Chapter Twenty-Three
When Tha?s climbed in bed with Eden, he was already asleep. Or at least pretending to be, to avoid any chance that she’d go after him with her wanton ways.
Not that she would.
She knew the very idea of it made him squirm, and she didn’t want to torment him when he’d been so nice to let Elinor stay.
The covers were warm from Eden’s body, a comforting feeling. It was nice to lie beside him, listening to him breathe.
She’d never shared a bed chastely with a man before.
Well, chastely enough. When the devil roosters woke her up, she was wrapped around him like a monkey.
“Ah. You’re awake,” he said in a whisper.
“And how could I be asleep with all that racket?” she whispered back. “It’s about time you made me rooster pie for supper.”
“You wouldn’t like it. Might I trouble you to release me?”
She squeezed him tighter. “I don’t know. You’re awfully nice to cuddle.”
“Well, I’m glad I have at least one talent in the bed.”
She did not care for the self-blame in his quip.
“You’ll have a hundred when I’m through with you,” she said.
His chest rumbled with a laugh. “That might be too many. Wouldn’t want to injure anyone.”
The idea of Eden doing any such thing made her snort.
He pried her arm off of him and wriggled out from under her legs. She watched him get dressed, which he did as neatly and precisely as he did everything.
“Looking handsome today, milord,” she said.
“Don’t call me milord. Hattie might hear you,” he whispered. But he was smiling.
She dressed and knocked on Elinor’s door. “You awake?”
Elinor opened it, fully dressed. “Of course I am. Who could sleep through the cacophony of those birds? Do they do that every day?”
“Yes, the infernal creatures. Never woken up so early in all my life.”
They went downstairs for breakfast. Eden introduced Elinor to Hattie as their aunt, and Hattie didn’t question it.
“I washed your gown for you,” Hattie said, gesturing at a basket with a neatly folded garment. “Good as new.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Tha?s said. “I thought I might have to start wandering around stark naked.”
Hattie gave her an odd look, and Tha?s realized she’d said it in her normal accent, rather than her put-on governess voice.
“A joke,” she said in her most genteel way of speech. “Can you imagine?”
Hattie laughed. “’Fraid not.”
Tha?s and Elinor spent the morning finishing the last of Tha?s’s letters so they could take them into town. At eleven Eden emerged from his study.
“Would you like me to drive you into the village or would you rather walk? It’s a pretty stroll. About two miles.”
Tha?s scowled. “You think the likes of me plans to walk, sneezing my damned head off? You’ll be driving us, please and thank you.”
Tha?s did not find the drive pretty. There was nothing to look at but grass, sheep, and hedgerows. Though, given Eden’s famous love for sheep, she could understand why he found the view so breathtaking.
They arrived at the dress shop, and Eden bade them farewell, telling them to meet him at the pub across the street when they wished to return home.
Tha?s led the way inside. Sophie was on her knees, pinning up a dress for a girl with her back turned. Tha?s would have known her anywhere, with that upswept chestnut hair and delicate frame. She slapped a hand over her mouth.
“Maria,” Elinor cried out in a strangled voice.
Maria turned around, eyes wide as sovereign coins. “Mama!”
She ran into Elinor’s arms, pins in her hem be damned.
Sophie sat back on her haunches and stared at the scene in confusion. Then she shrugged at Tha?s and went over to the bassinet in the corner, where her baby was beginning to fuss.
“Oh, my darling girl,” Elinor murmured, kissing Maria’s hair over and over. “How I’ve missed you.”
Tha?s watched them embrace. It was so beautiful a moment that it made her feel a little sad that she might never have this bond with a child of her own. Elinor carried so much pain from missing her children, but her love for them was powerful enough to make it worth the agony.
“How did you know I was here?” Maria asked, through tears. “They won’t let me write to you. They read all my letters.”
“Miss Smith,” she said, pointing at Tha?s, “heard that your grandmother had a young lady staying, and we hoped that it was you. I rushed here as fast as I could.”
