Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Eliza couldn’t spend another day staring at the walls of her chambers, drowning in misery. She dressed carefully, nothing too elaborate, nothing that suggested she was falling apart, and ordered the carriage brought round. She walked down the steps to the cobblestone street with her head held high.
“Where to, Your Grace?” the driver asked as she approached.
“The Welton Townhouse, if you please.”
The ride through London’s streets felt interminable.
Eliza watched the city pass by the window, surprised at how much she had missed seeing vendors hawking their wares, children playing in the squares, couples walking arm in arm.
The last image gave her a sharp sting of loneliness that settled deep into her chest.
Imogen’s face lit up when Eliza was shown into the drawing room. Then her expression shifted to concern.
“Eliza! What a lovely surprise. Though…” She rose quickly, crossing to take Eliza’s hands. “Well, I must be plain. You look exhausted. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she lied.
“Eliza…”
“I just needed… I thought perhaps some company might—”
“Aunt Eliza!”
Arthur and Philip came racing into the room, Miss Winslow following at a more sedate pace. The boys threw themselves at Eliza with their usual enthusiasm, and she couldn’t help but smile despite the ache in her chest. Their joy at seeing her was infectious.
“We’re building a fort!” Philip announced. “With blankets and chairs! Miss Winslow says we can’t use the expensive furniture, but that’s all right because—”
“We are very creative,” Arthur finished proudly. “Come see! Please!”
They dragged her toward an elaborate arrangement of furniture and fabric. Eliza let herself be pulled along, grateful for the distraction.
“It’s magnificent,” she said, examining their handiwork. “A proper fortress.”
“You can be the queen!” Philip declared. “And we’ll be your knights, protecting you from dragons!”
The word queen made something twist painfully in Eliza’s chest. She’d never be a queen. Wouldn’t even get to be a proper duchess, not in any meaningful way. Just a title without the partnership, the family, the love that should come with it.
“Your Grace?” Miss Winslow’s voice was gentle. “Are you quite all right?”
Eliza realized she’d gone still, staring at the blanket fort with tears threatening to spill over, as she was asked that question not once, but twice.
“Yes,” she managed. “I’m sorry, I just…”
“Boys,” Imogen said smoothly, “why don’t you show Miss Winslow that new book Uncle Ambrose bought you? I believe it’s in the library.”
“But we want to see Aunt Eliza!” The boys protested, but Helen shepherded them out with practiced efficiency, throwing Eliza a concerned look as they departed. The moment the door closed, Eliza’s composure crumbled like a sandcastle caught in a wave.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pressing her hands to her face. “I shouldn’t have come. I didn’t mean to intrude, to bring this to you, to be so—”
“Hush.” Imogen guided her to the settee, sitting beside her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Tell me what’s happened.”
So, Eliza did. The whole miserable story poured out and the more she spoke, the more she said. Morgan’s distance, their argument, the hollow feeling of living in the same house as someone who couldn’t bear to be near you.
“He said loving me terrified him,” Eliza finished, her voice breaking. “That caring for me made him weak. That he can’t, he won’t live like that.”
“Oh, Eliza.” Imogen’s voice was thick with sympathy. “I’m so sorry.”
“I thought we were happy. I thought he loved me.” She laughed bitterly. “How stupid of me.”
“It’s not stupid to believe in love. And for what it’s worth, I think he does love you.”
“It doesn’t feel that way, Imogen.”
“It’s why he’s so frightened.”
“Then he’s a coward.”
“Yes,” Imogen agreed simply. “He is. But that doesn’t make the pain any easier to bear.”
“I think we need some pastries. I recently received a delivery of French macarons. Let me ring for them and we can just sit here for a while and wallow.”
“I would very much like a wallow.”
“Good,” Imogen said as she rang a small bell next to her.
Meanwhile, across London, Morgan sat in White’s nursing his third, or was it fourth?, glass of whiskey.
“Kirkhammer! There you are!”
Lord Pemberton clapped him on the shoulder, his face flushed with drink and goodwill.
“Heard the final word on that awful Whitfield business. Glad I could be of help. Absolutely smashing work, getting that monster arrested. The whole ton is talking about it.”
“Is that so?” Morgan’s voice was carefully modulated, charming as usual. The perfect veneer of a satisfied duke who’d just brought a murderer to justice.
“Three wives!” Lord Ashford joined them, shaking his head. “Can you imagine? And to think we all dined with him, let our wives dance with him, treated him as one of us.”
“Chilling,” someone else agreed, whom Morgan didn’t recognize nor care to introduce himself to.
They all toasted Morgan’s cleverness, his dedication to justice, his bravery.
He smiled and accepted their congratulations with practiced ease, playing the role they expected, the role he knew.
But when he looked at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar, he barely recognized the man staring back.
“Another round!” Pemberton called. “To Kirkhammer, the man who proved that justice can prevail!”
Morgan raised his glass with the others.
And felt nothing. Nothing at all.
The cemetery was quiet, the afternoon sun filtering through the leaves overhead. Eliza stood before Abigail’s grave, reading the inscription carved into the pale marble.
