Helena closed the door to Chasity’s bed chambers softly. It had taken longer than she expected, but her sister had finally fallen asleep.
She stayed, as she had promised to Chasity.
“You will not leave me, Helena?”
“No, dearest, I shall not.”
“You will stay until I am asleep?”
“Of course, Chastity.”
And so, she had.
The past few days before the wedding flew by. Every detail of the preparations Helena personally saw to. The irony of it all was not lost to her, but for every heartache, for every thought of Matteo, she had pushed Chastity to the forefront of her mind. She was the reason for all of this. She was the reason that Matteo did this, because he valued what, to Helena, was most valuable.
Chastity had become so dependent on her, so needful, that Helena felt she had gone back to the Chastity of their childhood. She could feel the anxiety and the misery in Chastity’s heart, but what could she do?
This is the way; this is what everyone decided on. There is no other recourse; we must see it through.
The house was silent and still. The bustle and activity of the day had melted into rest and slumber, but Helena was far fromwanting sleep. Though she had taxed herself physically in all the preparations for the wedding, there was a drive in her to see this through to the end.
Perhaps after all of this, after everything is done, I will feel the weariness of an overworked mind and body and the burden of a broken heart, but for now, I have a purpose and I shall be the last to stop.
It was as if her feet had a mind of their own. In the dark, she traversed the house until she reached the doors that opened into the gardens.
Perhaps it was because the gardens always brought her a certain serenity or perhaps it was because she now associated this place with Matteo. He had given her a rose there. She and Matteo had spent their last time together there. Whether that memory was pleasant or painful was of no consequence; the significance of the gardens would stay with her.
The moon cast a bright glow over the trees and the grass. She had underestimated the chill in the air, and without her wrapper, she felt her skin prickle. Hugging herself, Helena walked towards the Pergola.
She moved toward the side where the rosebushes grew thick; she could smell the rose blooms in the air.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow, a chapter in her life would close. And she must leave behind the only love she had ever known—would probably ever know.
Helena thought she had run out of tears, but the wetness on her cheeks proved otherwise. She let the tears flow.
She allowed herself tonight, the last night that she could think of him, of what could have been, of what she wished would have been.
“Matteo.”
“I am here, Helena.”
Helena was so startled that she barely stifled a scream as she jumped back. She would have lost her balance but for the hands that supported her.
Shocked that Matteo was there, but more shocked that he had heard her call out to him, Helena tried to move away from his grasp. But his hands stayed her and refused to let her go.
She stopped moving and stared at him.
Was he even real? Or was he perhaps a figment of her imagination conjured by her loneliness?
“Helena,” Matteo said again. The fierceness in his eyes told her that. Indeed, he was really there.
“What are you doing here, Matteo?” Helena asked almost wildly. “You should not be here.Ishould not be here!”
She looked about in a guilty way as if expecting someone to appear from behind the hedges and catch them.
“I was in a meeting with your father,” Matteo said in a low voice. “He said he would be home late, thus the lateness of the hour. There were papers that needed to be signed, settlements. The boring things.”
