Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
Caroline was already in the morning room when Eleanor entered.
Sitting near the window with her workbasket open beside her, she was the very picture of beauty with her brown hair shimmering with hidden depths of gold revealed only in the sunlight which slipped through the thin curtains.
At her entrance, her friend looked up and the needle in Caroline’s hand stilled instantly.
Her lips parted in a silent ‘o’ of surprise.
Laying her embroidery to the side, she rose, “You look wretched. Did you sleep at all?”
“Very little,” Eleanor said, sinking into the chair opposite her. “And what sleep I managed was not restful.”
Caroline patted the space beside her on the settee as she took her seat once more. “Well, that settles it. You are going to tell me what is wrong, because I cannot sit here pretending interest in another inept embroidery project while you look as though your life has come undone.”
Eleanor huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh. “I’m fine. Everything is fine. Truly.”
Caroline raised one eyebrow at that. “Eleanor, we’ve known one another since we were both in leading strings. For the past week now, you’ve been wandering around in a bit of a daze. Is it Lord Marklynne? Has he been inappropriate with you?”
“No. Heavens no. Lord Marklynne has been the utmost gentleman,” Eleanor replied. And that was true. She very much feared that he would always be a gentleman, which did not bode well for her future marital bliss.
“Then what is it? You know you can tell me anything! I would never betray your trust,” Caroline reassured her.
“Of course, I trust you. It’s just… this is a very difficult thing for me to admit. It’s humiliating in some ways.”
“I am your friend. I will not judge you and you know every humiliating event that has ever unfolded in my life,” Caroline insisted.
Eleanor smiled at that. But the smile faded as she struggled to find the words. She folded her hands together, then unfolded them again. For years she had carried this truth quietly, safely hidden even from herself. Saying it now felt like stepping into cold water.
“You have asked me more than once,” she began, “whether I ever truly cared for Adrian.”
Caroline’s brows lifted. “More than once? My dear, I have been asking you that question since we were seventeen.”
“And I have always given you some sensible, evasive answer.”
“You have,” Caroline said. “They were very unsatisfying.”
Eleanor stared down at her hands. “When we were young, I thought myself in love with him. The sort of thing girls feel for someone clever and admired and entirely unattainable. I assumed I would, as I matured, leave such girlish notions behind.”
“And did you?”
“I thought I had,” she said quietly. “Or perhaps I convinced myself I must. He never looked at me as anything other than Julien’s sister. Or so I thought. It seemed foolish to indulge the notion of anything more.”
Caroline said nothing, only watched her. Waiting for the other shoe to drop and the truth to be revealed.
“So I set it aside,” Eleanor continued. “There was the household to manage, Julien to see to, any number of practical matters that required my attention. It felt… self-indulgent to pine for what was never likely to be mine.”
“That sounds very like you,” Caroline murmured.
Eleanor gave a small, humorless smile. “The difficulty is that feelings do not vanish simply because one declares them inconvenient. They settle. They change shape. They become something quieter, something one stops examining too closely.”
Caroline leaned forward slightly. “And now?”
Eleanor lifted her eyes. “Now I find that what I once dismissed as girlish fancy has, over the years, become something far more difficult to ignore. Something steady. Enduring. I have never named it aloud, not even to myself. I was afraid that if I did, I would have to admit it would never be returned.”
Caroline reached across the small table and covered Eleanor’s hand. “Oh, Ellie.”
She swallowed. “And now he has made it impossible to pretend indifference.”
Caroline went very still. “What do you mean?”
“He has asked for the opportunity to see whether we might be more than we have been.”
Caroline blinked once, then twice. “Adrian Grant has finally awakened?”
“It appears so,” Eleanor said faintly. “And I do not know whether to laugh at the timing or weep over it.”
“And Lord Marklynne?” Caroline asked.
Eleanor’s shoulders tightened. “He has proposed a… practical arrangement. A trial courtship of a month. At the end of that month, we will decide whether or not we are suited for marriage… and we are. Truthfully In all the ways that signify. He is candid, respectful, entirely sensible. There would be security, position, certainty.”
“And affection?”
“He believes it may grow,” Eleanor said. “He places little stock in romantic nonsense.”
Caroline’s mouth twitched. “And you?”
“I do not love him,” Eleanor admitted. “But I like him. I think. I respect him. And I had convinced myself that such things were sufficient. More than sufficient, even.”
“And now?”
“Now I find myself unable to think clearly about anything.”
Caroline leaned back, studying her. “You are being asked to choose between safety and happiness… certainty of security and sacrifice of the potential for a truly great love.”
“That is precisely it.”
“And which frightens you more?”
Eleanor did not answer at once. When she did, her voice was very quiet.
“Losing him. Or worse — discovering I never truly had him at all. And if I do choose him, Adrian, and it does not come to fruition, then Lord Marklynne’s offer will most surely be rescinded—as it should be.
And I am back to where I started. Being a stumbling block to my brother’s future happiness.
He will never marry if I remain in this house. ”
Caroline squeezed her hand. “I wish I could give you some brilliant wisdom that would make the path clear.”
“You have always had an opinion to spare,” Eleanor said, managing a weak smile.
Caroline returned it, but there was sadness in her eyes. “I have been all but promised to the same man for years, and I am no nearer to the altar than I was at nineteen. If I possessed clarity on matters of the heart, I should have used it for myself long ago.”
Eleanor’s expression softened. “Caroline…”
“So I cannot tell you what you ought to do,” Caroline continued gently. “Only this: choose the life that will allow you to wake each morning without regret. Security is not a thing to be scoffed at. But neither is joy.”
Eleanor sat very still, letting those words settle.
After a moment, Caroline added softly, “And whatever you choose, you will not face it alone.”
The tightness in Eleanor’s chest eased for the first time that morning.
She turned her hand beneath Caroline’s and held on.