Chapter 28
Julian did not follow Eleanor when she left.
He stood where she had left him, one hand resting against the back of a chair, his thoughts moving slowly at first. What had just passed between them had been entirely within his control.
He had said what he intended to say. He had corrected what should never have been allowed to blur.
He had restored distance where there had been none.
That was what he told himself.
He moved at last, though not with purpose.
His words began to return to him in fragments, the way he had told her she should go, if that was what she wanted.
He had spoken of her leaving as though it was practical, as though it resolved something inconvenient rather than something far more significant.
He had told his wife to leave.
He had believed that maintaining that distance was necessary, that allowing it to falter would only lead to something neither of them could control, and yet, in enforcing it, he had done something else entirely.
He had not simply reminded her of what their marriage was meant to be, he had reduced it to that alone.
Julian exhaled slowly, his hand passing briefly over his face. Eleanor had not argued. She had not protested, had not raised her voice, had not demanded anything from him that he had already refused to give. She had listened, she had understood, and then she had accepted it.
At the time, he had taken that acceptance as an agreement.
Now he saw it for what it was. She had withdrawn entirely.
She had not tried to change his mind because he had given her no reason to believe it could be changed.
He had spoken with such finality, such certainty, that there had been nothing left for her to respond to beyond acceptance, and she had given it to him.
But if he had misjudged, if he had allowed something to be said that should not have been said, then there was still time to correct it. She had not gone far. She would still be within the house, somewhere he could reach before the distance between them became something irreversible.
He moved toward the door without hesitation and pulled it open, stepping into the corridor with a purpose that had not been there before. The house carried on as it always did, as though nothing of consequence had occurred within it.
“Where is my wife?” he asked, stopping the first servant he encountered.
The servant hesitated only briefly before answering.
“Her Grace has left, my lord.”
Julian stopped completely.
“Left,” he repeated.
“Yes, my lord. Not long after speaking with you, she had her things prepared. A carriage was called.”
“But I– did she say where she was going?”
“She did not, I am afraid. The footman will know, but he is accompanying her so we will not know until he returns.”
Julian dismissed him with a brief motion, and set off at once. For a moment, it felt as though everything had paused around him.
He had taken the time to think, to justify, to convince himself that what he had done was necessary, that it was correct, that it protected them both from something that would only lead to complication.
And in that time, she had packed her things and left his house with the same calm certainty he had shown her.
Julian turned slightly, his attention drawn back toward the room he had left, though he did not return to it. There was nothing that could be undone by standing where he had stood before. For the first time, the absence did not feel like order was restored. It felt like something was lost.
The first shock of her absence gave way quickly to movement, driven by something far more urgent than he cared to name.
He did not return to his study, did not attempt to occupy himself with anything that might resemble routine.
Instead, he moved through the house with a purpose that had been absent before, stopping servants, issuing questions, following each answer to its end.
“She left shortly after you spoke with her, my lord.”
“And why did nobody stop her?”
“We were not aware that we needed to.”
Julian knew that was right, and that they could not possibly have known what had been said, but he wished all the same that someone would have questioned her, or at least told him that she had left immediately.
“She had her things prepared in advance,” another servant explained. “A carriage was sent for and she boarded it.”
“Did you see her?” Julian asked. “Did she seem unhappy?”
“On the contrary, she seemed perfectly fine. That is why nobody questioned it, my lord.”
That was what struck him the most. It had not been impulsive.
She had not fled in distress or confusion.
She had acted with intention, and had left of sane mind.
Julian absorbed it all without arguing the point, though something in him tightened with each answer he received.
There was one question that remained, one detail that had not yet been confirmed, and it was the only one that mattered.
Fortunately, the footman that had left with her returned shortly after. Julian went to him at once.
“Where did she go?”
The servant hesitated only briefly, but it made him feel sick.
He had told her that Lady Rosamund would be an option for him, and that Halford clearly wanted her, but now that he considered the idea of her truly going to him, he wanted nothing less.
He could not stomach the thought of her leaving him, not anymore.
“She went to call on Lady Anne, my lord.”
Julian stilled.
“Anne,” he repeated.
“Yes, my lord. That was the direction given.”
There had been nothing else, no mention of Halford, no indication that she had turned toward the man who had offered her restoration, no suggestion that she had accepted what had been placed before her as an escape from what had passed between them.
She had not gone to him.
Julian exhaled slowly, though the breath did little to ease the shift that followed.
Eleanor had been given an alternative, one that would have been easy to take, one that would have allowed her to step directly into something structured, something familiar, something that restored what she had lost.
And she had not chosen it. She had chosen distance. The distinction mattered more than anything else he had realized since she left.
Julian turned away, dismissing the servant without another word, though his thoughts did not settle.
If she had gone to Halford, it would have been simple to understand, simple to frame as a return to something she had known before, a decision shaped by practicality rather than feeling.
It would have allowed him to place it within a structure he recognized, one that did not require him to reconsider what had passed between them.
