Chapter Eliza Brandon #2
“And what else does the lens have to say?” he asked, barely curbing the small grin on his lips as a bird across the field let out a strangled cry.
Eliza paused, looking down at the page and frowning. “Nothing. That’s the end.”
“Didn’t you like it?”
“Of course. I love it. I just never understand the endings to books like these.”
He paused. “How so?”
“When the stories say ‘they lived happily ever after’ or insinuate that the rest of their days were lived without sadness or strife”—she closed the book—“that doesn’t sound happy. It sounds rather boring.”
“Would you rather their love be tested annually?” Kit said with a smile.
“No. But surely the authors can end such stories with more realistic aspirations.”
“All right then. What would be your happily ever after?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, considering. “Maybe just that life goes on. Joy doesn’t have to be grand or perfect, but pleasures that we can all attain.
Like Christopher Marlowe wrote, ‘Come live with me and be my love, / And we will all the pleasures prove, / That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields, / Woods, or steepy mountain yields.’ ”
Kit watched her, his expression unreadable, like he was seeing something in her that she hadn’t meant to reveal.
“ ‘If these delights thy mind may move,’ ” he murmured, almost to himself. “ ‘Then live with me, and be my love.’ ”
She smiled. “That’s not the next line of the poem, Kit.”
“I know, Eve,” he replied, his eyes still locked on her so intensely that it felt as if her heart would stop.
Perhaps that was why, with her breath labored and the end so near, this memory had come to her. Because that was the moment she knew. She was his Eve and he was her Kit, and they were in love. They always had been. Nothing in the world felt more natural than that.
Yet, she hadn’t said anything. It felt too precious, too sacred to share, even with him. So she kept it a secret, thinking she could lock that love away in her heart so no one would find out.
How naive she had been.
“You’re in love with her, aren’t you?” William had asked his brother one evening, then scoffed. “How pathetic.”
Eliza wasn’t meant to hear it. She had merely been hoping to steal a book of poetry from the library’s mezzanine unnoticed. It was only once she was in the room, her hand creeping up to the leather-bound copy of Spenser, that she paused at the voices below.
“I’m not sure why it should concern you either way,” Kit’s voice replied from somewhere below.
“You can’t possibly be so stupid,” William replied with his typically venomous tone. “Father intends for me to marry her, not you. It’s the entire reason she’s here.”
Silence descended.
“Have either of you bothered to ask what she wants?” Kit finally asked.
“Why the hell does that matter?”
The statement was punctuated by his slithering laugh.
William retreated to Cambridge the following day, but his accusation remained, growing in her chest until it had consumed her. Kit loved her, too. But along with the epiphany came another, more pressing one. Her future was being decided without her.
It wasn’t surprising, exactly. Somehow, she had always known that she was intended to become Eliza Brandon.
It was one of the few things Mr. Brandon had ever communicated in her presence.
Eliza Fowler—and her immense fortune—would remain under the Brandon roof.
She would stay at Delaford, and she would eventually become lady of the house.
But how that would be cemented hadn’t been of serious concern.
At least, not as a child. But at seventeen years old, it was a question that suddenly felt urgent.
That night she was stirred from sleep, opening her eyes to the thick darkness of her bedroom. She didn’t move for a long moment, letting her eyes adjust as she tried to pinpoint what had roused her. Then she saw something move in the chair in the far corner of her room.
She sat up. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me,” Kit’s voice vibrated from the shadows.
Eliza was suddenly aware of her thin nightdress, her long hair falling around her exposed shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and with every second that ticked by, the sense of dread in her chest grew.
“What do you want, Eve?” he finally asked.
She could have feigned ignorance. Pretended she hadn’t been privy to the conversation earlier that day. But she also didn’t know how to lie. Not to him.
“You know what I want, Kit. To be happy. To have the chance at happiness, at least. To experience life and all its pleasures, however small,” she replied. “And I want you there with me for all of it.”
She could make out the shape of him now, the silhouette of his long body leaning back in the chair, his hand at his temple as he stared at her, his gaze so intense her breath caught. “My father purchased a commission for me,” he said. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”
Her heart tumbled down deep in her chest. “Where?”
