Page 19 of Estelle’s Ardent Admirer (The Bookshop Belles #1)

CHAPTER 19

Poorly Chosen Words

E stelle thought she might cast up her breakfast. Why was she fighting with Felix when they were about to marry?

“Perhaps you should leave … until we both have clear heads,” she said, hoping to have a moment to herself to think. Really think about the direction her life was taking, which was away from the bookshop and everything she’d ever known, or imagined for herself.

“I think I should stay.” Felix stood firm before her. “We need to work this out, because in a few days we shall be married and it will be too late to work it out then.”

A headache pulsed behind her eyes and she snapped. “If you’re having regrets, by all means call it off.”

He pulled back and gasped. “No!”

She’d gone too far, but could not seem to make herself think clearly in the heat of the moment. “Delay it for a few weeks until … I don’t know.”

“I have already set things in motion for our journey to Ireland.”

Estelle slumped against the counter. “You just go and do these things thinking you’re helping, but can’t you see how you’re making it worse? Expecting me to live at Ferndale is one thing, but at least that’s a lot closer than Ireland!”

“You said you wanted to travel!” he pleaded, his stricken expression tearing at her heart.

She clenched her hands into frustrated fists. “I did. I do! But… I can’t!”

“I don’t think you know what you want!”

“I don’t think you do either!”

Felix drew back and stared at her.

“Do you?” Estelle pressed on, hardly knowing what she said but desperate to somehow get him to stop asking her these questions, stop pushing her to make a decision she was in no way ready to make. “Do you even know what you want, Felix? Apart from, apparently, me to come and make your life easier by taking the running of Ferndale Hall off your hands? Oh, it was pretty obvious that Miss Yates and Mrs Sykes were showing me the ropes. And what will you do while I do all the work? Carry on your merry lighthearted way?”

She wasn’t being entirely fair, and she knew it, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “You want to take me away from my work here just so I can work for you. Pretty dresses and money won’t buy me, Felix!”

“I never thought I could buy you,” he said quietly.

“You just thought I’d fall into your lap like everything else in your life always has, is that it? You’ve never done a real day’s work in your life. You’ve never had to work for anything, I don’t think you even know what work is!”

Felix took a deep breath. “You’re angry. We need to take a breath, cool our tempers. Take some time to calm down.”

“We don’t have time to work this out, Felix,” Estelle said, and suddenly everything was very clear to her. “I should never have agreed to marry you at all, and certainly not with my father not even here.”

“Estelle, don’t do this.” He paled. “I don’t want this…”

“Because this has all been about what you want, hasn’t it? Not about what I want. You saw a vulnerability because of my situation and you took advantage.”

“You’re not being fair!” He was beginning to look angry. “You don’t even know me!”

“Exactly!” she almost yelled at him. “I don’t! For all I know you’re as useless as your father was, and you just saw a competent woman and thought I’d make your life easier - exactly what your father did to your mother! This is just history repeating itself, and I won’t be a part of it!”

For all the angry words that had come out of Estelle’s mouth, those were the ones that broke Felix. He took a step back, feeling almost as though she’d slapped him. It would have hurt less.

“You think I’m like my father.” The words were almost a whisper.

Estelle shrugged, looking down and not meeting his eyes. “I didn’t know your father,” was all the answer she gave.

“Why ever would you agree to marry me, if this is your opinion of me?” She still wouldn’t meet his eyes, and the reason dawned on Felix. “Because of the money. You’re marrying me for my money.”

“Everyone marries for money,” she said, still not looking at him.

Felix felt as though she’d twisted a knife in his heart. He pressed a hand to his chest, suddenly struggling to breathe.

There was a long silence. Estelle fiddled with some papers on the desk and didn’t speak.

“The final banns are to be read tomorrow, and then we’re to be married next Friday,” Felix said, trying desperately to keep his voice even. “Do you want to marry me or not, Estelle?”

Her hands stopped moving, but she still didn’t look at him. The silence dragged on.

“I suppose that’s that, then,” Felix said, barely believing the words falling from his lips. He turned away, his shoulders sagging, and headed for the door. As he got there, he looked back at Estelle. “I’m sure you don’t want to see me hanging around. I’ll make that trip to Ireland to see my mother - it’s been years, and I would like to see her - but I’ll go alone.”

As he reached for the door, Crafty darted up to his feet. “Oh no. Not this time, cat.” He reached down and turned the cat around, giving her a push to send her back into the bookshop. “You stay here.”

Crafty walked away, waving her tail nonchalantly, as though she hadn’t even considered trying to escape. Felix shook his head. If he hadn’t let that damn cat out, would Estelle have formed a better opinion of him from the beginning? Too late now. Perhaps her opinion of him had been fixed from that day. Shoulders sagging, he pulled open the bookshop door and walked out.

