Chapter 8 #2
Lizzie smiled a little. “I was so in love, I simply refused to think about the world outside. Until that world refused to stay away. Eventually reality intruded.” She stared. “Do you really wish to go through with it?”
“I don’t care,” Eleanor said. Her heart lurched with dread and dismay. “I don’t care. If the wedding were in a few weeks, I might break it off, but it is in hours. I don’t have the strength to care.”
“What has happened?” Lizzie asked softly.
Eleanor was about to tell her. But she would go directly to Tyrell, the future heir to the earldom.
Ty must not know about Sean. He must never become involved.
“I am sad,” she whispered, and she shrugged.
“Once, I dreamed of marrying someone else. Those dreams are over now.” Eleanor pulled away before Lizzie could reply and left her standing there outside the kitchens.
Eleanor traversed the corridor. She had no wish to run into any of their guests, and to avoid the main hall, she slipped outside so she could enter the family’s wing of the house from a back entrance.
She was just about to safely reenter the house undetected when she glimpsed a flash of red from the corner of her eye.
She whirled to stare toward the driveway where it curved in front of the house.
Even from a distance, Eleanor recognized Captain Brawley.
He had been invited to her wedding, as her father wished to stay on good terms with the British soldiers.
Brawley was the ranking officer in the county and as such, the officer attending to local disturbances and affairs.
Major Wilkes commanded the county and Cork and Kerry, as well.
Now Eleanor saw that Brawley was with five other troops, immersed in a rather intense conversation as they sat their mounts in the front drive.
She did not think twice; she lifted her skirts and hurried across the lawns toward them.
The men were about to disperse, Eleanor realized, her heart racing, all of her exhaustion gone. “Captain!” she called, increasing her pace. “Captain Brawley!”
He instantly turned his charger, his gaze going wide with surprise.
“Lady Eleanor,” he said, instantly dismounting.
He bowed. He was in his early twenties, with jet-black hair, fair skin and light blue eyes.
They were acquainted, due to his regular calls at Adare, but their exchanges had been infrequent and mundane.
Although Brawley was a young man and handsome enough, he was neither a charmer nor a rake; in fact he was very serious and very intent.
He was always polite, and he usually paused to have a word with her when he was at the house.
All in all, she had found him very unremarkable.
She managed a bright smile, her heart racing. She had to know what the captain and his men were doing there at Adare. He had been invited to her wedding, but his troops had not. Surely he was not hunting Sean! “Captain, good morning.”
“Lady Eleanor, I pray I am not disturbing you, today of all days.” A slight flush colored his high cheekbones. He was stiff in posture, although his carriage was correct.
She was in no humor for a stilted exchange now. “You are hardly disturbing me, as I am the one greeting you. You are early for the wedding—I am not even dressed.” She somehow laughed, as if in gay spirits.
His gaze was on her face, though, and she was afraid he was remarking her recent tears and her unnatural pallor. “Lady Eleanor, I fear I am presuming on your time. Should I escort you back to the house?”
She smiled brightly. “Are you here for my wedding, already? It is not even noon!” She refused to be deterred.
He hesitated. “Actually, no, I have other duties to attend, but I will not miss the wedding.” He smiled politely at her.
Eleanor scrambled to think. Was he there at Adare looking for Sean? What other reason could there be? She was so afraid and she realized she was shaking.
Instantly he caught her arm. “Lady Eleanor! Are you about to faint? You seem terribly pale.”
She held on to him tightly, so he could not go. “Captain, you must tell me the truth.”
“Let me find you a place to sit so I can summon help,” he said.
She shook her head. “I am getting married in a few short hours, as you know. And because of this, everyone thinks to keep me blissfully ignorant. But I know you were here a few days ago—and I know the reason for your call, Captain.”
He was grim. “Lady Eleanor, I think I must see you back to the house. It is your wedding day, as you have pointed out, and my men and I are a terrible intrusion.”
Eleanor seized his arm. “Yesterday I received terrible news, news that my stepbrother Sean had been in prison and that he has recently escaped. Then I find you here, with your men! If you are hunting the stepbrother I am so fond of, then you must tell me!”
“Lady Eleanor,” he said after a terse pause, “I am afraid I cannot discuss this subject.”
“He isn’t here!” she cried. “If Sean were here, he would come to wish me well, especially today!”
Brawley stared at her as if torn.
