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“I think our respective families would find it... believable, if we say you wandered off in a haze and fainted in the woods. Something to that effect.”
Diane looked on at Martin, dumbfounded.
That was what he called thinking? His plan was to make her sound like a witless sow. Like a helpless baby that had crawled out into the road when it was left unattended. That because she needed extra accommodation sometimes, the rest of her personal agency was to be discounted.
“No one has seen you leave together, so perhaps we can convince most of the wedding party that my brother just went looking for you with the rest of us,” Martin continued, as if there was nothing wrong with this idea he clearly had spent so much time on.
Every racing thought of her own was ten times the caliber of what he had suggested, and made her only angrier. Did she not have a say in what was realistic about her own condition?
But she couldn’t voice any of it. There was no point to it. She knew nothing she said would be heard.
Just sitting there with him across from her, she was falling back into step with her old life without even blinking.
“It—it already looks like Liam ran off to Scotland together. And that’s what we intend to do,” Diane stammered, the words rusty in her throat like she hadn’t spoken in days. “You can’t change that.”
Martin seemed to find the idea almost amusing. He actually gave a little laugh. “I think people will find my version of events a far likelier story. Who would ever believe you’d go against your family’s wishes and cause such a scandal?”
As if the whole last two days weren’t real at all, just the silly fantasies of a silly girl, lost in the daydreams of her sketchbook.
Before she could respond, Martin’s brow furrowed as his eyes fell back on the page in his hand, the sketch and the note that had made her so happy in the last day, and tore it in half.
Her hand clapped to her mouth, the breath nearly knocked out of her chest. Her heart was up in her ears with every additional time Martin folded the pieces over and tore them smaller.
For a moment she thought the world had stopped. Her hands were clutching the table in front of her, her knuckles white. She had slid a few inches down in her chair, and she couldn’t figure out how to work her knees for several moments.
She had fainted, or nearly did. But Martin was standing up now, crossing to her side of the table to pull her chair out.
“We’ll patch it up and put all of it back together, the way it was," Martin nodded at her. He seemed to truly believe he was telling her it was going to be alright, that he was saving her from some terrible disaster.
Like nothing she had done made any difference, like all of it would be whisked away, veneered over, until even the memories faded away.
Like none of her decisions would actually matter.
Martin straightened his coat and sleeves, and then extended a hand to Diane.
All her thoughts were heavier now, not just by the exertion of nearly passing out, but with the overwhelming sensation of being resigned to her fate and the whims of those in charge of her.
She contemplated Martin’s hand a moment, before sighing and taking it, defeated, letting him lead her from the inn. He held her hand until he helped her into the gig carriage she'd run off in, until she was securely seated in it.
Martin rounded the back, and started to hitch his horse to the carriage so it would trail behind them.
"It's only a few hours ride back home, so we'll be back before supper," Martin told her as he fumbled with the knots. “The wedding will be back on in a few days, I’m sure.”
Diane only hummed in response. She would have to surrender to the inevitability of her fate.
Perhaps she’d been a fool. To think she had any chance at happiness, to fall in love with Liam and the future they could have had together. It was why she had never simply called off the wedding when she had the chance, or refused Martin’s offer in the first place.
This was what they’d feared would never happen, that she could never simply go home and let everything go back to normal. And suddenly it was the worst of all outcomes.
Diane sighed, slumping in the carriage seat. Was it truly any worse than what she had started with?
It was. She had tasted happiness, and it was sweet like forbidden lemon cake and Liam.
There was a half scream, half bleat of a voice that startled her and Martin. Diane turned around, looking wildly for the source, a vision of white fur, anything.
The horses of another carriage passing by, the horses’ legs and turning wheels a blur as her goat disappeared underneath it.
A woman on the other side of the road shouted and Diane's heart clenched, as she craned her neck to see what happened when it finally passed.
