Before I Speak of Love
Chapter One
Nell’s pov
Before I speak of love — of how it came upon me unannounced and made a ruin of my composure — I must speak first of our fathers. For it was not affection that bound our lives together in the beginning, but gunpowder, honor, and a debt sealed in smoke.
My father was not a man inclined toward heroics in his telling of things. If ever he spoke of the war, it was to remark upon the dampness of the tents or the poor quality of French bread. Yet it was in that same war — amid shouting men and cannon fire — that he dragged a wounded soldier from certain death and, in so doing, secured my future without knowing it.
That soldier was Lord Hawthorne.
I have often wondered whether destiny is forged in such moments — when one man chooses not to abandon another. My father never called it bravery. He called it inconvenience. Lord Hawthorne called it salvation. From that day onward, their friendship endured with the steadiness of something tested by death.
Years passed. Peace returned. Letters were exchanged. Estates were managed. Children were born.
And then my mother died.
There are events which divide a life so cleanly that all memory falls into before and after. My mother’s death was such a division. It was not prolonged. There was no long vigil by her bedside, no gradual dimming. One week she was arranging flowers in the drawing room, correcting my posture and laughing at something my father had said. The next, the house had fallen into a silence so complete that even the servants moved as though afraid to disturb it.
I did not weep in the dramatic fashion expected of motherless daughters. I remember instead feeling as though the air had thickened — as though every word required effort, and so I chose not to speak at all.
People called me brave.
I was not brave. I was emptied.
My father bore his grief uprightly, which is to say he buried it beneath responsibility. Within the year, an opportunity arose — or perhaps a necessity — that required his departure to India. I was ten years of age.
The night before he left, he knelt before me, his large soldier’s hands enclosing mine.
“You shall stay where honor is kept,” he told me.
At the time, I did not understand that I was being entrusted not merely to a household, but to a debt.
⸻
Hawthorne Hall appeared first as a shadow beyond the carriage window — all stone and ivy and impossible height. I recall thinking that it looked less like a home and more like a monument to permanence. Gravel announced our arrival with unnecessary enthusiasm.
The doors opened. The ceilings soared. The air smelled faintly of beeswax and old portraits.
I spoke no words.
It was decided, almost immediately, that I did not possess the inclination to do so.
Lord Hawthorne received me in the great hall beneath the watchful gaze of ancestral oil paintings. He was taller than I remembered, broader perhaps, though his eyes were kind in a way that softened the severity of his bearing.
“Miss Ashcombe shall remain under my protection,” he declared, his voice carrying easily across marble and staircase. “She shall be regarded as family.”
Regarded.
Even at ten, I understood the delicacy of language.
Lady Hawthorne stood beside him — pale, beautiful, and distant in the manner of someone observing her own life from afar. She pressed my hands gently and said she hoped I would find comfort there. Her smile did not reach her eyes.
Behind them stood two women so identical in feature and expression that I mistook them for a trick of mirrors.
Miss Beatrice and Miss Prudence Hawthorne.
They examined me as one might assess a newly acquired ornament.
“How old did you say she was?”
“Ten.”
“She is small for ten.”
“And darker, is she not?”
“Perhaps her mother was Spanish.”
“Or Italian.”
They did not lower their voices sufficiently.
I wished, very briefly, that I might inform them my mother had been entirely English and possessed the unfortunate habit of tanning in summer. Instead, I remained silent and confirmed their suspicions.
Thus concluded my introduction to society.
⸻
It was not until later that afternoon, when the formalities had exhausted even the most determined of observers, that I escaped to a window seat in the east corridor. The glass overlooked rolling fields and a small lake that caught the light like polished silver.
I had decided that if I were to remain in this vast place, I should first learn to observe it. Houses, like people, reveal themselves when one is patient.
I was deep in this examination when a sudden crash sounded behind me.
I startled — not elegantly — and nearly slid from the seat.
A boy stood there, breathless, curls disordered, eyes bright with alarm.
“Oh!” he exclaimed. “You are real.”
I stared at him.
“I had been informed you were solemn,” he continued, advancing with reckless confidence. “But you appear quite alive.”
“I assure you,” I replied before considering whether I ought to, “I have every intention of remaining so.”
He blinked — and then grinned in triumph.
“You speak!”
“I was not aware it was in doubt.”
“There was discussion,” he said seriously. “My aunts speculated.”
I could not prevent it — I smiled.
His expression shifted at once, as though he had achieved something of great consequence.
“And you smile besides,” he declared, deeply satisfied. “This is excellent news. I am Edmund.”
He offered the name as though it were a gift.
“Nell,” I answered.
He studied me with open fascination, not inspection — a difference I felt at once.
“You must not sit alone,” he said with the authority of a sovereign addressing state affairs. “It is dreadfully dull. I shall show you the lake, and the old oak, and the place where the swans behave abominably.”
“And if I decline?”
He looked momentarily stricken, then thoughtful.
“Then I shall return tomorrow and attempt persuasion again.”
I considered this.
For the first time since the carriage had stopped before Hawthorne Hall, something within me shifted — not dramatically, but perceptibly.
Very well, I thought.
“Lead the way,” I said.
His relief was immediate and radiant.
And so it was that I followed the boy who would one day become the great love of my life — though at ten years of age, he was merely noisy, hopeful, and exceedingly pleased that I could both speak and smile.
If I had known then what future awaited us, I might have guarded my silence more carefully.
But children do not guard their hearts.
They wander into devotion as they wander into sunlight — unaware of the cost of warmth.
⸻