“Bombay,” he replied.
There was nothing that could have prepared her for that answer. “But university—”
“I’m the second son, Eve,” he replied, as if forcing a bit of levity in his voice. “William will inherit our father’s name, his fortune. I must make my own way in the world.”
“What of my fortune?”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Your fortune is my father’s until you marry. And you were always intended for—”
“You,” she said. “I love you, Kit. Above all things.”
She knew she had said the words, but they still sounded like they had emerged from a dream, too ethereal to be real.
“You love me?” he asked, so low she barely heard it.
“Yes,” she whispered, before she could stop herself. “So much I feel like I could forget to breathe if you’re not near.”
A moment passed, then Kit rose and stalked slowly to the bed. He came to a stop at the end of it, looking down at where she still sat.
“Then marry me, Eve,” he said softly, almost pleading. “Not because my father wants your fortune, or because of my brother’s plans. Marry me because you love me.”
She didn’t have the chance to say yes before his lips were on hers. Then words seemed so superfluous. All she could think about were his arms around her body, their sighs and kisses and moans until morning.
They were so naive to think their plan would work. They hadn’t anticipated the maid overhearing their plans, alerting Mr. Brandon, and sending Kit away before they even had a chance to say goodbye.
She waited. She did. The weeks turned into months, but still, she waited.
For what, she wasn’t entirely sure. She knew he was thousands of miles away, but she had hoped for word of his arrival, a letter, something.
But nothing arrived. And then, six months after he was gone, half a year of hiding in her room and avoiding every corner of Delaford that reminded her of him, Mr. Brandon knocked on her door for the first time in seventeen years.
He didn’t wait for her to give him permission to enter. He didn’t ask her how she was. He merely stared past her to the wall and said, “You are to marry William tomorrow.”
“But Kit—”
“Christopher is gone.”
She hadn’t backed down, merely raised her chin. “Then I will wait.”
“You don’t have a choice,” he said offhandedly, as if it were a sidenote and not the most devastating statement in the entire world.
Then he closed her door and left.
Eliza didn’t remember the wedding. In fact, those following weeks still felt like a blur. Perhaps that was on purpose, a way to make the pain more manageable.
Eliza had grown up with William and his vicious tongue, but with marriage came the introduction of clumsy fists.
Maybe it was because Kit was gone. Maybe it was because he hated how much she hated him.
Or maybe there was no reason at all. Maybe William was just a sad, pathetic man who was grasping at straws to feel strong and important, and one of those straws just happened to be her throat.
“Uppity bitch,” he used to mumble, usually after he had come into her room unannounced and forced himself into her bed without another word.
Thankfully, he grew bored of her quickly.
The relief was short-lived, though, as stories of her husband’s dalliances began to find her ear.
Eliza had never expected him to be loyal, but she had expected discretion.
Perhaps that was her mistake. Discretion required respect, and William never offered that.
So she flirted. Any man who so much as looked at her got a smile, a laugh, anything to poke alive that part of her that had once felt vital and loved and worthy.
It was always just that, a flirtation, a passing glance.
Then she met Geoffrey Williams, an officer from a regiment stationed nearby, and he had indulged her more than any man ever had.
There was conversation and compliments over the course of the Season, until it all came to a head at a concert at Delaford.
After the music was finished, he had asked for a tour of the gallery, and Eliza obliged, showing him the collection of family portraits and landscapes.
At the end of the long room, he had taken her hand, pulling her close to the window so they were hidden by the curtain, and he kissed her.
It had been so long since she had been the recipient of affection that she hadn’t even thought of pushing him away until they heard a door close nearby.
“We should go,” she whispered.
“And where should we go, Mrs. Brandon?” he had whispered in her ear. “Back to the party, or out to the garden? It’s your choice.”
Your choice. It was such an intoxicating proposition. When was the last time she had been given a choice? How much different would her life be if she had? And if this was it, the one opportunity she had to be master of her own life, then she would take it. So she chose the garden.