Chapter 39
“Louise! Come quickly! Something wonderful is happening in the parlor!”
Emily’s voice carried up the narrow stairs with an excitement Louise hadn’t heard in weeks. She set down her mending, the torn hem forgotten as her sister’s footsteps thundered overhead with complete abandonment of proper behavior.
“Emily, whatever is the matter?” Louise rose from the threadbare chair, her back protesting after hours hunched over needlework.
Emily burst into the room, her cheeks flushed pink with exertion and something else. Joy, Louise realized with a start. Pure, uncomplicated joy that had been absent since they’d left Calborough House.
“You have to come now!” Emily grabbed Louise’s hand, tugging with surprising strength. “Before it’s too late!”
“Before what’s too late? Emily, you’re not making sense.”
But Emily was already dragging her toward the stairs, practically vibrating with barely contained delight. “Just come! Please, Louise! It’s important!”
Louise allowed herself to be pulled along, concern mixing with curiosity. The house had been quiet all morning, George buried in his ledgers, and Mrs. Fielding at market. She’d heard nothing unusual, no visitors announced, yet Emily acted as if Christmas had arrived six weeks early.
They reached the parlor door, and Emily paused, her small hand on the handle. She looked up at Louise with eyes bright as stars. “Promise you won’t run away?”
“Run away from what? Emily, you’re frightening me.”
“Promise!” Emily’s grip tightened on the door handle.
“I promise.” The words emerged before Louise could consider what she might be agreeing to.
Emily threw open the door and pulled Louise inside.
Louise stopped dead, her heart forgetting how to beat.
The shabby parlor had been transformed into a miniature theater. Their few pieces of furniture pushed against walls to create space. Sheets draped from the ceiling formed makeshift curtains. Candles blazed everywhere, turning the dingy room golden.
And in the center of it all stood Aaron.
He wore what appeared to be a cape fashioned from burgundy velvet, and a paper crown sitting askew on his dark hair. Beside him, Buttercup sported his old doublet from the Romeo performance, though someone had added a magnificent paper ruff that the dog was already attempting to eat.
George stood near the window, his expression suggesting he’d been ambushed into attendance. Lady Merrow presided from the best chair, wearing the theatrical turban from weeks ago, her eyes suspiciously bright.
“Excellent timing!” Lady Merrow rose with regal authority. “George, we should check on … that thing. In the kitchen. Immediately.”
George blinked in confusion. “What thing?”
Lady Merrow grabbed his arm with surprising force. “The urgent thing that requires our immediate attention. Come along.”
She practically dragged him from the room, though not before Louise caught the smile tugging at his lips. The door closed with decisive finality.
Emily guided Louise to a chair positioned front and center, pressing on her shoulders until she sat. “You have to watch the entire performance. It’s very important.”
Louise’s hands trembled as she gripped the chair arms. Aaron hadn’t looked at her directly yet, his attention focused on adjusting Buttercup’s costume. The dog’s tail wagged with enough force to create a minor windstorm.
“Ladies and … lady,” Emily announced with theatrical grandeur, “I present to you the tragic tale of the duke who was actually an idiot!”
Louise’s breath caught. Aaron’s head lifted slightly, color rising in his cheeks, but he remained in character.
Emily cleared her throat dramatically. “Once upon a time, there was a very silly duke who lived in a very big house with a very loyal dog.”
Buttercup barked on cue, or possibly because he’d spotted a biscuit in Emily’s pocket.
“The duke was very good at many things,” Emily continued, pacing before her audience of one. “He could fight bad men and save people and make sure little girls had warm beds and good food. But he was very, very bad at one thing.”
Aaron stepped forward, his cape swirling with practiced flair that made Louise’s chest tighten with memory. When he spoke, his voice carried self-mockery that cut through her defenses.
“I cannot speak of matters of the heart,” he proclaimed in an exaggerated theatrical tone. “For I am too busy being noble and tragic and alone!”
Despite everything, Louise felt her lips twitch.
Emily nodded sagely. “The duke thought being alone kept everyone safe. But really, it just made everyone sad. Especially his dog.”
Buttercup chose that moment to flop onto his side with a dramatic sigh that would have done any actor proud. His ruff slipped sideways, giving him a rakish air.
“One day,” Emily continued, moving to stand beside Aaron, “a lady came to the duke’s house. She was brave and kind, and she made everyone happy. Even the duke, though he pretended not to be.”