“Surely you do not think he is here?” She released his sleeve. “Sean and I were raised together under this very roof. I am so worried for him! And whatever they say he did, they are wrong. Sean is innocent of all the charges against him.”
“Lady Eleanor, if your family thinks it best not to inform you of all that has transpired, surely I should not be the one to do so,” he said firmly.
She felt tears well, tears engendered by her exhaustion, encouraged by her raw emotions. “How can I marry today not knowing if he is alive or dead? Not knowing if he is safe? Not knowing where he is?”
“Please, Lady Eleanor!” Brawley handed her his immaculate white handkerchief.
“I am afraid I was instructed to search the grounds,” he said.
“But my orders to do so were not based on any evidence that he has been here. In fact, our search of the entire area has proved the very opposite—your stepbrother has not returned to Adare.” He tried to smile stiffly at her.
“So you may know that he is safe, wherever he is.”
Eleanor stared into his eyes, beyond relief. “So the search is over?”
He looked away. “I am afraid not. By law, he is a fugitive, and I am under orders to apprehend him.”
All relief vanished. She did not have to know Brawley well to know he was a man who carried out his duty, no matter the cost. “And that is what you will do?” she asked bitterly. “Even knowing, as you now do, that he is innocent?”
He was rigid, and he did not quite look at her now. “Your loyalty to your stepbrother is commendable. If you must know, I would be as loyal, if I were in your shoes. But I am a soldier, Lady Eleanor, and I must obey my orders.”
She had a dreadful suspicion. “And what are your orders, precisely?” she asked, trembling. Traitors were hanged. There was no quarter given, and Sean had already been convicted of high treason. “Captain Brawley? You said your orders are to apprehend Sean—yet you refuse to look me in the eye!”
“He is a dangerous man!” he cried, meeting her gaze and flushing. “Why do you torment yourself this way, so soon before your wedding?”
She gripped his arm. “There is more! What aren’t you telling me? And Sean is not dangerous!”
Brawley seemed to struggle with himself. He shrugged free of her. “He is wanted dead or alive, Lady Eleanor. I am sorry to be the one to tell you so.”
Eleanor cried out.
ELEANOR SAT in her wedding dress before the vanity in her dressing room, both of her sisters-in-law with her.
Devlin’s wife, Virginia, was a petite woman with fair skin and black hair who had been born on a plantation in the state of Virginia.
Virginia had just remarked how beautiful Eleanor was in her beaded and lace-trimmed wedding dress.
Eleanor could not care. She could not shake Brawley’s words. Now, she prayed Sean was on a ship and bound for the Atlantic Ocean.
She stared at her ashen reflection, the diamond tiara she wore with its attached veil doing nothing to help her complexion.
She appeared ill, or as if she was in mourning.
But she was in mourning, she thought. She was mourning the loss of her best friend and the man she loved.
She wondered if she would mourn forever.
And to make matters worse, she was about to go downstairs and marry Peter Sinclair, an honorable man who loved her. Eleanor knew she had wronged Sinclair last night and that she was wronging him now by marrying him.
Lizzie moved closer to Eleanor, laying her palm on her bare shoulder.
The wedding gown had short, puffed, dropped sleeves, a wide, square and low neckline and huge tulip-shaped skirts.
The entire dress was made of lace, sewn with pearls and silver thread; the train was a pool of satin, trimmed in the same manner.
“Dear, you haven’t said a word in an hour.
Can we talk? Because you are frightening Ginny and me. ”
Eleanor closed her eyes, overcome with despair.
What was she doing? How could Sean have done what he had, never mind her invitation, and then just left?
And, dear God, she didn’t want to marry Peter.
It wasn’t honorable or right. But she had lost her will.
She felt as if someone had beaten her into a bloody pulp, so badly she could barely move much less walk, think, talk, or even feel.
“Eleanor?” This from Virginia. “You are behaving as if someone has died. Not like a merry bride.”
Eleanor looked at her pretty sisters-in-law in the mirror. Their gazes met. “Someone has died. And I do not love Peter. I can’t do this.” She added, choking on bitter laughter, “Peter doesn’t deserve this.”
Virginia and Lizzie exchanged dismayed glances. “Who has died?” Lizzie asked worriedly.
“I have,” Eleanor said, remaining as still as a statue, except for her chest, which showed the signs of breathing with some exertion. “I have died. And this must be hell.”