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Chapter 27
Ewan’s love for Baldwin was an ever-present thing, something that Ewan accepted like he accepted oxygen for air. However, as he awoke on the morning of the next party, he felt strangely light, jumpier—full of possibility. Throughout the previous weeks, he’d watched Baldwin slowly dive into whatever love he currently simmered in for Marta. Even though his mother wanted nothing to do with the match, the view of Baldwin’s courageous leap had thrilled him. He hadn’t envisioned anything like this occurring in Baldwin’s life, and perhaps due to his immense love for Baldwin, he felt thrilled by it. Baldwin very well might find happiness, after all; perhaps, then, Ewan could, too.
It was a lazy summer morning and an even hazier afternoon. Ewan stumbled into Marta in the garden with a book pressed across her breasts, and her eyes closed, her lashes fluttering across her cheeks. He stopped short and blinked down at the girl, whose lips seemed to form little words, the whispers so soft even she could surely hardly hear them.
“Are you making up some sort of poem, darling cousin?” Ewan asked.
Immediately, Marta’s eyes popped open. She erupted from the blanket on which she lay and blinked at him, seemingly struggling to paint a picture of him due to the severity of the afternoon light. When she finally understood the weight of reality, she allowed her shoulders to fall and said, “Oh, Ewan. You must always tease me so, mustn’t you?”
Ewan collapsed on the blanket with her and gazed up at the sterling blue sky. He tapped his fingers across his breast, feeling his cousin’s eyes upon him. Still, he stared at the blue, and then at the smallest tuft of a cloud, one that seemed diligent about its little parabola across the sky.
“I dare say my mother is quite thrilled with her new match,” he said. “And you surely aren’t thinking about going against her wishes.”
“Had you some suspicion that I lay out here crafting some sort of scheme?” she asked.
Ewan shrugged. “I only know what I perceive between my dearest friend and my dearest cousin.”
Marta fell back and seemed to settle deeper in the grass, as though she could tunnel herself six feet under and thus avoid all torments of courting. Ewan clucked his tongue.
“I know that you have a high level of perception, Marta. You see much more than you let on,” Ewan continued. “And I’m grateful to you for living in the empathy of my situation and allowing me silence to process. It’s proof that your kindness extends far beyond the words you speak.”
Marta seemed to consider this for a long moment. Finally, she said, “I know what it means to be in love with someone who cannot love you back. It’s one of the most wretched experiences I’ve had. I pray I never have to go through something like that again.”
Suddenly, Marta rolled onto her side, her head propped up on her hand so that she could gaze fully at her cousin, her big blue eyes enormous and eager to swallow up whatever information he wanted to allow her.
“Do you wish to fall in love with another?” she asked.
Ewan gave a soft, lacklustre shrug. “I can’t say.”
“I’ve found in recent weeks that the only way I can conquer previous heartache is through heartache from another,” she said, her voice mischievous. “Why don’t you allow me a bit of time at the party tonight to find you a meaningful woman? You won’t want to wait on the wisdom of your mother. It’s already quite clear to me that she operates via a rulebook of her own creation.”
“Margaret Thompson is a woman of incredible daydreams,” Ewan returned. “The thing that would truly destroy her, however, is the fact that I also operate from incredible daydreams. I know only my heart and the wild imagination of my own mind. Why would I want to exist elsewhere?”
**
That night, Ewan dressed in a fine suit, stretched the fabric down across his still-flat stomach, and ogled himself in the mirror. Although he’d forgotten it in recent months, especially throughout Baldwin’s newfound love for Marta, he truly was still an attractive man. There was something about the object of one’s love not loving one back that put such a sour taste in one’s mouth that called to mind a conclusion of not being quite good enough. There was something about understanding the weight of one’s disastrous life that allowed one to feel completely void of promise.
However, with Marta’s resolution, Ewan felt only the strength to play along. He wasn’t one to allow good opportunities to pass him by. Thus, he trotted down the staircase and joined his beautiful cousin, who flashed him a smile of promise and unending excitement. She wore a gorgeous yellow gown, the bottom half of which burst out like an egg moments after the crack. Her skin glowed, almost sparkled, like water beneath the sunlight.
“What is it about you Austrian girls that make you so outlandish when compared to the English?” he asked.
Marta batted her perfect lashes and guffawed. “I really can’t imagine what you mean.”
“Ah! Then perhaps that’s still part of it. The idea that one must always play just a tiny bit the fool, hmm? If only to make the world believe that it’s all come so simply.”
“You really can be quite evil, can’t you, Ewan?” she said with a pretty, musical laugh.
Although Baldwin had announced that he would attend the party while the Duke had been in their presence at the Thompson Estate, Ewan hadn’t yet heard this to be a guarantee. In the past days, Baldwin had kept a wide berth from the estateto attend to his father’s business affairs. Ewan’s suspicion was that Baldwin didn’t wish Marta to see this other, darker, shadowed side of himself, not after he’d crafted this lighter persona.
Just before Marta and Ewan opened the door to meet the carriage, Ewan’s mother bustled up from the back of the house. Of course, Ewan had forgotten that his mother had asserted herself into the situation, that she’d taken it upon herself to be a sort of chaperone for the seasonal ball. Marta shivered against Ewan’s hand, which he’d placed across her back to guide her out of the house. It seemed clear to all parties that dear Margaret Thompson was an enemy to all parties. She wanted nothing with the brewing affection between Baldwin and Marta and would press Marta and the Duke together continually, surely to a comical degree.
Ewan’s mother had, if possible, overdressed herself. She looked like an elaborate party cake with multiple tiers. Her cheeks seemed to leap out with overzealous rouge, and her large eyes looked almost monstrous, despite their normal mothering nature. She tugged her skirts a bit higher to show her outrageously tiny feet below.
“There you are! You hadn’t planned to leave without me, had you?” she asked playfully.
“Never, Mother,” Ewan said.
Marta made a strained little noise in the back of her throat, yet upheld her gorgeous grin. That moment, towards the back of the house, a volatile scream erupted. Ewan arched his brow towards his mother, who swatted her hand this way, then that.