Lady Abigail Whitfield
Beloved Daughter
1804-1826
Gone Too Soon
No mention of her marriage. No reference to Whitfield at all. Her parents had seen to that. Eliza knelt on the grass, not caring about the damp seeping through her dress.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” she whispered. “I was… I was too afraid. Afraid that coming here would make it real. That you’re really gone.”
The breeze rustled through the trees, carrying the scent of with it.
“We got him, Abby. Whitfield. He confessed to everything. He’s going to hang for what he did to you. To all of you.” Eliza’s voice broke as she looked to the sky. “I know it doesn’t bring you back. Nothing can. But at least… at least he can’t hurt anyone else. I hope that can be enough.”
She traced the letters of Abigail’s name with trembling fingers.
“I wish you were here. I wish I could tell you about Morgan. About how I fell in love with him, how happy I… was.” Tears streamed down her face. “About how he’s broken my heart. You always gave the best advice about men. You’d know what to do.”
A bird sang somewhere overhead, its melody sweet and achingly sad.
“I thought I was so brave, running away from my parents, from Whitfield. But I’m not brave, Abby. I’m terrified. Terrified of loving someone who won’t let himself love me back. Terrified of spending the rest of my life in a marriage that’s just… empty. I know it could be worse… but oh, Abby!”
She sat back on her heels, wiping her eyes.
“But I can’t keep wallowing like this. You wouldn’t want me to. You’d tell me to stop crying over a man who’s too stupid to see what’s right in front of him. You’d tell me to live my life. To be happy. For the both of us.”
Eliza stood, brushing grass from her skirts.
“So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to live, Abby.
Because you didn’t get the chance to.” She pressed her fingers to her lips, then touched them to the gravestone.
“I miss you every day. And I promise that I won’t let this heartbreak rule my life.
I won’t let Morgan’s fear steal my future the way Whitfield stole yours. ”
As she walked away from the grave, Eliza felt something shift inside her. The pain was still there, raw and open, aching and real. But underneath it, something else was growing.
Determination.
She’d survived her parents’ cruelty. She’d escaped Whitfield’s trap. She’d built a new life from nothing. She could survive this too. With or without Morgan.
It is his loss.
“Europe?” Imogen set down her teacup, staring at Eliza when she joined her for afternoon tea the following day. “You’re planning to travel across Europe?”
“Yes.” Eliza had come prepared this time, her decision made. “I’ve always wanted to see Paris, Rome, Vienna. All the places my parents said were too dangerous or improper for a young lady to visit.”
“But surely Morgan would be too busy to—”
“Morgan won’t be joining me.” Eliza kept her voice steady. “I’ll take Mary with me as a companion. We’ll be perfectly respectable. Two women traveling together is hardly scandalous these days.”
Imogen was quiet for a long moment, studying Eliza’s face.
“Why are you going alone?” she asked gently.
“You know why,” Eliza said as she looked down at her hands, twisting her wedding ring around her finger.
“Morgan has made it clear he doesn’t want much to do with me anymore.
We live in the same house like perfect strangers.
We barely speak. And I can’t…” Her voice caught. “I won’t keep living like that.”
“Oh, Eliza.”
“I know what you’re going to say. That I should talk to him, that we should work through this together. But I’ve tried, Imogen. I’ve tried to reach him, to make him see that what we had was real and good and worth fighting for. But he won’t fight. He’s already given up. So, I’m going on vacation.”
“You’re giving up too?” Imogen pressed.
“No.” Eliza met her friend’s eyes. “I’m choosing myself. I’m choosing to live the life I want, even if it’s not the life I dreamed of. Even if it’s without him. I will be strong. I will not wallow a moment more. Life is too short.”
For Abigail… and for me.
Imogen reached across the table, taking Eliza’s hand. “When do you leave? How can I help?”
“Two weeks. All I need is a bit more time to make arrangements, settle affairs.” She managed a small smile. “And to have the courage to actually go through with it of course.”
“You’ll have my support,” Imogen said firmly. “Whatever you need, letters of introduction, recommendations for accommodations. Just say the word, Eliza.”
“Thank you.” Eliza squeezed her hand. “That means more than you know. I have not had such a dear friend since Abigail passed.”
“It is an honor to be your friend,” Imogen said, and Eliza watched her eyes prickle with unshed tears. “Such a loss and I look forward to you telling me more stories of her in the years to come.”
“I would like that.”
“So, have you told Morgan?”
“Not yet. But I will. He deserves to know that his wife is leaving the country for an indefinite period I suppose.”
“And if he asks you to stay?”
Eliza was quiet for a long moment. She thought about Morgan’s eyes when he’d said those words.
Not in the way you need.
“He won’t,” she said finally. “He’s made his choice. Now I’m making mine.”
As she rode home in the carriage that afternoon, Eliza looked out at London’s streets.
She took in the city that had been both prison and sanctuary, the place where she’d lost everything and found everything and lost it all over again.
In two weeks, she’d leave it all behind.
The scandal. The memories. The ghost of a marriage that might have been.
I’ll go to Paris first, she decided. Walk along the Seine. Visit the Louvre. Eat pastries in sidewalk cafés and practice my French and try to remember what it feels like to be happy.