Chapter 20 #2
Edmund—no, Singleton now, and soon to be something else—had kissed her because danger compressed feeling into immediacy; because relief sought expression when bodies remembered they were alive.
It was not, she told herself firmly, a promise.
It could not be. He would be an earl, bound by duties she neither fully understood nor wished to entangle herself in.
London would claim him again as surely as the sea claimed wreckage.
He would return to a world of drawing rooms and expectation, of obligations inherited as ruthlessly as guilt.
Gentlemen returned to London and changed. She had heard of it often enough.
Elise turned from the mirror and went to the window, resting the tips of her fingers against the glass.
Below, the grounds of Belair House lay quiet for the first time in days.
The wall had been set to rights, the fallen limbs cleared away and the garden returned to something like order.
Order was deceptive. It was merely the surface arrangement of things; beneath it, lives continued their unruly courses.
She could not allow her own to be dictated by the memory of one man’s presence, however compelling. There was work to be done. That, at least, she understood.
By noon she had sent word to the vicarage and to the half-dozen village families who had taken girls in during the emergency that they could return by that afternoon.
The notes were brisk, reassuring and deliberately dull.
Children need never know how closely danger brushed their skirts—it was enough that they were kept from it.
Jane returned alone first. She was breathless.
“I wanted to make sure all was well before bringing the girls,” she declared the moment the door was shut behind her.
Elise smiled faintly.
Jane studied her more closely then, proving to be as sharp-eyed as ever. “Oh, my dear.”
She pulled Elise into an embrace.
“I am very tired,” Elise said truthfully, “but thankfully, it is over.”
Jane’s gaze softened. “Is it?”
“Yes,” Elise replied, and for that moment at least, made herself believe it. “You need not worry. The girls may return.”
“Is Mr. Leigh still here?”
Elise kept her back to the writing desk as she answered. “He has returned to London. His father has died.”
Jane made a small, sympathetic sound, as if she understood more than Elise wished her to. Jane hesitated as though about to speak but did not press for details. Elise knew that would come later. Closing her eyes briefly, she responded, “Indeed.”
Blake woke not long afterwards.
Elise was with Cook in the kitchen when Sophie came running, cheeks flushed with excitement. “Ma’am—he be awake! He be asking for water and something stronger than broth.”
Cook snorted. “Men,” she said. “Near death one hour and demanding brandy the next.”
Elise followed Sophie back to Blake’s room at once. He lay propped against pillows, his face still grey with pain but his eyes clearer than they had been since she had found him. When he saw her, his mouth curved into something like a smile.
“Looks like I be ’ard to kill,” he rasped.
She sat beside him and took his hand, offering warmth and reassurance. “Thank God.”
He squeezed her fingers weakly. “I heard shouting… and boots… and then nothing.”
“It is over. Holt has been taken,” Elise told him quietly. “The ledger is recovered.”
Blake’s eyes closed in relief. “Good. Then Charles—” His voice broke. “Then he didn’t die for nothing.”
Elise swallowed. “No.”
Blake studied her face. “And the man? The one who helped me?”
“Mr. Leigh,” she said, choosing the name carefully even now. “He helped us, but has now returned to London.”
Blake grunted. “I reckoned as much. Men like him never stay where they are needed.”
Elise did not correct him. Some truths were too close to the bone to be handled safely.
By the time the girls returned—wrapped in warm clothing, chattering, carrying baskets and news from the village—Belair House began to feel like itself again.
The sound of young voices filled the corridors, shoes scuffed on the stairs, and laughter echoed from the courtyard.
Life, indomitable and unaware, rushed back into the spaces danger had vacated as if nothing had ever happened.
Elise stood in the doorway and watched them, a familiar ache swelling in her chest. This was what she had chosen. This was what she would continue to choose, no matter what temptations of another life flickered before her.
Late in the afternoon, the Admiral arrived, his cane tapping decisively and Mrs. Grealey fussing at his elbow.
“The roof is sound,” he announced at once. “I see no reason to abandon my house merely because it attempted to fall on my head.”
Elise smiled. “I would never suggest such a thing.”
He peered at her. “That young man of yours is gone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Humph.” He frowned thoughtfully. “A pity. Sensible fellow. Hard worker.”
She laughed softly. “You are very discerning.”
“I am,” he agreed, “and I observe that you are not nearly so unmoved as you pretend.”
Elise inclined her head. “’Tis nothing a little rest will not mend.”
That evening, when the house had settled and the girls were abed, Elise returned once more to her chamber.
The quiet no longer felt ominous, only spacious.
She lit a single candle and sat at her desk, unfolding the scrap of paper on which she had earlier written and rewritten the same few lines—nothing she meant to send, simply the habit of setting thoughts down so they could be contained. She folded it again without sealing it.
Edmund would return—or he would not. She could not tether her heart to that uncertainty, however strong the pull. He was now bound to a name and a duty that preceded her, and she would not make herself small enough to wait upon the outcome.
She undressed and brushed her hair before she extinguished the candle and lay down, finally allowing herself to rest. If hope must be entertained at all, she would do so with caution, as she had learned to do with everything that mattered.