Chapter 24 Eighth Day of Wooing a Wife
Chapter twenty-four
Eighth Day of Wooing a Wife
Eleanor lay in her bed, staring at the canopy above her, sleep as elusive as it had been the night before.
Her mind kept replaying the day: breakfast on Aubrey's lap, reading Jane Eyre together, the orphans' visit that afternoon where Aubrey had insisted on being carried to a chair in the drawing room to greet each child personally.
The way he'd looked at her when little Lily had climbed into Eleanor's lap, his expression so tender it had made her chest ache.
She was just beginning to drift off when she heard footsteps in the corridor. Quick, purposeful footsteps that stopped outside Aubrey's door.
A sharp knock.
Eleanor sat up, her heart racing. Was something wrong? Had Aubrey's condition worsened?
She heard the door open, then Aubrey's voice—excited, not pained—though the words were too muffled to make out. A servant's lower response. More conversation, all of it too quiet for Eleanor to understand.
Then footsteps retreating, the door closing, and silence.
Eleanor threw back her covers. Aubrey was awake and something had happened. She needed to know.
She moved through her bedroom to the connecting door between their chambers.
Eleanor's hand trembled as she knocked softly.
"Come in!" Aubrey's voice was bright, eager. Not in pain then.
Eleanor pushed open the door and stepped into her husband's bedroom. Our bedroom, she corrected internally.
Aubrey sat propped against his pillows in his nightshirt, a single candle burning on his bedside table. His face was alight with excitement, his eyes shining in the flickering light. He looked like a boy on Christmas morning.
"What happened?" Eleanor asked, moving closer. "I heard someone at your door. Is everything alright?"
"Everything is perfect." Aubrey patted the bed beside him, his smile widening. "Come here. Please. I have something for you."
Eleanor climbed onto the bed with less hesitation than she might have shown a week ago, settling beside him among the pillows. "What is it? What's happened?"
Aubrey reached for something on his bedside table—a small wooden box, simple but well-crafted. His hands trembled slightly as he held it out to her.
"Open it," he said softly.
Eleanor took the box, her heart hammering. It was light, whatever was inside small and delicate. She lifted the lid… and gasped.
Nestled in velvet were two perfect pearl earrings. Simple. Elegant. Each pearl a luminous cream colour, set in delicate gold with tiny filigree work around the settings.
Not just any pearl earrings.
Her mother's pearl earrings.
The ones her mother had worn every single day. The ones Eleanor used to play with as a child, sitting in her mother's lap, reaching up to touch the smooth pearls while her mother read to her and Liz.
The ones her father had sold when Eleanor was thirteen, barely a year after her mother's death, to pay gambling debts.
The ones Eleanor had thought lost forever.
"No," Eleanor whispered, her hands trembling so badly the box nearly slipped from her fingers. "These can't be… How did you…?"
A tear spilled down her cheek, then another. Within moments she was crying in earnest, her entire body shaking with sobs she couldn't control.
Aubrey immediately pulled her into his arms, cradling her against his chest as she wept. His hand stroked her hair, her back, his voice murmuring soft reassurances.
"I've got you," he whispered. "I've got you, Eleanor. It's alright. Let it out."
She cried for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes—for her mother, for the girl who had lost her too soon, for the husband who had brought her mother’s memories. She cried until her throat was raw and her eyes burned, and she had no more tears left.
When she finally pulled back, Aubrey's nightshirt was soaked with her tears. He didn't seem to notice or care.
"How?" Eleanor's voice was hoarse. "How did you find them? Are they—are they actually hers? Or just ones that look similar?"
"They're actually hers." Aubrey's hand came up to cup her face, his thumb gently wiping away lingering tears. "I promise you, Eleanor. These are your mother's earrings."
"But how? Father sold them years ago."
"I know which jeweller your father used.
Liz told me." Aubrey's voice was steady, patient.
"I’d sent Morrison explicit instructions and a considerable amount of money.
He went to every jeweller in the city, showing them a description Liz had written—the specific filigree work, the size of the pearls, everything that made them unique. "
Eleanor stared at him, unable to process what he was saying.
"Morrison visited forty-seven jewellers before he found one who remembered purchasing them from your father. The man had kept them as a gift to his wife." Aubrey's smile was soft. "He became a widower recently."
"So, you bought them back." Eleanor's voice was barely a whisper.
"Yes." Aubrey's thumb continued its gentle movement across her cheek. "They're yours now. As they always should have been. As your mother would have wanted."
Eleanor looked down at the box again, at the pearls that caught the candlelight just as they had in her memories. "I can't believe you did this. That you tracked them down. That you…" Her voice broke. "Aubrey, this must have cost a fortune."
"It cost what it cost." Aubrey's voice was firm. "And it was worth every penny to see your face right now. To know that I could give you back something that was taken from you."
