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“Here she is now!” Ewan’s mother cried. She drew her hand out and swatted it around and then collected her fingers over Marta’s shoulder. “Beautiful niece, you really must imagine yourself out on the ballroom floor with the Duke himself. It’s prettier than any picture.”
“I imagine nothing is grander than the paintings our Duke loves so dearly,” Marta said, her eyes faraway. “Large ships. Warfare.”
“What is that, darling?” Ewan’s mother gave a lacklustre shrug to the surrounding members of her brewing cult. “She’s always so imaginative, this one. I thought English people were the real storytellers, but it seems Austria has something we don’t.”
The conversation limped forward. Ewan wanted to keep Marta in the throng of other humans as long as he could if only so she could avoid any pestering—or worse—from Lord Remington. He felt as though he guarded her, body, soul, and spirit.
Yet he wasn’t sure how long he could take it. It was clear that his mother had a very serious grip on society as a whole. She yearned for nothing more than the union of Marta and Lord Remington and had deemed it as a personal project. Ewan could very well stand in the centre of the aisle at the cathedral service itself, press against Marta in an attempt to push her back into the street and beyond. But that sort of brute force would do him no service.
Perhaps he, Marta, and Baldwin had already lost.
Perhaps true love couldn’t win afterall.
