out of Diana’s consciousness. Try as she might, Diana simply couldn’t focus on what Rose was saying.
“Come now, Diana….” Rose tried, as Diana stumbled to a halt and drew her hands across her knees. She huffed, staring down at her feet. Why did it seem that the ground no longer held steady beneath her? She felt that the world was shifting to and fro. It was akin to the earthquakes she’d read about, which happened out east.
“What do you mean, come now?” Diana murmured, her mouth growing dry. “I can’t possibly. I can hardly breathe. It’s as though I’m still locked in the mansion with the fire crawling around me. There isn’t enough oxygen for this horror.”
Rose’s hand stretched across her back. Diana shook wildly at the touch, although she welcomed it. Her father, her aunt hadn’t lent themselves to such beautiful comforting in all the years since Diana’s sister had passed away. Diana had had to learn to comfort herself from the inside—whispering little prayers and poems to herself. And, of course, the endless talking with her invisible sister, whom she sensed all around her.
“Let’s walk a bit further before we break down fully, shall we?” Rose suggested, her voice heavy. “I don’t wish Grace to see all that she’s putt
ing you through. Of course, she must suspect—”
Diana’s nostrils flared. She drew her head up to stare at Rose, flummoxed. “You really think she could possibly guess…?”
Rose shrugged. “Perhaps not.”
But Diana knew that Rose was only saying this to make her feel better.
Diana stumbled forward, grabbing Rose’s elbow for support. They meandered past the last garden and to the edge of the forest. Diana blinked at the mighty trees, their thick trunks, and yearned once more to scamper up them, find herself in the crisp spring air above.
As Grace Bragg’s estate was located relatively near to her own family’s, she sensed her own memories lurking on the other side of this woods. This meant that these were the very woods in which her sister had been found dead, thus altering the course of Diana’s life forever—and ending the life of their mother.
“What are you looking at?” Rose asked, her voice hushed.
“Nothing,” Diana whispered back. She pressed her lips together for a moment, her eyes not flickering away from the woods. “It’s only that I’m at a loss of what to do next. I suppose that makes me seem entirely weak…”
“No. It makes my brother look confused. There’s nothing you can do about the situation, if he doesn’t act,” Rose affirmed. “You’ve behaved marvellously. You see the instant attraction between the two of you and you acknowledge it and that, in and of itself, is more beautiful than most love stories. It’s an impossible love story, perhaps. One that deserves a much better ending than it will receive.”
Diana’s eyes welled with tears. “You already speak as though it’s the end.”
Rose squeezed Diana’s elbow again, so hard that Diana felt sure she might bruise. She forced herself not to utter a squeal, although this was her instinct. Pain shot itself up and down her arm.
“You know, I always had such an appreciation for the woods,” she murmured. “Perhaps I could be happy as a sort of witch, living amongst the trees, collecting herbs and flowers for various potions…”
“Maybe you could even cook one up to poison our favourite friend Grace,” Rose offered.
“That’s quite evil of you to say, Rose,” Diana scolded, although her heart surged with love.
How was it possible that she wouldn’t have Rose as her sister-in-law, officially, forever? It seemed written in the stars that it would be so. And yet, Diana knew that she had to admit the hard facts were the hard facts, the only things that could be acknowledged. Their lives were separate, and growing increasingly so by the minute. She could thank Grace Bragg for that, certainly. But finding an alternate place to say had always been a necessity. How could she possibly live at the Bannerman estate alongside Grace—watching them in the early thralls of marriage?
Diana knew better than to assume that Ernest wouldn’t, in a sense, take his wife. He was a man, after all, with subsequent needs.
Even the thought of this was far too much for Diana to bear.
She reached for Rose’s arms and held them tightly, gazing at Rose with tears in her eyes. Why couldn’t she get a grip on herself? Why had she been strong through so much of the chaos of her life, only to be brought down by her feelings of idiotic love?
“I must go, Rose,” she murmured.