But she had not done that. She had gone somewhere else entirely.
That choice stood on its own, separate from everything he had expected, and it forced him to see her differently than he had allowed himself to before.
She had not left him for another man. She had not replaced what he had refused to give her.
She had removed herself entirely, refusing to accept anything that resembled what he had offered in its place.
There was strength in that, a strength he had not accounted for.
Julian moved back through the house more slowly as he tried to think of what to do. When he reached the main hall, he stopped without intending to, his attention drawn to how quiet everything was in her absence.
It was the same house. Nothing had changed, and yet it had. He became aware of it in small, unremarkable ways at first. There was no expectation of interruption, no sense that someone might appear without warning, no presence that altered the rhythm of the day simply by existing within it.
Eleanor had never filled the space loudly. She had not needed to, and now her absence was enough to prove that everything had changed for the worse.
Julian turned slightly, his attention drawn toward the corridor that led to the gardens, the same path she had taken countless times, often with Lily at her side.
The thought of his sister followed naturally, and with it came a different kind of unease, one that had nothing to do with his own realizations and everything to do with what her absence would mean for someone else.
He did not have to search long for his sister.
Lily found him soon after. She came into the hall at a pace that suggested she had already been looking for him, her small steps quick, her attention fixed entirely on him as she reached him.
“Where is she?” she asked.
Julian did not answer immediately, the guilt thick in his throat. Lily looked past him, as though expecting Eleanor to appear just behind him, her certainty unshaken for the briefest moment before it began to falter.
“You said she would be here,” she continued. “You said she was not going anywhere.”
Julian’s hand moved slightly at his side, though he did not reach for her.
“She has gone to visit a friend,” he said.
“For how long?”
“I do not know.”
The answer settled heavily, though Lily did not accept it easily.
“Why?” she asked. “You told me that she would not leave. She told me that she would not leave. It isn't fair!”
Julian held still, the question striking more directly than anything else that had been said to him that day.
There was no simple answer, no way to shape it into something that would make sense to her without revealing more than he intended.
It was true, it was not fair to her at all, but he could not lay the blame with Eleanor for that.
He had been the one that made her feel unwanted and unwelcome, and he had to take the responsibility for that.
“She had reason to go,” he said.
“But there is no reason,” Lily replied, her voice tightening in a way he had rarely heard before. “She said she would stay. She said she would read with me, and that we would walk together.”
The words carried something fragile beneath them, something that had not yet broken but stood dangerously close to it. Julian drew a slow breath.
“Plans change,” he said. We cannot control everything, Lily. If Eleanor wants to go somewhere, then she can.”
Lily shook her head, her certainty returning, though it was not as steady as before.
“No,” she said. “Not like this. She told me that she would never leave. She promised.”
He had no answer for that. The silence stretched between them, filled with everything he could not explain and everything she did not understand. Lily looked toward the door again, as though expecting it to open, as though refusing to accept that it would not.
“She is coming back,” she said after a moment. “She will come back, I know it.”
“Lily, I… I do not know if that will happen.”
“Then why not? What did you do?”
“Why do you assume that I am at fault?”
“Because she would not have left if she was not told to. She did not want to. She liked it here with us.”
Lily turned back to him, waiting for him to respond, but Julian did not know what to say. He was entirely at fault, and there was no explanation for it that she would have understood.
“You said she would stay,” she repeated.
Julian held her attention for a moment before speaking, and when he did, his voice was quieter than before, though no less certain.
“I was wrong. I should not have assumed that Eleanor would be happy to stay here when I did not treat her as though we wanted her to be here– as though I did.”
The words did not soften anything.
Lily stood there, absorbing them in a way that did not allow for immediate reaction.
“She left because of you,” she said at last. “Is that what you are saying?”
Julian did not deny it. Lily looked at him for another moment, then turned away without another word, leaving him standing where he was as she moved back down the corridor, her steps slower now, her absence following quickly after.
Julian wondered what she was thinking, but he could only do so for a moment before he had to stop himself.
If she hated him, he would understand. Ever since Lily had met Eleanor, she had adored her.
There had never been an attempt from anyone to replace their mother with her, but Julian had to admit that Eleanor had filled a space that had been there ever since their mother had left.
She was a friend to Lily, her only real friend, and now she was gone and she was alone again.
And the blame lay entirely with him.
Julian remained where he stood, another terrible realization settling in his mind and refusing to leave.
He had fallen for his wife, and that was what had startled him so sharply.
It was nothing that Eleanor had done at all, and simply that he was as afraid that she would leave as his sister was.
It was easier for him to push her away under the guise of it not hurting as much that way, but it all felt even worse.
Because the blame lay entirely with him, and if she did not come back then he would have to remember that for the rest of his life.
He had not lost her to another man. He had driven her away from him entirely of his own accord, and in doing so, he had ruined his entire life, as well as that of his sister.
He simply hoped that, wherever she was, she was happier than she had been with him.