Chapter 10
Ten
“Hold still,” Kitty murmured, tugging the silk ribbon through its final loop. “I swear you’ve shrunk since breakfast.”
The room smelled of lavender and old wood polish, and Eleanor could hardly breathe. Her corset was laced too tightly.
“I haven’t,” Eleanor replied, voice light though the breathlessness made her sound uncertain. “You’re just more nervous than I am.”
Kitty gave a small laugh, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve already done the bride part. This time, I get to fuss from the sidelines.”
Eleanor glanced toward the tall mirror across the room. Her reflection stared back: a stranger in white silk and pearl pins. Her ash-blonde curls had been swept half up, soft ringlets framing her face. A duchess in the making. The thought made her stomach turn.
“One week,” Kitty said quietly, stepping back to admire her handiwork. “Exactly one week since that man stood in my drawing room and proposed to you. And Norman—oh, Norman was so relieved he looked as though he’d finally gotten a good night’s sleep.”
Eleanor’s lips curved. “He didn’t even pretend to be surprised.”
“No. Because your brother is not blind.” Kitty smiled faintly. “You were the only woman the Duke of Stormglen looked at that night. Everyone noticed.”
Eleanor looked down, her cheeks warming. That night. That kiss. It had burned through every thought she possessed, seared straight through hesitation. She hadn’t given the marriage a second thought. Of course not, when he’d looked at her like that after the trail of fire he left on her skin.
The silence stretched between them. Outside, a carriage rolled past, wheels grinding against gravel. Kitty turned away, smoothing invisible creases from the edge of Eleanor’s gown.
Eleanor watched her in the mirror, her reflection too composed to be real. She barely recognized herself beneath the silk and pearls. Would she vanish beneath the weight of a title? Would she remember who she was, once she became someone else’s wife?
“I feel as if I’m giving up something,” she said quietly. “Not just my name. Something more than that. I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back.”
Kitty’s hands stilled.
“You know,” she said, voice softer now, “when Norman proposed to me, I thought it was the end of everything I’d wanted. I thought I was giving up my freedom, my independence, my—” she hesitated, eyes flicking to the window, “—my old dreams. But I was wrong.”
Eleanor turned to her. “Were you frightened?”
Kitty laughed again. This time, it was quieter. Sadder. “Terrified. I thought he was saving me from scandal because he pitied me. And in a way, he was. But he also started loving me along the way. I didn’t understand that at the time. I just… kept waiting to feel like myself again.”
Eleanor bit her lip. Would she feel the same way?
“Did you?” she paused. “Feel like yourself again, I mean.”
“No,” Kitty said plainly. “I became someone else. Someone stronger. Someone who knew what it cost to build a life from the ashes of your old one.”
Eleanor sat down on the little stool by the vanity, her hands fidgeting with the edge of her embroidered sleeves. “I’m not strong like you.”
Kitty crossed the room and crouched beside her, taking her hands. “You’re stronger. You just don’t know it yet. When I look at you, Eleanor, I don’t see a girl who was ruined. I see a woman who stood her ground, who told the truth, who fought back. You punched a man for heaven’s sake.”
Eleanor let out a soft, surprised laugh. “He deserved it.”
“They usually do,” Kitty said, gently squeezing her hands. “But it still takes courage.”
Eleanor was quiet a long moment. “Do you ever think about the life you might have had? If none of it had happened. If you’d married someone else.”
“I used to.” Kitty’s expression faltered, and for a moment, the shadow of her old loneliness flickered there, too quick for Eleanor to fully grasp what it meant.
“But I came to understand that freedom doesn’t always mean what I thought it did.
My priorities shifted. What once felt like losing something became…
choosing something else. A different kind of freedom.
And no, I wouldn’t trade what I have with Norman for any version of the life I imagined before. ”
Her hand drifted to her abdomen, still flat beneath the silk of her gown. “Especially not now.”
