Chapter 50
FAMILY SECRETS
DUNCAN
Eloise folded her tiny, perfectly manicured hands. She stared at them in her lap, unable to meet my gaze. All I wanted—all I needed—was for her to be honest. I knew deep down it would not matter what she said.
Setting the delicious game aside, I made it all about her. I did not mind carrying her burden. I was purpose-driven to serve her. I wanted to be good for her. I wanted her to care about me. I needed her trust and belief in the good in my heart.
She stared ahead. “I will say all of this and please do not hate me.”
I couldn’t have. “Eloise, I won’t. But I would like you to say it.”
Eloise spoke to the wall. “I grew up wealthy, like Mo. I was raised in those circles. My father and mother were probably what yours would call climbers. My father built a very successful business from the ground up. And while my mother was born dirt poor, she climbed out by the skin of her teeth. She ran away, got a waitress job, and entered community college with a dream to start a business, but Dad fell in love with her. She was young and pretty and together they had me and built an empire.”
It was no surprise she was raised wealthy. Her manners and time at Seymour suggested that much.
Eloise’s eyes filtered to her hands. “I was raised between the Lower East Side and the Hamptons. My parents were transplanted Midwesterners, so I spent the summers back with my grandparents on Lake Michigan. You may never hear much of an accent. I was shipped off to boarding school at age 9. Here. Because the expectation, Duncan, was that I would meet a son of the aristocracy eventually in the good circles here and marry up. This—what we’re doing now—was some sort of wet dream for my mother. ”
I chuckled. “I think we’d scar her.”
Her face softened at my joke and she turned back. Her big blue eyes told the story of how hard this was.
“I was close to my Dad. He always was so proud of me for being book smart and for my riding. I spent summers at horse shows really cleaning up and he came to everything. He didn’t have to care how many charter flights it would require.
He would be there. My mother was distant and struggled with her mental health, so nannies provided me with emotional stability at home.
No one physically abused me or anything like that.
But my mother… she inflicted enough pain on me just in her disdain for my body after puberty.
She was tall and thin. My father’s family is short and stout.
And… I am closer to that side as you can see. I’ve got no thigh gap. My ass is huge.”
“I love your ass,” I said. “The best on either side of the Atlantic.”
“Oh, stop! You think you like it until the media tear me apart and call me hideous and fat and you realize you could do better, Duncan.”
I took in her full cheeks and the way they flushed when I complimented her. It brought out my smile.
“There is nothing they could say that I would believe. God, you’re beautiful. I am sorry anyone has ever made you feel less-then.”
“So you are telling me my fat thighs and my big calves and my belly that will never ever get toned no matter what I fucking do to it appeals to you?”
I shook my head. “I love the way your ass jiggles and how soft you feel. I love that your thighs are powerful and I think you have the most adorable feet. I never would have said anything about your calves. Your tits are magnificent and the whole of you… it’s beautiful.
So, no. I have seen far more women naked than I gather you have seen men.
And no, I do not care. You are the one I want.
Right now, lying here, totally honest, I can say it is you I want, Eloise. ”
“But you are physically perfect.”
I shrugged. “I’m not hideous, but you could do a lot better with a younger model.”
“Disagree. You won the genetic lottery. Your mom was a total smoke show in her twenties and your Dad… well, we know where you get it from. I say this trying not to be creepy but to affirm your superiority. No one has such business being such an attractive family.”
I snickered.
“It’s the inbreeding.”
“Oh, stop!” She giggled and slapped my chest.
I stared lovingly. “If your fucked up parents and childhood are a reason to disown you, no society girl would ever suit me. That’s just life in the fishbowl, darling.”
“No. There’s more. Dad died of a heart attack when I was sixteen.”
“I’m sorry, Eloise.”
“It gets worse. Dad kept taking on bad investments. When the economy crashed, he lost everything. We just didn’t know it yet. So, we were in debt up to our eyeballs. I had no clue until my car was repossessed while I was at a pool party.”
My jaw dropped. Repossessed?
She crossed her arms, reading me as judgmental. “Look, I shouldn’t—”
I stopped her, my hand on her knee. “Eloise, I’m not judging you. I would never say that your circumstances made you or your parents bad people. I hope you don’t think so little of me.”
“I don’t. I don’t know how your parents would feel and I know how the media would. And there is more.”
“Oh?” I let her continue.
“I got a call from Seymour just before my final year—sixth form—and was told I needed to pay my tuition immediately. My mother was off with a mark on a yacht. You see, her solution to the problem was to run to a man who could keep her in good standing. Meanwhile, I was watching all our belongings being sold to pay off creditors—alone in a massive fucking house.”
“You were a child.”
Eloise shrugged. “Just barely.”
“You were a child,” I reasserted. “Good God! I’m so sorry that happened to you. My childhood was idyllic. I know I whinge but—”
“That’s why when you do stupid shit and I know it hurts your parents, it kills me. Because I know how much they love you, raised you well, and are there for you. They modeled genuine love for you.”
“How do you know?
“Because I see you interact with children in the most tender of ways. I struggle with that. I love babies. Babies are simple. But kids? No one ever fucking hugged me. Not anyone but Mo’s family.
You don’t understand. Dad loved me endlessly, but he wasn’t much for expressing it.
It’s taken me years to understand he just struggled.
My mom… who knows? But no one who wasn’t paid to care for me ever expressed it until Monique’s parents. ”
That killed me. She unexpectedly teared up, reliving this pain I prompted her to unpack. With this context, I now regretted batting my parents away so many times and dragging them through scandal after scandal.
