Chapter Twenty-Five
"I don’t understand," Constance said, holding the piece of parchment in her hand. "It makes no sense."
Charity plucked the note from her sister’s hand and read it with a frown.
"I don’t see what’s so complicated," she said with a shrug. "He asks you to call on him. You’ve done that before, haven’t you?"
"Yes, but…you don’t understand. The last time… I told him how I felt, and he did not respond in kind. And then – and then he just walked off, while he was showing me the castle."
"Walked off?" Charity said, inclining her head slightly. "You had an argument?"
Constance shook her head. "Not an argument. We were looking around the castle, and then he stopped outside a room, said he couldn’t do it, and just left."
"How odd. Why didn’t you tell me this before?"
"I don’t know. I didn’t want to discuss it, I suppose. It’s quite embarrassing to bare your soul and then have the man run away."
"I’m sure there’s far more to it than that," her sister said softly.
"Maybe. I think it might have had something to do with his late wife. She died giving birth to their child – and lost the child too."
Charity put a hand to her chest. "Heavens, how awful."
"I know. But I had accepted that it was over, that I needed to move past it. I didn’t intend ever to see him again. So this note, asking to see me – it’s baffling. I don’t know what to do."
"Well," Charity said, "quite obviously, you need to go and see him."
◆◆◆
Ezra paced the corridor as he waited for Constance to arrive. She hadn’t sent a note to say she would come, nor one to say she wouldn’t. So he could only hope that she would turn up at the allotted hour. He needed to explain his strange behaviour. He needed to tell her how he felt.
"Can I get you anything, my lord?" Soames asked, eyeing his master with a look of intrigue.
"No, thank you, Soames. If Lady Constance arrives, we’ll have tea in the library."
"Very good, my lord," he said with a bow before disappearing again.
Would she come? Would he, in her place, visit someone who had run off with no explanation and left him alone in a far corner of the castle? He wasn’t sure he would. But hopefully she was a better person than he – or at least curious enough to want to know what had happened.
And he had steeled himself to tell her.
When there finally was a knock on the door, Ezra nearly jumped out of his skin, not truly expecting it. He rushed to the door and answered it himself, pulling it open to find a surprised-looking Constance on the other side. For a moment they both froze, and then she smiled, and his heart raced.
"I didn’t think earls opened their own doors," she said, glancing behind him as if waiting to see Soames appear. "At least, I don’t think my father ever has."
"I’m not sure I’m a very good earl," he said with a laugh. "Or at least not a very conventional one."
"I’m not sure why I’m here," she admitted softly.
"I’m really glad you are," Ezra said, stepping aside. "Please, will you come in? I want to show you the castle."
"I’ve seen the castle."
"Not all of it."
◆◆◆
Constance did not understand Ezra’s plan, but she did know that she was pleased to see him – and that she had chosen to turn up in spite of it all. That had to mean something.
He was quiet as they walked through the hallway and up the stairs, heading in the same direction they had gone the last time she was there.
"You’re not going to abandon me again, are you?" she couldn’t help but ask.
"No – and I owe you an explanation."
"You don’t have to—" Constance began, feeling she ought to offer the nervous man an escape.
"I do. You told me why you’ve been running away from me, and I need to tell you why I have been doing the same."
She couldn’t help but smile at that. "We have both been running away, haven’t we?"
Ezra nodded. "But I don’t want to run any more."
Constance felt as though her heart flipped in her chest at those words. She didn’t want to run either. That was why she was here, wasn’t it? Well, that and the fact that Charity would never have let her get away with not coming.
They reached the door that had proved such a problem before, and Constance found herself holding her breath, wondering whether he would be able to go through. And then he took her hand, and all thoughts fell away. He took a deep breath and opened the door.
There was nothing terrifying behind it – as she had suspected.
They seemed to be the countess’s chambers: a bedchamber, and a circular turret room with a cosy armchair off to one side.
There was a hole in the roof, with a bucket beneath it, and yet other than that the room looked fairly undisturbed.
"These are the countess’s chambers," Ezra confirmed, and without letting go of her hand he moved forward, down another corridor and into another room with a damaged roof – the purpose of which was clear, but he said it anyway.
"And this is the nursery."
Constance didn’t know what to say. It felt as though anything she said now wouldn’t help, when he had been so strong as to come into these rooms that he had clearly avoided, and to show them to her – to stop running away.
He turned to her in the silence, and she saw his eyes were glassy.
"The late countess – Laura. I’m sure you know how she died."
Constance nodded, even though she didn’t really want to admit to listening to gossip.
"I have not been able to come into these rooms since she died. I have held myself responsible for her death, and the baby’s, for all these years. I hid myself away in grief at first – and then in guilt."
"But you’ve nothing to feel guilty for," Constance said, squeezing his hand where they were still joined.
"That’s something my mother agrees with you on – and I believe I’m beginning to see that what happened could not have been helped, that I could not be blamed for it.
"You told me of your fears that there would be someone prettier, that my interest would be pulled away, and I said nothing.
That was wrong of me, and you must forgive me.
Because, Constance – you are beautiful, and you are the only woman I have ever felt this way about.
I will not have my interest pulled away by another, because there is no one else.
You are the only woman I have ever considered marrying since Laura passed – and you are the only woman that I ever will. "
Constance was speechless. She had not expected this level of honesty, nor to hear that he wanted to marry her. It was all her dreams come true, even if she hated that he had been in so much pain for so long.
"I have run away from the world for so long, and you made me want to re-enter it. I know you have been scared – scared of being rejected, scared of being passed over – but I can promise you this: you are the only woman for me."
Tears came to her eyes, and she opened her mouth to speak, to tell him that she loved him – but instead he said, "Will you come into the library with me, for tea?"
It was such an abrupt departure from what they had been discussing that she felt rather in shock, as though every time he came closer he pulled away again.
But she nodded and silently followed him out of the rooms that had caused so much pain, down the stairs and into the library – the beautiful round room which had already been laid for tea.
He poured, and she smiled to herself; he really was an unconventional earl, answering his own door, pouring his own tea. She supposed he preferred privacy to always having his staff around.
"I feel I’ve overwhelmed you today," he said once they both had their cups.
"A little," Constance agreed with a smile.
"I wanted to tell you why I could not take you into those rooms the other day – why I have not been honest about the fact that I am in love with you, Constance, and I have been for some time."
Constance nearly choked on her tea, and she put the cup down, her hand shaking slightly.
"And I don’t think I told you that I am in love with you," she said, shocked that she could make herself say the words, though she knew her cheeks were burning red.
He smiled, and her heart raced even faster.
"I wanted to tell you about the past – about my fears, about why I have been so reticent. But I did not want to ask you to marry me surrounded by the past. Because this is what I want for the future, Constance: you and I, without being haunted by what came before. I’m not saying that I will never be scared, or that I will never fail and put a foot wrong – but if you’ll marry me, I promise I will spend my life making sure you always know how loved and cherished you are. "
◆◆◆
She was silent for what felt like forever, and he wondered if he had miscalculated – but then she had said she loved him, and he did not think she would shy away from his damaged self.
And he meant every word. As terrifying as the thought was of being married again, of potentially having children, he never wanted her to feel she wasn’t good enough, or that there was someone else waiting in the wings, ready to usurp her.
Because for him, she was everything.
He set down his teacup and wondered if he had not been clear enough, and so said, as clearly as he could, "Will you marry me, Constance?"
And she smiled, and said in a whisper he could barely hear, "Yes."