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“It doesn’t sound ridiculous,” Ewan whispered.
“But I soon found that he’d taken another woman,” Laura continued. She bit hard on her lower lip, then pressed forward. “At the time, I thought perhaps I would return to Austria immediately. That very day, Tatiana invited me to her estate, and she broke into tears. She told me she could never love her husband again. I don’t suppose she thought I could understand her, fully, and in truth, I think I only caught perhaps half. But Ewan, there is such heartache in love. I know it falls over all of us. There’s no escape. One must just continue to try.”
Ewan felt as though she’d taken all the words from the back of his skull regarding Penelope and pressed them into the world. He tilted his head, mesmerised with her. How was it possible she could use his first language to verbalise all the deeply-held emotions in his heart?
“Regardless, I suppose, we’re all in prisons of our own creation,” Ewan said. “My love has just ended before it could even begin.”
“You understand it,” Laura affirmed.
“I do,” Ewan said.
**
Ewan hadn’t envisioned this for the back-end of the summer. When he’d first spotted Laura approaching beside his cousin Marta, his heart had been bound up with lust for Baldwin and had had little room for anything else, even good views. Now, Ewan felt continually mesmerised with Laura: the way she played so wildly with his nephews, the way she spoke with more and more articulation at the dinner table, the sisterly way she spoke with Marta in German. She laughed in just the way Ewan liked: with her entire body, her face tense and strange. This was the only way to emit true joy.
Ewan and Laura consummated their love at the end of July. They did it in his bedroom with the windows flung wide open and the moonlight drenching the sheets. Everyone else in the grand house was a slumber, which left them to remain awake all night exploring one another’s bodies. Ewan could hardly believe how splendid Laura’s body was. Her breasts were perky, the nipples dark pink; her belly was flat and powerful, and her legs were strong, perhaps due to years of mountain-climbing. Ewan thought, at that moment, that he might take them both away, leap on a horse, and rush into the wild expanse of the rest of the world.
When the first sunlight swept through the curtains, Laura abandoned him and retreated to her servants’ bedroom. Ewan’s head felt heavy, but his heart floated and fluttered, a butterfly up to other thoughts. Throughout the day, Marta commented several times on his renewed sense of lightness.
“Have you and Penelope renewed your love?” she asked finally, midway through the day.
Ewan shook his head. “Perhaps I’m only so free because Penelope and I have decided never to see one another again. I had to uphold almost three-quarters of the conversation. I’ve told you this.”
Marta had grown strange and docile in the previous weeks. Ewan supposed this was because Baldwin still hadn’t made any sort of move, and Lord Remington had continued to cast himself as one of the dinner regulars. Marta hadn’t stormed out of dinner since that time at the end of June, but she seemed jumpy, on the verge of it every time.
Perhaps she’d sensed that discussing Baldwin like this wasn’t one of Ewan’s preferred topics of conversation, and she’d avoided the topic for several weeks. Still, she seemed burdened.
For this and many other reasons, Ewan chose not to tell her about his affair with Laura—one that he had every intention of upholding. He’d never felt this way before.
But he imagined the truth of it reaching his mother’s ears.My son sleeps with a servant? A servant with hardly a lick of the English language? My son—my only son! What a tragedy!
Yet again, in the wake of his love for Baldwin, he’d walked directly into another sort of storm.
Two weeks into August, Ewan marched into his bedroom to discover Laura at the edge of his bed, her cheeks stained with tears. Immediately, he closed the door, fearful that someone had spotted them so close together, so alone. The fear across her face forced him away from anger. Instead, it petrified him. He dropped to his knees and wrapped his hands across hers and whispered, “Darling Laura. What is the matter?”
Laura sniffed and stabbed a handkerchief across her nose. “I’ve discovered something horrible.”
Ewan furrowed his brow. Was she dying?
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered. “It’s yours. It can only be yours.”
Ewan exhaled slowly. Throughout their affair, he’d tried to take the utmost precaution, yet of course, occasionally, his passion led to what could have been deemed “not so safe” orchestrations, to feel closer, dig deeper.
“I don’t know what to say,” he murmured.
Laura muttered something in German. Several more tears escaped her eyes and dripped towards her lips. Ewan brought himself upward, kissed her tenderly, and held her like that for a long time. She shook against him, casting out several hiccups. He assured her he would figure out what to do, that she wouldn’t be alone in this.
Of course, when they parted ways, Ewan’s head fell to furious panic. He was the son of Margaret Thompson, not the sort of man meant to get a servant pregnant and bring dishonour over the Thompson Estate.
He tried to imagine describing the situation to his mother. All the colour would surely have drained from her face; she might have fainted. She assuredly would have sent Laura away, back to Austria to have the baby “in secret.” Perhaps she would have forbidden Ewan from seeing her again—something that might have destroyed him.
Against every bone in Ewan’s body, that evening he’d agreed to attend another party with Marta and Baldwin. Throughout these affairs, Ewan was a necessity, as he danced with Marta and ensured she was allowed a few moments of peace from Lord Remington. Still, gossip burned brightly across the county, with the seeming assurance that Lord Remington and Marta would be engaged by the end of the season. Already, people felt as though it had taken far too long. When he could, Ewan did his best to qualm these reckless gossip-fires. Of course, people would think however they pleased.
Now, he found himself at the centre of such potential gossip.
Of course, he had no clear way forward.
Slowly, he dressed for the ball. There was a hammering knock on the door, the preface for Marta’s appearance. She wore yet another of her vibrant gowns; it really seemed as though she had more gowns than days in the year. She turned and splayed the back strings of the gown toward hims and asked, “Could you possibly help me tug this all together, Ewan? Laura has fallen ill and needs to lie down. She told me that she was apt to vomit across my gown. She actually used that word … vomit! I dare say she’ll become far more of an Englishwoman than I ever will be. I’m proud of her.”