“I only finished Seymour because Mo’s parents paid my tuition.
Constance never told me she would do it, but she did.
And when I found out my debts were paid by them, I was so embarrassed.
I pled with Constance not to pay for the next semester, and she told me it was paid in full and to never ask about it again.
She wasn’t sorry she paid. And now, as an adult, if I had the ability to do the same for someone I cared about, I would.
And I wouldn’t see it as embarrassing, but you know what public school is like.
You know how cutthroat it was. I had no money.
Nothing. Occasionally, my mother would send me 100 quid or something here or there.
I went from having every luxury good imaginable to not being able to afford a pair of trainers, Duncan.
And I was spoiled, so, that felt punishing. I had it so easy, really.”
“No, it sounds like you didn’t have any of your needs met emotionally and were always neglected, Eloise. But I still don’t understand how that is your fault or why I would love you less?”
“Think about it from my perspective—not as Ella or Mistress Mills, but as Eloise Mills, PR professional.”
I cocked my head. “What? Why?”
She turned to me, annoyed. “Duncan, think about the optics.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“You must care about that, Duncan. The situation is complicated. It’s a liability.”
“I don’t care, Ella.”
“Think about this story… my mother’s behavior is a template for mine. I’m only here to marry up and take your money. After all, I’m desperate to get back in society’s good graces. I’ll just spend the crown’s funds like a personal checkbook.”
“But you’ve lived your life for nearly a decade without your parents. You found a way to go to uni and suffered through that dreadful place you live. That’s not the work of a climber, Ella.”
“You know that. I know that. To the media, though, I’m the poor little rich girl with a dodgy past. My family lost everything to creditors. You look like just the golden parachute my mother always hoped I’d land.”
I shook my head. “It’s unfair. The story should be that I fell for a capable woman who helped me put my life back together—a partner.”
She sighed. “Painting that picture is much harder. The simplest answer wins.”
Eloise was finally in tears. It had taken that long for her to break down. While I could whinge about my awful texts being made public and Nessa’s treatment of me, it would never amount to being hung out to dry by your own family.
“Your mum isn’t in the picture, right?”
She shook her head no.
“Well, I’m sorry she never got to see you grow up and become this person before me. Because, you are. You’re so resilient and clever. You own your shit. That probably intimidates her.”
“I was never enough. And in the end, she saw no point in investing more time or money in me. She remarried. He never wanted to be a father—to me or anyone. And we haven’t talked since I went off to uni.
And yeah I’m still in tons of debt from that, but I had no choice. I was going to finish my education.”
“Good. Well, that you finished your education. Not that she sees no value in you. I do. And, let me just say that if Lucy Ferguson and my mother both see value in you and John finds you invaluable, you are really, really good. Their expectations combined are crushing. Ask me how I know.”
Eloise gave my cheek a tender stroke. I pushed into it, kissing her hand. It was salty from tears wiped from her eyes.
“Thank you for saying that and not freaking out, Duncan. I don’t deserve—”
I interrupted. “No. No. Do not say you do not deserve even a single thing. You deserve to be loved, appreciated, and respected. You must be proud of your accomplishments. Eloise, even putting aside the terrible things you do to me, I cannot help but feel downright gutted that you ever felt tossed aside or left out there.”
“Mo’s family helps. The Vincents have always taken me in. I am so grateful for their love. I truly believe they are my family, Duncan. It took some time, but I do have love.”
“I know. And they seemed like good people.”
“They are the best people. I am the child Constance never thought she would have. But she loves me all the same. Every birthday, every Christmas, every achievement, she showers me with the type of affection my mother never did. I hope if I ever have children, I can be half as good a mother.”
“I feel like that about my dad,” I admitted. “And sometimes I feel I have no business having children.”
“But you love them, Duncan. You adore them. I cannot imagine a person who would want children more than I think you probably do.”
“Eh. I do. I figured I’d be done having them by now.
I wanted them with Vanessa. She wanted them, too.
But she didn’t want to deal with my issues.
Eloise, I will not deny that life with me is fucking messy and that you might pull your hair out.
What I will say is that after the breakdown with Nessa and all of this, I would never let anyone trash you because of the sins of your parents.
For better or worse, I would protect you.
And you may not know my family well yet, but I can assure you my mother would smite them down. ”
“So why didn’t Nessa feel safe?” She asked the million-dollar question.
I shrugged. “You would have to ask her. My best guess after two years of soul-searching and a bit of therapy is that she never trusted me or my family. For whatever reason, she held back. And there was nothing more I could do to fix it. No matter how much she loved me, I couldn’t force it.
So, I’m sorry if I freaked out. It’s… a sticking point. ”
“I’m sorry I was combative. I try to push people away. I like to have everything neat and tidy rather than get into the mess.”
“Life is messy, Ella. Really fucking disastrous sometimes. And that’s okay.
But don’t hide it from me. Yes, your job is to manage my nonsense.
I adore and respect you for it. But here…
I want to be a place you can go. I need you to be willing to open up to me.
I promise to do right by you as you do right by me. ”
Tears welled again. She smiled, though, almost bravely, and nodded.
“I have never loved anyone, Duncan. I don’t know what that all feels like and I don’t want to rush whatever the fuck we’re doing. Um… but just know that I am trying to remain open and it’s hard. But I want to. Because you make me feel special and cared for… and you’re right. I do deserve it.”
I took her face into my hands and kissed her forehead. “You are worthy, Ella. And let me assure you, your background doesn’t frighten me or make me care less. It puts things into perspective, but none of it gives me pause. I want you to tell me things. I need that.”