The Garden's End (MLM)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE.

                Pip was certain that when he returned to the dining room for breakfast a few minutes later, he would be too distraught to see properly. He would stare at Lord Westcott and think about the kiss they had shared in the servant's sitting room, and not hear a single command he was given.

But a strange sort of numbness overtook him as he went to stand behind Lord Westcott's chair, as though he was watching himself from the corner of the room. No one seemed concerned that he or Lord Westcott had gone, and Pip knew Mrs. Mary must have told the residents the truth of their disappearance. Miss Bradley patted Pip's hand as he reached for the pitcher of water, smiling mischievously.

Jane, who had only now joined the table, was looking between Lord Westcott and Pip as though she knew something Pip did not. It left him uneasy.

Miss Westcott, who had undoubtedly shared Mrs. Mary's view that they had needed rest before starting the day, attempted to steer the Lord and Lady Hewitt's attention away from Lord Westcott while Lord Garrick conversed animatedly with Oliver.

Oliver, however, had only eyes for his brother. He was staring as Lord Westcott calmly cut into his eggs. As Mrs. Mary had predicted, however, Lord Garrick kept turning to Lord Westcott for his input and thoughts, and Lord Westcott, too polite to make him wait, was forbidden from eating as he patiently responded to each question.

When breakfast was taken away and the Lord Westcott had eaten little to nothing, Mrs. Mary and Emily had promptly come to take Misses Westcott and Bradley away.

"Is it our turn now?" said Miss Bradley to Emily with a smile, and Emily looked down, red.

As everyone adjourned to the drawing room, Oliver stalled beside his chair. He tugged so subtly on Pip's arm that he might as well not have touched him at all.

"What happened?" he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "While you were alone?"

Pip did not answer, and instead hurried along behind Lord Westcott. He could not lie to Oliver. His eyes burned from the time he'd spent crying, but no more tears fell. Their kiss had meant nothing more than a forgotten memory, and Pip knew he ought to have been ashamed for having done it, but he couldn't muster the energy. He'd wanted to kiss Lord Westcott, he couldn't deny that. And it was that desire itself that made him suffer so now.

Several hours later, Pip found himself in the servants' quarters. Others sat around small tables and ate and chatted happily, but Pip sat beside the window, staring out into the gardens. He wished he could be amongst the flowerbeds now, the fruit trees, the stream. He wished he could lie on the grass and inhale the fresh scent of lemon and roses. The walls of the manor were suffocating in a way Pip had never experienced before; he felt trapped within himself, his own mind and heart at war.

As it was normal whenever Pip felt unable to move, he looked at his surroundings. There was Sebastian, making Amelia and Edwin laugh with a loaf of bread and two spoons somehow hanging off his ears. There sat a few of the handmaidens, giggling about something Lord Garrick had evidently said. Emily sat on the opposite end of the room, idly picking at her broccoli.

Pip could not stand to think of his own dilemmas any longer, so he went to join her. "Emily," he asked, "are you all right?"

Emily looked up at him, startled, and immediately began patting down her dark brown hair. "O-Oh yes! Perfectly all right! And you? How are you doing?"

He shrugged a shoulder, attempting to get a better look at her expression. He nudged her arm and she blushed. "You don't look perfectly all right. You've been awfully quiet ever since . . ."