“What are you talking about?” Rose asked. Her eyebrows furrowed together. “You’re acting entirely crazy, you know. I don’t mean to say Grace doesn’t make a person crazy; she does. It’s just—this look in your eyes. It’s something I haven’t seen before…”
“I’m sorry, Rose,” Diana said again. Her thoughts raced themselves around inside her skull. She couldn’t capture them, nor control them. “I truly am.”
With that, Diana cut toward the forest, tossing herself between the gaps in the trees. Her feet padded across the mud, carrying her deeper and deeper. Almost immediately, the air changed around her, becoming muggy and thick, almost green in its flavouring. This was something Diana loved most about the forest—that it had a mind completely of its own, and it forced your own mind to merge with it. You became a far different organism, with the forest exhibiting itself for you. There was no more birth, no more death. It was just the coming and going of the plants and the animals and the air.
Diana’s legs stretched further, deeper. She was sprinting, losing all concept of time and growing increasingly fatigued. In some wretched, back area of her mind, she prayed that she would have the strength to join her sister. She felt she didn’t have another door to open.
Perhaps the forest—and her past—were all she had.
Chapter 15
After the dinner disbanded, Grace watched Ernest as he ambled toward Diana and Rose, stopping before he grew too close. Aunt Renata stomped over to him, speaking almost conspiratorially toward his ear, as though she didn’t want anyone else to hear what she was saying.
What on earth could Aunt Renata—that complete and utter imbecile—have to say to Ernest Bannerman that she didn’t want Grace Bragg, nor any of her other guests, to hear?
Grace formed her lips into a half-smirk. Her heart hammered strangely, as though she’d suddenly forgotten that, in essence, in the previous 30 minutes, she’d won. She’d heard word about her uncle departing England and had framed the entire situation in a way that showed just how kind-hearted and thoughtful she was. When she’d brought the issue up with her father the previous afternoon, in fact, her father’s eyes had welled with tears. “I knew I raised a remarkable human, but I truly am surprised by your generosity every single day, Grace,” he’d said. “Lord Bannerman is entirely too lucky to call you his fiancée and, soon, his wife. Can you imagine how thrilled he’ll be that you’re looking out for his new companions, now, in the midst of this horrific incident?”
“I know, Father. But it’s essential that we look after those who are weaker than us, isn’t it?” Grace had heard herself say, her eyes glowing.
How marvellous she’d become at lying. It was always a skill she’d had, one that she’d developed since she’d been a young girl, attempting to get everything she wanted—from another few minutes of play time to an extra piece of cake.
Her cousin Penelope appeared beside her now, matching her gaze and watching as Ernest and Aunt Renata continued their strange discourse.
Penelope coughed slightly, then whispered, “I know precisely what you’re up to, Grace Bragg.”
Grace’s eyes flickered toward her cousin. She’d grown up alongside Sarah and Penelope, just as she’d grown up alongside Ernest—yet she knew that Sarah and Penelope had a far greater sense of her inner powers than Ernest did.
“I don’t suppose I know what you’re talking about,” Grace replied, tilting her head.
“Oh, yes, you do,” Penelope assured her. She rubbed her hands together in the wake of the sudden evening chill. “You look at that strange Diana girl as though she’s fresh meat, set before you to rip through. I don’t blame you, of course. The girl is clearly wretched, having eyes only for your fiancé. Can you imagine having the gall to come to someone’s garden party, only to gaze with such longing at that person’s soon-to-be husband?”
Grace’s voice grew deep, ensuring that no one else heard her words. “Gall, indeed. I truly cannot envision a more evil human. But with this new strategy in place, she’ll be out of my hair in no time.”
Penelope sniffed. “I wouldn’t be so sure of it. Although I know you’ve set down all the proper ingredients for your win, Diana truly seems like a snake. I wouldn’t take your eyes off of her.”
Grace’s eyes now flashed toward the line of trees where Rose stood, strangely alone. Grace tilted her head, recognizing that she had, indeed, lost track of little Diana Harrington. Although, she supposed it didn’t truly matter, as she still had eyes on her reckless fiancé. As long as Diana was off somewhere destroying herself alone, Grace hadn’t a care in the world.
A Seductive Lady Rescued From Flames (Historical Regency Romance) Page 14