They shared a long look, full of things that had never needed to be said aloud. Kitty, the woman who had been forced into a scandal and carved love out of ruin. Eleanor, now walking that same narrow path, unsure where it might lead.
“I still don’t know if I’ll make a good duchess,” Eleanor admitted.
“You will. Better than me; that’s certain.” Kitty stood, smoothing her skirts with practiced grace. “You were born for it. You just need to give yourself permission.”
“To what?”
“To not know everything yet. To learn. To fall. And to let someone catch you when you do.”
The door creaked open behind them.
They both turned. Lady Mulberry, Eleanor’s delightfully meddlesome grandmother, entered without knocking.
“Your hair is too high,” she announced, eyeing Eleanor like one might inspect a painting hung slightly crooked. “And your pearls are crooked. What have you two been doing in here?”
Eleanor stood at once. “Good morning, Grandmother.”
Lady Mulberry swept in, all rustling skirts and brisk judgment. She was dressed in a shade of mauve that no one else would dare wear, her lace gloves snapping faintly as she removed them. “I need a moment alone with my granddaughter.”
Kitty winked at Eleanor then slipped out, the door clicking softly shut behind her.
Lady Mulberry exhaled through her nose and turned to Eleanor. “Well,” she said, “let’s have a look at you.”
Eleanor stood obediently though she could feel one of the pearl pins slipping slightly from her curls.
Lady Mulberry’s eyes roamed her from hem to hairline, assessing with all the delicacy of a military inspection.
She took a step forward, reached out, and tugged the bodice down a fraction of an inch.
“There,” she said crisply. “Less like a debutante. More like a duchess. Try not to breathe too deeply.”
“Too late,” Eleanor murmured.
Lady Mulberry narrowed her eyes. “What was that?”
“Nothing, Grandmother.”
“Mm.”
She circled Eleanor slowly, arms clasped behind her back, face set in that faintly imperial expression that made footmen flinch.
Her mauve skirts rustled with every step.
It might have been a reverent moment, if not for the way her neck craned each time she peered at a new angle—like a hawk deciding whether or not to strike.
“Well,” she said at last, “my lessons are paying off; you will make a fine duchess.”
“Thank you,” Eleanor replied, not quite able to keep the dryness from her tone.
Lady Mulberry huffed and gestured for her to sit. Eleanor perched lightly on the stool, adjusting her skirts while Lady Mulberry lowered herself onto the nearby settee with a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan.
“Oh, blast this hip,” the old woman muttered.
Eleanor smothered a smile. “Would you like a cushion?”
“I’m not made of wax,” Lady Mulberry sniffed, shifting anyway. “Now. I asked to speak with you because, in spite of everything—the scandal, the incident, the rushed marriage—you are an Egerton. And you are my granddaughter.”
“That’s comforting,” Eleanor murmured.
Lady Mulberry folded her hands in her lap. “I see a quiet strength in you, Eleanor. One most women never learn to wield. Not even in old age. You’ve a spine, hidden beneath all that sighing and embroidery.”
Eleanor blinked. “I don’t sigh.”
Lady Mulberry raised a brow.
“Often,” Eleanor added.
The older woman leaned forward, and suddenly, despite the mauve and the jewels and the general air of disapproval that followed her like perfume, she looked tired. Earnest.
“You are more than capable of becoming a duchess. You’ve been preparing for it your entire life.”
“I wasn’t aware I was in preparation,” Eleanor said though she felt the words settle low in her chest.
Lady Mulberry waved a dismissive hand. “All those lessons. Posture. French. Needlework. Standing still for hours without blinking. You think that was for sport?”
“I thought it was punishment.” Eleanor giggled.
“It was preparation,” she snapped. “One doesn’t rule a household—or a title—by batting her lashes and swooning in corners. You’re clever and perceptive and more resilient than you give yourself credit for.”
Eleanor hesitated then said quietly, “You must be pleased, then. I’m marrying a duke.”
To her surprise, Lady Mulberry did not nod. Instead, she inhaled sharply and glanced toward the window, as if ashamed of something only she could see.
