"This life is a funny thing, and it is full of trials and tragedies. We cannot know what the consequences of our actions can be. We can only live, and love, and try to be as happy as life allows. If you love Lady Constance, you should marry her. Yes, there will always be risks – but there are risks to stepping out of your front door every day, risks every time you climb upon a horse, risks every time you put a bite of food in your mouth. Life cannot be entirely safe, my son, and you will be miserable if you endeavour to make it so."
Her speech surprised him. Never had he heard his mother speak so forcefully, with so much emotion. He hadn’t known she had lost children, although he supposed that, as the only child of a long marriage, he shouldn’t be too surprised by that fact.
But what she was saying held some logic. She was right. Laura could have married another man, and the very same could have happened. Or he could have married another woman, and she might have suffered the same fate. No one knew why Laura had not been strong enough to survive childbirth where others were.
So he had a choice to make – whether to continue to live in fear, or to accept the risk of love and move forward with hislife, which had been rather stagnating in the five years since he had lost Laura.
There seemed to be one obvious choice; he just had to hope she would say yes.
"Now, I’ll leave you with your thoughts," his mother said, her tone returning to its normal, brusque fashion. "But do not allow yourself to wallow for too long – it’s not good for the soul. And I shall see you for tea on Friday, if it’s convenient."
Ezra gave a half smile. He did not think his mother had ever asked if it was convenient for her to come around. Perhaps she was turning over a new leaf.
"Yes, I’ll see you then," he said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
"Idon’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.
