Chapter 20
She was rattling apart, and she feared that her skin would not be able to hold her soul together. Oh dear God, she didn’t want to be like this. Surely, the storm should have made her resolve to live the best life she possibly could. Surely, the storm should have strengthened her!
Near-death experiences were supposed to do that, weren’t they? They were supposed to make one savor everything, to see life as precious and to never yield to fear again.
But that’s not what had happened to her.
No, every moment that she was out of Victor’s arms, every moment that she was alive, she felt herself coming apart.
She couldn’t understand it as she sat in the audience watching the opera.
The duke had brought one of the finest opera companies to his house, and they had set up a stage outside with lanterns and grand set pieces.
An orchestra with its players dressed in fine silver and blue livery played under the moonlight.
The singers were the stuff of legends and her friends sat near her awestruck, their faces alight, filled with the golden glow of amazement. None of them had ever seen anything so wondrous as an opera production out of doors before a duke’s grand house.
The arias soared through the air, piercing the night. And for a moment, she could have sworn that the highest notes of the most skilled soprano touched the stars. Oh, how she wished she could reach those cold pinpoints in the sky and be brought away from all the misery that she knew.
She was falling in love with him.
Dear God, she was falling in love with Victor and she had to stop. It was too painful. All of this was far too painful.
The moment the storm had come in, the moment she had held on for dear life, and the moment that she had gone into the water and began to act like a frantic animal, she’d lost control.
All these years, she had held on so tightly, making certain that her emotions never became too much. She did not allow herself to feel things too deeply, unless, of course, it was the sorrow around her parents, but that ache was different.
That was dark and deep and permanent. Anything else, she shoved aside. No love, no great laughter, no great anger, no strong feelings about anything.
But now it was as if a door had been broken down and feelings were pouring out of her so intensely that she couldn’t bear it. She sat beside the Earl of Seaborough, shaking ever so slightly, and she prayed to God he did not notice.
She needed him not to notice.
She needed him not to see how terribly she was falling apart. Or maybe she did need him to see it, because she would need him to understand why she could never be his wife, why she would never stay in London, why she had to leave.
And as the soprano strode down to the center of the stage, her face lit and her beautiful gold-laced collar shining like a halo behind her, Ernestine found herself unable to sit still for another single moment.
Her eyes filled with tears. Her insides all but vibrated, and she could not draw breath. She was going to burst with whatever had been unleashed inside her. She bit back a cry. The emotions were too much. The music was too much.
She could feel the sorrow of the soprano, her desperation at her plight. And before Ernestine could stop herself, she was on her feet, slipping out of the crowd and heading towards the lawn and the trees at the edge of it.
She knew she should not go there into the darkness, but she had to flee. She had to run just like she had done all her life, away from her feelings, away from pain, away from anything that made her feel like this.
The tears sluiced down her face. Tears she had not let herself cry for years upon years, and she could not bear it. She dashed them from her cheeks and willed herself to feel nothing, willed herself to forget the pain, the sorrow, and even her love for him.