“I’ve learned my lesson,” she said. “Twice over in fact. A title means nothing if the man behind it makes your life small. What matters now is your happiness. And your family’s. That is the only legacy worth leaving.”
Eleanor stared at her. The words seemed too soft for the mouth they came from. She had never once heard her grandmother speak of happiness as if it were an acceptable ambition. She didn’t quite know what to do with it.
“I’m not sure I know how to be happy with him,” Eleanor said at last.
Lady Mulberry turned back, her eyes sharp again. “Then do what Kitty did. And what I had to do before her. Learn. Adapt. Act.”
“That’s your advice?” Eleanor said. “Be a chameleon?”
“No,” said Lady Mulberry, lifting her chin. “Be regal.”
Eleanor blinked.
“Do you know what that means?” Lady Mulberry pressed. “It means bending without breaking. It means holding your household together when the world is falling to bits. It means guiding your husband, gently and invisibly, until he thinks it was his idea all along.”
Eleanor tried not to laugh. “His Grace isn’t the sort of man who allows himself to be guided.”
“Then you’ll have to get cleverer about it.”
“He’s… direct,” she said. “Blunt. He doesn’t care about society’s rules, or etiquette, or the art of polite deception. He just—he’s like a force of nature.”
Lady Mulberry sniffed. “So was your grandfather.”
Eleanor blinked. “You always said he was a gentleman.”
“He became one. Eventually.”
There was a beat of silence. Eleanor looked down at her hands, fingers clasped tightly in her lap.
“I don’t know how to do this. I’ve memorized all the things I’m supposed to say.
I know which fork to use and how to respond when someone mentions the opera, but with His Grace, none of that matters. He just looks at me like—”
“Like what?”
“Like he sees through it.”
Lady Mulberry gave a short nod. “Then let him.”
Eleanor looked up.
“Let him see who you are. And study him in turn. That’s how you win the game. Observation. Precision. Not performance.”
“I don’t want it to be a game,” Eleanor said.
“Then don’t treat it like one. Treat it like a sign.”
Eleanor gave a half-laugh. “A sign?”
“To rise,” Lady Mulberry said firmly. “To meet your life as it comes. You share my blood, Eleanor. You will find your way.”
Eleanor studied her grandmother’s face then—lined, proud, still wearing too much rouge.
She saw past the scowls and the stiffness and the bone-deep belief in appearances.
Beneath all of it was a woman who had survived, not by shrinking but by standing.
The way she stood even now, when her hip creaked, her heirs married scandalously, and her gowns were ten years out of fashion.
Perhaps that was what it meant to be strong. And perhaps it looked different than she’d thought.
The room fell into a hush. Outside, a breeze stirred the leaves, sending a long shadow across the floorboards.
Eleanor glanced once more at her reflection in the mirror.
The pearls, the silk, the pale curve of her throat—all of it looked like someone else.
And yet, something had quietly shifted inside, enough to change her.
Lady Mulberry grunted as she rose to her feet. “Now then. I’ve spoken my piece. I expect you to remember at least half of it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You’ll do better than that.”
Eleanor rose too, smoothing her skirt.
Lady Mulberry turned to the door then paused and glanced back over her shoulder. “And for heaven’s sake, don’t trip walking down the aisle. Your hair is already a touch uneven. If you fall, it’s all anyone will talk about.”
Eleanor smiled. “Thank you, Grandmother.”
“Hmph.” Lady Mulberry’s back straightened. “It’s your day after all.”
Then she shuffled out, muttering something about incompetent maids and the unacceptable temperature of tea.
Eleanor remained still, watching the empty doorway.
She felt something settle. Not her nerves, they were still very much alive. But something else, like a root finally sinking into the soil.
She didn’t know if she could be the kind of duchess her grandmother wanted her to be. She didn’t know if she could be the kind of woman Ramsay needed her to be.
But maybe she could be the one she was still becoming. And that, she thought, might be enough.