Chapter 19 #2
Her sister turned away at once, as if the apology only sharpened the wound. She crossed toward the hearth, then stopped there, one hand pressed briefly to the mantel while the other still held the letters at her side.
“Sorry does not undo it,” Eleanor said, her voice lower now, though no less strained. “Sorry’ does not give me back your wedding day.”
Arabella looked down for a moment, her fingers curling against the fabric of her skirt.
She could feel Maxwell’s presence a few feet away, quiet and steady, not intervening, not crowding the conversation, but not leaving her to weather it alone either.
The awareness of him steadied her more than she wished to admit.
“I know,” she said. “And if I could have found a way to spare you that hurt, I would have.”
Eleanor turned back sharply. “Then why did you not wait? Why did you not send for James? For me? For anyone with a grain of sense?” Her gaze flicked briefly toward Maxwell, then back to Arabella. “What could possibly have been so urgent that you chose this?”
Arabella opened her mouth, closed it, then tried again. “The situation—”
“The situation,” Eleanor repeated, the word clipped. “Yes, I gathered there was some situation, though neither of your letters thought fit to explain it plainly enough to make any of this reasonable.”
Arabella felt heat rise into her face, partly from nerves, partly from the memory of exactly how little could be explained without saying too much. She glanced once toward Maxwell, then back at her sister.
“There was talk,” she said carefully. “A witness. A misunderstanding that could have become something far worse if we had not acted quickly.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. “Then it should be undone just as quickly.”
The words landed so suddenly that Arabella stared at her in silence.
“Annul it,” Eleanor said, now with clearer force, as though the thought had only just taken hold and already seemed the only sensible course. “If this was born of panic, then put an end to it before it settles into permanence.”
Arabella’s breath caught. She had not realized until that instant how sharply the suggestion would strike.
It was Maxwell who answered first.
“That will not be possible.”
His tone was calm, quiet enough that it did not break the room so much as settle into it, but the certainty of it made Eleanor turn toward him at once. Her anger, briefly redirected, sharpened visibly.
“And why,” she asked, “is it not possible?”
Maxwell met her gaze without flinching. “Because the marriage has been lawfully solemnized,” he said. “And because annulment would not serve your sister any better than the scandal we sought to prevent.”
Eleanor’s expression remained hard, but her attention flicked back to Arabella.
It was only for a moment, yet it was enough.
Her gaze caught on Arabella’s face, on the lingering color there that had not entirely faded since breakfast, and something in her expression shifted.
The anger did not vanish, but it altered, edged now with dawning comprehension.
Arabella wished at once that the floor might open beneath her.
Eleanor closed her eyes briefly, then let out a long, restrained breath. “I see,” she said, though the words were not easy.
Maxwell stepped more fully into the conversation then, not advancing so far as to dominate it, but enough that his presence became deliberate rather than peripheral.
“I owe you an apology,” he said. “Not for marrying your sister, but for the unfortunate circumstances under which it occurred. I would have preferred that matters be otherwise.”
Eleanor said nothing, though her gaze remained fixed on him.
Maxwell continued in the same controlled tone.
“I understand your concern. It is not misplaced. But I can assure you that our decision was not made lightly.” He glanced once toward Arabella, then back to Eleanor.
“Your sister may act quickly when she believes it necessary, but she is not careless in the way you fear.”
Arabella felt her throat tighten unexpectedly.
“She acted,” Maxwell said, “because she believed inaction would do harm not only to herself, but to you, your husband, and your household. She wished to keep any whisper of scandal from touching your family.”
For the first time since they had entered the room, Eleanor looked genuinely stunned. It did not last long, but it was there, clear enough to see before she mastered herself again.
Arabella could not stop herself from looking at Maxwell then. Gratitude rose so swiftly it nearly ached. He had said exactly what she had tried, clumsily and too late, to make Eleanor understand.
Her sister looked back at her, and the fierce line of her mouth softened by a fraction. “You thought of us first,” she said, not quite a question.
Arabella nodded. “Of course I did.”
A silence followed, but it was no longer as sharp as before.
Maxwell inclined his head slightly, as if sensing the shift before anyone named it. “I believe,” he said, “that you would speak more freely without me present.”
Eleanor did not object.
Arabella turned toward him, and for one brief moment, all the noise in her mind quieted. “Thank you,” she said softly.
He answered only with the smallest nod before withdrawing, leaving the room with the same steadiness he had brought into it. The door closed behind him, and the silence that followed felt different from the one before. Less threatening. More fragile.
Eleanor stood very still for a few seconds, the letters lowering at last to her side. When she spoke again, the anger remained, but it no longer burned so wildly.
“I should not have said you did not think,” she said. “That was unfair.”
Arabella blinked, the tension in her shoulders easing by slow degrees. “You were angry.”
“Angry? No, Arabella. I was not only angry. I was devastated,” Eleanor corrected, and the honesty of it made Arabella’s chest ache. “I am still angry. But more than that, Arabella, I am heartsick that I was not there.”
That undid the last of her.
Arabella crossed the distance between them without thinking, and Eleanor met her halfway.
The embrace was immediate, fierce in a way that nearly sent her back into tears she had not realized were so close.
Eleanor held her as she always had, one hand at the back of her head, the other firm around her shoulders, and for a moment, Arabella felt as young as she had the day Eleanor first learned how to comfort her.
“I am sorry,” Arabella whispered into the fabric of her sister’s shoulder. “I am so sorry.”
Eleanor drew back only enough to look at her. “You ought to be,” she said, though the words were softened by the shine in her eyes. “I shall never forgive you entirely for robbing me of the right to fuss over your gown.”
That pulled a breathless laugh from Arabella despite everything.
“I deserved that.”
“Yes, you did.”
They remained close, hands still clasped, neither quite ready to step apart. Eleanor looked over Arabella’s face more carefully now, as though assessing what no letter could have told her.
“He is treating you well?” she asked softly.
“Yes,” Arabella answered at once, and because it mattered, because Eleanor would hear falsehood if there was any in it, she added more quietly, “He truly is.”
Eleanor searched her expression for a long moment. Whatever she found there seemed to answer more than the words alone, because she nodded, though not without reservation.
“I believe you,” she said. “But I shall not rest easily until I see it for myself. You will come to Langford House next Wednesday.”
Arabella smiled faintly. “Okay, but that sounds like a threat.”
“It is a promise,” Eleanor replied. “You will come? Both of you.”
“We shall plan to be there.”
And though the worst of the storm had passed between them, Arabella knew by the look in her sister’s eyes that this conversation was not yet finished.