Aaron’s gaze finally found Louise’s, and the impact nearly stopped her heart. His eyes held everything he’d never said, everything he’d been too afraid to admit, everything she’d dreamed of seeing there.
“The duke fell in love with the lady,” Emily announced. “But he was too scared to tell her because his father had been mean, and he thought maybe he would be mean too.”
Aaron winced at the simplified but accurate assessment. His fingers twisted in the cape’s fabric, a nervous gesture Louise had never seen from him before.
“But that’s stupid!” Emily declared with six-year-old authority. “The duke was never mean. He read stories and gave presents and let dogs eat his flowers. Mean people don’t do that.”
Buttercup barked agreement, though he’d become distracted by trying to eat his own costume.
“So, the Duke practiced being brave,” Emily said. “He practiced and practiced until he could say the most important words.”
She nudged Aaron forward. He moved toward Louise with none of his usual grace, stumbling slightly over Buttercup, who had chosen that moment to sprawl across the makeshift stage.
Aaron stopped directly before Louise’s chair. Up close, she could see his hands shaking slightly. The paper crown sat ridiculously and endearingly on his dark hair. Candlelight caught the gold flecks in his eyes, the same eyes that had haunted her dreams for weeks.
“The duke would like to say,” he began, his theatrical voice cracking slightly, “that he has been the greatest fool in all of England. Possibly Europe. Perhaps the entire world.”
Louise’s vision blurred. She pressed her hands harder against the chair arms to keep from reaching for him.
“The duke would also like to say,” Aaron continued, his voice dropping to something real, something raw, “that fear is a terrible master, and he should never have let it rule him.”
Emily beamed beside them, clearly pleased with her production. “Now the happy ending part!”
She whistled sharply. Buttercup lurched to his feet, padded over to Louise, and dropped something in her lap. A small velvet box that definitely hadn’t been part of the original script.
“Come on, Buttercup!” Emily grabbed the dog’s collar. “We have to go check on that thing! The urgent thing! In the kitchen!”
She dragged the reluctant dog toward the door, his claws scrabbling on wooden floors. The door slammed behind them with enough force to rattle the windows.
Silence fell like snow.
Louise stared at the velvet box in her lap, afraid to touch it, afraid to breathe, afraid this was all some elaborate dream from which she’d wake alone in her cold bed.
Aaron dropped to his knees before her chair. The paper crown tumbled off, rolling away into the shadows. Without it, without the ridiculous cape, he looked like himself again. Except for his eyes. His eyes looked absolutely terrified.
“What was the performance meant to mean?” Louise’s voice emerged barely above a whisper.
Aaron’s hands found hers where they gripped the chair arms. His touch sent electricity through her entire body, every nerve remembering what it felt like to be held by him.
“It means I’m a fool.” The words tumbled out, rushed and desperate. “It means I let fear control me, dictate my choices, steal my happiness. It means I nearly lost the best thing that ever happened to me because I was too much of a coward to believe I deserved it.”
Louise pulled her hands away, needing distance to think. “You sent us away. Without a word of protest, without asking us to stay.”
“I know.” Aaron remained on his knees, making no attempt to chase her withdrawn hands. “I stood there and let you walk out because I convinced myself it was noble. That I was protecting you. But I was only protecting myself from the possibility of happiness I didn’t think I’d earned.”
“Do you have any idea what these days have been like?” The words escaped before Louise could stop them, raw with accumulated pain.
“Watching Emily cry herself to sleep? Pretending to care about other men’s attention when all I wanted was you?
Living half a life because the other half stayed behind in your house? ”
Aaron’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry. God, Louise, I’m so sorry. I’ve been sitting in my study, drowning in brandy and self-pity while you suffered for my cowardice. There aren’t enough words to tell you how sorry I am.”
“Sorry doesn’t erase the pain, Aaron.”
“No, it doesn’t.” He shifted closer on his knees, still not touching her but close enough that she could smell his cologne, that mixture of sandalwood and something uniquely him.
“But maybe time could? Maybe patience? Maybe a lifetime of proving that I choose you over fear, every day, every moment?”
Louise looked down at the velvet box still sitting untouched in her lap. “What is this?”
“Open it.”
Her fingers trembled as she lifted the lid. Inside, nestled on white silk, lay a ring unlike anything she’d ever seen. Not the massive diamond she might have expected from a duke, but something far more precious. An emerald surrounded by pearls, intimate and perfect.