He blinked in the bright sunshine; after the dimness of the bookshop, it hurt his eyes. That must be the reason why they were stinging, though he couldn’t quite explain why his cheeks were wet. Striding towards the carriage, he paused as he remembered the footmen and the maids, even at that moment upstairs helping to clean.

Well, they might as well stay and complete the job. He’d go back to Ferndale Hall and send the carriage back for them. He couldn’t stay here, not for another moment.

He should go into the church and tell the vicar not to call the banns tomorrow, and to cancel the wedding, Felix realised as the carriage rattled past St. John’s, but he really didn’t want to deal with Reverend Millings at that moment; no doubt the fire-and-brimstone vicar would have some choice things to say about women being the cause of all sin, and Felix just didn’t want to hear it.

Right now, he couldn’t face anyone.

Of course, the very first person he saw was the last one he wanted to see as he walked back inside the Hall; his grandfather happened to be walking from the foot of the stairs to his study at that precise moment and turned to look at him with a puzzled frown.

“Whatever are you doing back here, boy? I thought you were spending the day with Miss Baxter?”

Felix’s throat closed. He shook his head.

Lord Ferndale’s face darkened. “What have you done?” he said, and his voice was very cold.

“I need to pack,” Felix managed to get out. “I’m going to Ireland.”

“Not until I’ve got to the bottom of this nonsense, you’re not going anywhere!” Lord Ferndale pointed towards his study. “In here! Now!”

This is about to be the worst interview of my life, Felix thought. Somehow, he made his shaking legs carry him forward, until he could sink into a chair in the study and put his head in his hands.

Everything was turning to dust in his hands. “I made a mess of it, Grandfather,” he said hollowly.

“Obviously,” Lord Ferndale bit out, stomping around his desk and sitting down in his chair. “Now what happened?”

“I… made assumptions,” Felix admitted bleakly. “I didn’t ask Estelle what she wanted, or make it clear what I wanted. I just assumed she’d fall in with my plans without taking what she needs into account.”

“Hm.” Lord Ferndale sniffed audibly. “Sounds exactly like your fribble of a father. He never did give the slightest thought for anyone else, in the whole of his useless life.”

Felix groaned aloud. He’d spent his entire life trying to be the opposite of his father, who had been the black sheep of the Yates family and a huge disappointment to Lord Ferndale. It hurt that both Estelle and his grandfather seemed to think Felix was too much like him; just another let down.

“But you’re not your father, and I’m not just saying that, it’s the truth,” Lord Ferndale said firmly, and Felix looked up to see his grandfather staring a hole in him. “You’re much smarter and more sensible than he was, for a start. So tell me, what are you going to do to fix the mess you’ve made? Because running away to Ireland isn’t the answer.”

“I don’t know what else to do!” Felix cried out. “She doesn’t want to marry me.”

“And if she doesn’t, it’s because you haven’t tried hard enough.”

“I’ve done everything I could,” Felix wracked his brains for answers, but all he could admit was, “She doesn’t love me. She loves the bookshop.”

“I saw the way she looked at you, boy. She could love you if you just gave her half a chance!”

“ She won’t give me a chance!” Angry, Felix jumped to his feet and walked out of the study, ignoring his grandfather’s irritated demand for him to return. Striding briskly through the hallway, he spied his great-aunt coming down the stairs and turned away, quite unable to face another person reproaching him.

He ended up outside again, in the kitchen garden where memories of Estelle assailed him. The gardeners took one glance at his black-as-thunder expression and made themselves scarce.

Felix kicked a rosemary bush. “Why?” he shouted at the bush. “Why won’t she give me a chance?”

The bush didn’t answer, and Felix slumped down onto a bench and glared at it.

“Why didn’t I give her a chance?” he said quietly after a few minutes. “Why didn’t I ask her what she wanted, instead of making assumptions and grand gestures to try and impress her?”

He knew Estelle had a responsibility to her sisters, in her father’s absence, and he hadn’t really taken account of that at all. He’d been too busy worrying about his own future responsibilities to think about the ones Estelle had to manage right now, today. The bookshop and her sisters; they had been Estelle’s priorities long before Felix came on the scene, and it wasn’t fair for him to expect her to just drop them because he had money to throw at the problem.

“I can’t just expect her to walk away for six months,” he said aloud. “Not with her father still away. It’s not fair on her.” Honestly, it wasn’t fair to demand she marry him right now, either; of course Estelle wanted her father to be at her wedding!

“I can wait. She’s worth waiting for. However long it takes!” Felix sprang to his feet, wondering if the carriage had turned around to go back to Hatfield yet. Well, if it had, he’d saddle Hannibal and ride there.

And this time, he wasn’t going to walk out on Estelle because of some silly disagreement. He could make compromises, whatever compromises she needed.

Because Estelle was worth it.

She was worth everything.