It was so late in the night that it soon will be early in the morning, and yet Ernest could not help but to stare motionlessly at the crown of his canopy.
Going by the bell of his longcase clock on the boudoir, it was past two in the morning, but it has been a while since he had heard the bell ring, perhaps even over thirty minutes, but time for an insomniac was a deceiving thing.
An hour could pass by as if it was ten minutes, while a quarter would drag the entire evening.
Be as it may, it was past his dorveille and he was yet to sleep a single second.
It was not an uncommon occurrence, Ernest was prone to lose on nightly rest while under emotional duress, and the loss of the Earl certainly was cause for intense grief, of the kind he had not felt even when his own father passed.
However, the aged gentleman was the farthest thing from the young esquire's mind. He even wagered that if only the wake that day was the only thing weighting on his mind, he would have drifted off to sleep long ago.
No, what kept him up at night was the Earl's fair daughter.
If she was just a stranger off the streets, he would still feel disheartened for her, losing such an outstanding father so soon after finding him. The problem was, she was not a stranger off the streets.
Far from it, in fact.
One does not consider matrimony with a stranger, after all.
That seemed to be the problem. On that afternoon he met her at the downs, he had sought a jeweller, to commission a ring for her, and while the object has long since been completed, resting on the left drawer of his bureau as of this moment, he had been reluctant about actually proposing.
Not because of her, per se. Much the opposite, he did not think he would want to be wed to anyone else, not in the present, not in the future, and certainly not in the past. The favourable comparison to Alexandrina comes to mind briefly.
The real problem is that he did not know whether he desired to be married once more, with whomever.
One colossal failure was enough; one shattering of the heart was enough. Ernest did not feel like he should take on the risk once more, especially now that he knew the care he felt for his first wife was greatly dwarfed for the love he felt for the girl next door.
The higher one soars, the more painful is the tumble. He did not know if he could survive, should it come to pass, so he preferred having his two feet firmly on the ground.
His circumstances were damning, however. First, there was the issue of the Earl's will. Months ago, he had been present when the nobleman declared his daughter his heir, should her make a suitable match. If she remained as the natural, barely acknowledged, child, he could hope she would find a man she cared for to wed, but now she was bound by law and duty to find a man of station, and the British marriage market was abound with rotten apples.
He took it a step further; he could not kid himself and pretend he would not be seen as a 'suitable match' by any court of law under the Prince Regent. He is a wealthy, respected esquire, for the Lord's sakes! How selfish of him to damn the girl to a loveless marriage to a wicked man if he could offer her the security of his estate and his devotion.
When he arrived for the wake this morning, he finds the poor girl, haggard and crying on the corner of the last pew. Naturally, he ran to offer her his comfort, whichever way he could.
Her figure improved a little after he sat next to her, after they started talking. Their conversation naturally drifted to her father's will's stipulations, and she comments that her and the Earl conversed about Ernest before the passing, and that the man had given her his blessing, nay, that he had been elated with the prospect of marrying his daughter off with the esquire.
"Before my father died," She said. "I told him of my interest in you."
That phrase put the fear of God in him, but at the time, he could not say if he feared being accepted or denied. "And, what did he say?"
"He was thrilled." Was the answer.
Ernest did not respond, as he did not know how he felt about it. He still does not, to be honest, he could not distinguish a thing on his heart aside from doubt and terror.
To his dismay, the sacrament was yet to finish. Later that evening, him and the young heiress found themselves alone once more, on a stroll through the gardens.
He had mentioned he enjoyed tossing coins on water fountains, in a silly tradition to make wishes.
"Allow me to guess," She said, as he prepared to toss his coin. "You are going to wish that I will say yes to your inevitable proposal."
He grips the sheets on his bed with force as he remembers that snippet of conversation, rage overfilling his body.
It made him beyond angry, angry with himself, for his inaptitude and indecision, at the circumstances, at the ghost of the Earl and his late wife peering over his shoulder, shoving him back and forth on a decision.
Angry at Rupert, the Dowager Countess' husband, for driving Vincent's wife and unborn daughter away. If she grew up at Edgewater, if he met her as his social equal, then he would not have married Alexandrina in the first place, he would not be wary and beaten by the time he finally got to her, they would have all the time on the world for a courtship.
Perhaps it is all for the better. Perhaps this goes out to show him how pathetic of a man he actually is. If for all the undying love he says he feels for the Earl's daughter he cannot be decisive, he cannot conquer his fears, than she is better off without him.
Feeling the resolution wash through his mind, he jumps out of the bed. He never leaves his bed while on an insomniac spell ever since he was only but a kid, as his father would berate him if he found his child wandering the rooms at wee hours of the night.
The situation calls for it, however.
He marches to the bureau on one side of his chambers, pulls the left drawer open with unreasonable force and picks the piece of jewellery he stared at for hours on end ever since it got into his possession.
Then, he draws open the curtains and the windows of his bedroom. He could see his extensive front garden and the large artificial lake that was the main attraction of his country property.
The lake was far away, but it did not keep Ernest from aiming for it.
He took a deep breath and threw the ring as far as he could, with all his might and all his rage.
It was not possible to detect where it fell, but in the end, that was the intention. It could very well be on the depths of the lake now.
This was not what any of them desired to happen. The Earl, his daughter, himself, them all seemed to point in one direction, but the fact remains, Ernest does not want, cannot possibly get married once more, even, perhaps most especially, with the girl next door.
Like the ring that would never grace any fingers, it was not meant to be.