If I heard one more word concerning the difference between periwinkle and indigo, I was going to pull my own hair out from the roots. I'd tried my absolute best, over the last four days we'd been under the Duke's roof, to be as invested and participative in Emily's wedding plans as I possibly could. After all, that was why we were here. But these women discussed the most trivial matters and my head was splitting at the end of every afternoon spent in their company, bent over Lady Winterbourne' s antique marble table, arguing over flowers and guest lists and hors d'oeuvres.
Madison had asked me several times over the past five days, as she'd done the day the Duke showed up at our estate drenched from the rain and breathing hard from the ride, if I were alright. Apparently, simply being in his presence should have been enough to make me fall apart. But it didn't. And I wouldn't let it. So I kept my head high and smiled through all of the planning, adding my own thoughts here or there as needed. But five days in, I needed a break, just a hint of fresh air or a conversation about anything but whether lilies were too much of a summer flower.
So I excused myself from the drawing room and wandered down the various halls of the Duke's enormous estate, hoping to lose myself enough to have a valid excuse for an extended absence. That's when I heard someone sigh. It wasn't a loud sound but I could hear the exhaustion in it all the same. I turned to find a large mahogany door cracked open. Peering inside, I saw the Duke himself seated behind a massive desk, rubbing his forehead in frustration as he glared at some figures on a page in front of him.
I told myself to walk away, to return to the other women and leave him to his business. But I found myself pushing the door open instead. He looked up before I could say anything and his lips parted in surprise at the sight of me.
"Ella," he breathed, almost relieved to see me standing there. I didn't say anything. I just watched him, frozen. After a moment, his eyebrow quirked up in confusion. "Are you alright?"
"I-" I started but then realized I didn't have a plan for the rest of that sentence. So I switched tactics all together and cleared my throat, shook my head, and turned for the door. "I'm sorry. I heard you in here. But I shouldn't have interrupted. I'll go."
"No," he called out, getting quickly to his feet. I hesitated. "Please, come in."
I blinked, standing with my back to him and the door in front of me. I should leave. I should go back to the other women. I shouldn't be here, with him, alone. But still, I found myself turning back to face him.
"I've been meaning to talk to you," he told me slowly as if afraid he might scare me away. "Since you arrived. But it seems you've been... avoiding me."
I looked down at the floor. I had been.
"If I've done something to offend you-"
"Why?" I asked before he could finish his sentence. He paused for a moment, cocking his head to the side in question.
"I'm sorry. I don't know what-"
"You left," I interrupted again, voice firmer this time. And I managed to look at him, really look at him, my own eyes boring into his, demanding an answer.
"Ah," he replied in understanding, leaning back against his desk and looking down at his hands for some time before he spoke again. "I needed some time to sort things out. There are things you don't know about me, Ella."
"There are things you don't know about me either."
He raised a brow, a faint smirk of amusement on his lips.
"What are you saying, Your Grace?" I asked because I had to be sure, because I'd asked him once before and had gotten no answer. I couldn't ask again, couldn't risk my heart like that again. Not when he'd broken it so wholly the first time.
"I told you," he started, pushing off of his desk and approaching me where I stood by the door. My breath hitched as he drew near and I felt my heart beating rapidly against my rib cage. When he was close enough, he reached out a hand and brushed a small stray bit of hair away from my face, tucking it behind my ear and lingering there, the pad of his thumb rubbing tiny circles just below my earlobe. "Call me Victor."
My lips parted as I waited to see what he would do next. He was staring into my eyes with that look I'd seen so many times before and always hoped desperately that it meant what I thought it meant.
"And I'm saying what I should have said before," he told me. "I'm taken with you, Ella. Completely, utterly taken. And on the risk of overstepping, I think you feel the same."
I did. But still I feared heartbreak. I needed something solid to put my trust in, I needed a promise from him somehow. He seemed to understand that without my having to ask. Withdrawing his hand from my face, he stepped back, smiling at me.
"We haven't exactly done this formally," he mused. "But I'd like to start. Now."
My smile faltered. Now? In the midst of planning my sister's wedding? My sister who always insisted that I did everything I did just to overshadow her. I would be proving her right. So I shook my head and his smile slipped.
"I can't," I told him. "Not now."
His brow furrowed.
"My apologies," he replied slowly. "I suppose I've misinterpreted some signs of interest. I thought that you-"
"I am interested," I said and couldn't help the way my eyes swept him up and down. "Very."
That smirk was back. I wanted to smack it right off his face or kiss it off of his lips, I wasn't sure.
"But I've overshadowed Emily by accident my entire life," I tried to explain. "This would be... well, it's her wedding, Your Gr- Victor. If I started courting a Duke now, it would seem like she was right about me all along and that I'm doing what I've always done even now when it's her time to shine. And my mother, oh, I can't even imagine the horror she would be, the strain she would put on any possible relationship between us. She would insert herself, you know. Try to plan out our dates, when we see each other, what we do. We'd have no freedom and, as a result, wouldn't very well be able to get to know one another in a way proper to-"
I became suddenly aware that I had been ranting. But he only sat back, leaning against his desk again, smiling at me and listening. Heat flooded my cheeks at the realization of how nutty I was sounding.
"I understand," he said simply when I finally stopped myself. "But I don't want to wait. So, why don't we get to know each other still? In secret. No one has to know. Whenever you can get away to see me and whenever I can get away to see you."
I nodded, thinking on his proposition. It sounded reasonable.
"To be fair, your mother isn't the only matriarch we should concern ourselves with," he joked, rounding the desk to return to his work now that we'd reached an agreement. "If my mother were to discover our relationship, she wouldn't stop until she saw you down the aisle yourself."
He'd meant it as a joke, lighthearted, a jest. But I couldn't stop the mental image forming in the back of my mind as I excused myself from his office and returned to the drawing room all the same.