Chapter 15 #2
She left the drawing room and made her way to the parlor, her steps slower than usual.
She paused only briefly before sitting near the table where her painting materials had been arranged earlier in the week, though she had not yet completed anything meaningful.
Bessie entered shortly after, hesitating when she saw her mistress already seated.
“Your Grace?” Bessie said carefully, lingering near the door. “Shall I return later?”
“No,” Eleanor replied quietly. “Stay.”
Bessie stepped further inside at once. She did not speak again immediately, instead observing in silence as Eleanor picked up a brush she did not truly intend to use. Eleanor stared at the blank canvas for a moment, then began to paint without having anything in particular as her subject.
The strokes were uneven at first, and she attempted to correct them, but the effort only made her more aware of how unsteady her hand felt. After a time, Eleanor lowered her hand.
“I do not understand myself today,” she said suddenly, her voice quieter than she intended.
“Is there something troubling you, Your Grace?”
Eleanor gave a faint shake of her head, though it was not convincing even to herself.
“Everything feels as though it is pulling me in different directions,” she admitted. “And I do not know what to do.”
Bessie moved a little closer, remaining respectfully at a distance.
“Sometimes when too much is said, or too much is felt, it becomes difficult to tell which part is meant to be carried and which part is meant to pass.”
Eleanor’s breath caught slightly, and she looked down at her hands as though they belonged to someone else.
“There was a time,” she said slowly, “when I thought I knew what I wanted, and now I find myself unsure whether that was ever truly mine, or simply something I wanted to believe in.”
“It is not uncommon for the heart to want different things. That does not make either feeling false.”
Eleanor’s composure finally faltered at that.
The brush slipped slightly in her fingers before she set it down fully, her hand pressing lightly against the edge of the table as emotion rose too quickly to contain.
She tried to speak again, but the words did not come cleanly, and instead she exhaled shakily, her gaze lowering.
“I do not know what I am becoming here,” she admitted, her voice breaking at the edges. “I do not know what I am meant to feel.”
Bessie stepped closer then, gently placing a handkerchief within reach rather than intruding further.
“You are allowed not to know,” she said softly. “And you are allowed to feel more than one thing at once. That does not make you wrong. It only makes you human.”
That was enough. Eleanor’s breath hitched, and the restraint she had held through the morning finally gave way.
Her tears came quietly at first, then more fully, though she did not move away or try to hide them.
Bessie remained beside her without pressing, and for the first time that day, the weight inside Eleanor did not feel entirely hers to carry alone.
A knock came a short while later, cutting through the softened stillness of the parlor where Eleanor had not yet regained her full composure. She had managed to still her hands, though the remnants of her emotions remained.
Bessie had remained with her, quietly folding cloths and tidying the small space around her without forcing conversation.
The calm had been fragile but steady, enough to keep Eleanor anchored in the present.
When the second knock sounded, it was followed by the murmur of voices in the corridor outside.
“Shall I see who it is, Your Grace?”
Before Eleanor could answer, the voice of Mr. Thornton carried faintly through the hallway, followed by a younger voice.
A delivery rider.
Eleanor remained still, though something in her attention shifted. She did not intend to listen, yet the voices were close enough that intention became irrelevant.
“Deliver them as instructed.”
“Of course,” the rider replied, though his tone suggested he was not finished speaking.
“Only, you might want to keep an eye on things in this house. I heard something while I was passing through the square earlier. Talk has already started, and it tends to travel quicker than the post. Nothing official, mind, just that Lady Cordelia Ashworth has returned to London, and if I were a betting man, I would say society will not let that pass quietly.”
Eleanor felt a subtle tightening in her chest that made her breath hesitate for a fraction longer than it should have.
She stepped back from the door without fully deciding to move, her hand lifting slightly as though to steady herself against the wall.
She had not meant to listen, yet she had heard enough.
“Your Grace?” Bessie asked.
Eleanor did not answer immediately. Her gaze lowered, and for a brief moment she felt an emotion she did not want to name and did not feel entitled to justify. It was not anger, not entirely, and not simply curiosity either. It was more like jealousy, though she refused to accept it as such.
She turned away from the door before the conversation outside could continue, stepping further into the parlor as though distance alone might undo what she had overheard.
“I did not mean to listen,” she said quietly.
Bessie did not question her. She only watched her carefully. Her thoughts turned before she could stop them, and against her will, they settled on Julian and what he had hidden from her. Her chest tightened further at the thought, though she tried to suppress it.
Eleanor gave a faint, unsteady breath and looked down at her hands again, as though she could ground herself there.
“I do not know what place I have in any of this,” she admitted quietly. “It feels as though I am standing between things I do not understand, and neither side belongs to me.”
But that was not the worst of it, not in truth. The worst part was that everything felt as though it had already been decided without her.