AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ezra let out a long slow breath. He had to pull himself together. Frances was always impressing upon him the importance of first impressions. Should he smile broadly at her? Offer her a most elegant bow? Frances also said that eyes could express much. Was there a look that saidI know we’ve never met, but we’ve actually been writing one another for over five months now, though I’ve been using my sister’s name and you’ve no doubt believed you were writing another woman and not her brother at all, but it’s still me; the one who knows you love to embroider images of the places you knew as a child, who knows you read the same lines of poetry over and over again for the love of them, and who knows you spend hours during the summer out on your balcony, wishing on every falling star you see; the one who knows you hate large crushes, who knows your toes hurt when they get too cold, and knows you are truly scared of growing old alone.
No. Surely there was no look in all the word that could convey even half of that.
Grace was sitting beside their host, and she laughed again at something he said. Ezra’s stomach was quickly growing heavy. Lord Brown was well known among Town for his flirting ways. Did Grace know that a man such as he might very well pay a lady attentions he never intended to make good on? Ezra’s hands curling back into fists.
Lady Brown reached his side and greeted him.
Ezra returned a half-hearted thanks for being allowed to join them for the Christmas house party. Even as the older woman explained on and on about their surprise at his sudden wish to join them and then quickly moved on to pointing out the various other guests, Ezra’s mind never left Grace.
What a mess he’d made for himself. The horrid truth he’d been wrestling with since he’d read her last letter a fortnight ago stood before him now, immovable and undeniable.
The truth was, Ezra had never been properly introduced to Grace. He could not walk over to her, greet her, sit down to a conversation with her. He could not ask her what she’d learned most recently in her French lessons, which she very much enjoyed. He could not inform her of his most recent journey to Hampshire, though she’d sounded quite eager to hear about it in her last letter.
The truth was, Ezra was a stranger to Grace. Once the dowager led him toward her, there would be no spark of recognition in her eyes, no barely hidden smile at her joy in seeing him. There would be nothing but hope on his part and disinterest on hers.
The truth—that horrid realization—was that Ezra was wholly, completely, unequivocally in love with a woman who didn’t even know his face.