Eleanor picked up one of the earrings with trembling fingers. The pearl was warm from being in the box, smooth against her palm. She could almost feel her mother's presence, could almost hear her voice reading stories in the nursery.
"She wore these every day," Eleanor whispered. "Every single day. Even when she was sick at the end, she insisted on wearing them. She said they made her feel beautiful. That my father had given them to her when Liz was born, and they reminded her of the happiest days of her life."
Aubrey's arms tightened around her.
"How did you know?" Eleanor looked up at him, her vision still blurred with tears. "How did you know this was what I needed? Not expensive gowns or jewels or any of the things most women want. How did you know to find these?"
"Because Liz told me how much they meant to you.
" Aubrey's voice was gentle. "And because I've been watching you, Eleanor.
Learning you. Seeing what matters to you.
And what matters to you isn't expensive things or grand gestures.
It's connection. Memory. Love." He paused.
"You kept the music box on your dressing table.
You've been reading the books I gave you.
You saved the candied violets even though I know you love them.
You're rationing them, making them last because what matters to you isn't having things.
It's keeping pieces of the people you love close to your heart. "
Eleanor pressed her face against his shoulder again, fresh tears spilling over. But these weren't tears of grief. These were tears of being seen. Of being known. Of having someone care enough to track down a pair of pearl earrings across all of London because they mattered to her.
"Thank you," she whispered against his nightshirt. "Thank you, Aubrey. This is—this is the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me."
"I would do more if I could." Aubrey's lips pressed against the top of her head. "I would give you the world if you asked for it. But I suspect you'd prefer your mother's pearl earrings."
Eleanor laughed through her tears, a watery, broken sound. "Yes. Yes, I would."
They stayed like that for a long time—Eleanor cradled against Aubrey's chest, his arms around her, the box with her mother's earrings resting on the bed beside them. The candle burned lower, casting dancing shadows on the walls.
"Will you wear them?" Aubrey asked finally, "for Christmas Eve? When your sister comes?"
Eleanor pulled back to look at him, understanding dawning. "You want her to see them. To know that you found them. That you gave them back to me."
"I want her to know that her sister has someone who values her." Aubrey's voice was firm. "Someone who will give her back what was taken from her. Someone who will spend whatever it takes to make her happy."
Eleanor's throat tightened again. "She'll know. When she sees them, she'll know exactly what they are. What they mean."
"Good." Aubrey's smile was fierce. "Let her know. Let her see that you're cherished. That you have what your father failed to give you."
Eleanor looked at the earrings again, then back at Aubrey's face—at the intensity in his blue eyes, the determination in his expression. He'd done this just to give her back a piece of her mother.
"Aubrey," she whispered. "I—"
But the words stuck in her throat. The words she wanted to say. The words that terrified her because once she said them, there would be no taking them back.
I love you.
She'd always loved him, but this was different. This wasn't the desperate, one-sided love of a girl for an impossible dream. This was real. Mutual. Built on kindness and understanding.
But she couldn't say it yet. Not when everything was still so new and fragile and terrifying.
Instead, Eleanor leaned forward and kissed him.
Softly. Gently. Pouring everything she couldn't say into the press of her lips against his.
Aubrey responded immediately, his hand coming up to cradle her face, his mouth moving against hers with tender reverence. Not the hungry passion of the night before, but something sweeter. Something that felt like a promise.
When they finally pulled apart, both breathing unsteadily, Aubrey rested his forehead against hers.
"Stay," he whispered. "Just for tonight. Sleep here. In my arms. Nothing more than that, I swear it. I just… I need to hold you. Need to know you're real."
Eleanor knew she should refuse. Knew that sleeping in her husband's bed was dangerous when her emotions were this raw, this overwhelming.
But the thought of returning to her own cold bed, alone, after this, felt hollow.
"Just sleeping," she said firmly. "Nothing more."
"Just sleeping," Aubrey agreed, his smile suggesting he was pleased beyond measure.
Eleanor carefully set the pearl earrings on the bedside table where she could see them, then settled against the pillows. Aubrey blew out the candle and pulled her close, her back against his chest, his arm around her waist.
"Thank you," Eleanor whispered into the darkness. "For the earrings. For finding them. For thinking of me."
"Always," Aubrey murmured against her hair. "It’ll be my priority, Eleanor. Always."
Within minutes, his breathing had evened out, his body relaxed behind hers. But Eleanor lay awake for a long time, staring at the faint outline of the pearl earrings in the moonlight.
She wanted to engrave this moment in her memory—being held by the man she loved—before everything evaporated. Before her husband’s guilt driven fascination with his wife wears off.
Eleanor closed her eyes and let herself drift off to sleep, feeling, for now, that she was home.