Maria nodded, seeming to understand the implication that Tha?s was using a fake name.
“Thank you, Miss Smith,” she said. “I’m so glad you took the chance.”
Tha?s went up and threw her arms around the girl. “Anything for you, m’dear.” She’d known Maria since she was a baby, and she’d worried about the poor child, trapped under her father’s tyrannical control.
Maria looked nervously out the windows in the front of the shop.
“Mama, we can’t be seen together. If Papa learns you’ve been here, he’ll be so furious that... well, I’m frightened of what he might do. His temper has been mighty ever since he lost his case against you. The slightest thing can bring him to a rage.”
“Oh, my darling. How I wish I could protect you from him,” Elinor said. “I wish I could take you with me. But under the law, you’re his alone.”
“That might be so, but in my heart I’m all yours.”
Elinor clutched her daughter to her chest. “I love you, Maria. And I’ll do everything I can to see that you’re safe. As soon as you come of age, you can live with me.”
Maria put her head on Elinor’s shoulder. “I love you too, Mama. So much.”
A tear slid down Tha?s’s cheek. She stole a glance at Sophie Gerity, and the dressmaker was also tearing up. The feeling between mother and daughter was beautiful to see.
Tha?s longed for such a connection.
“How is your brother?” Elinor asked her daughter. “Do you know where he is?”
“Scotland,” Maria said. “At Lord Young’s shooting estate. He hates it there and wants desperately to go back to school, but Papa has forbidden it. He told Charles you might abduct him.”
“If only I could.”
Maria glanced at the window again. “My coachman has instructions to return at half past.”
“Oh, darling. We’ll have to leave. I won’t risk endangering you. But I wish I could stay. I wish I could take you with me.”
They held each other for a long while. And then Elinor wiped away her tears and turned to Tha?s. “Shall we make our way, Miss Smith?”
“Don’t leave without your gowns,” Sophie said. She went behind the counter and pulled out two boxes wrapped in brown paper. “Tell Hattie if they need any adjustments, and I’ll come and do them for you.”
“I appreciate that,” Tha?s said. “I’m sure they’re beautiful.”
“Mrs. Gerity, can I ask that you keep our confidence about my visit here?” Elinor said. “There is no telling what Maria’s father might do to her if he finds out she’s seen me.”
Sophie put a hand on Elinor’s shoulder. “You have my word. Mother to mother.”
“Thank you,” Elinor said.
Elinor wept openly on the street as they made their way to the pub. “My heart is broken,” she said. “Utterly broken.”
Tha?s took her hand and kissed it. “You’ll get them back. They love you fiercely. Between the three of you, you’ll find a way.”
“I couldn’t say this to Maria, but their father will be able to keep control of them even after they come of age. They depend on him financially until Colin inherits. Maria will already have enough trouble finding a husband because of me. Oh God, Tha?s, sometimes I think I should have stayed with him.”
Tha?s stopped her and looked right into her eyes.
“He would have killed you, Elinor. And I would wager your babes’d rather have you than Bell’s accursed money.”
Elinor took a shaky breath. “Thank you, my sweet girl. I don’t know what I would do without you and Seraphina and Cornelia. You’re the daughters of my heart.”
They walked holding hands into the pub and found Eden at a table by the window, sipping a dark ale.
His face tightened at the sight of Elinor’s tears.
“What happened?” he asked in a low voice, glancing at the barkeep whose back, thankfully, was turned.
“We should leave,” Tha?s whispered. “Can’t have El spotted.”
He nodded, put a coin on the bar, and escorted them through a side door to the mews where he’d left his cart.
“Did you find Maria?” he asked as soon as they were outside.
“We did,” Tha?s said. “She looks well, but she’s lonely. Terrified of her bloody father.”
“I’m sorry, Elinor,” he said.
“I feel that it’s my fault my children are suffering.”
“Oh no it’s not,” Eden said firmly. He knew the story, as did most of the country after the scandal Bell’s criminal conversation trial against Elinor had caused. “If Bell had not abducted you out of your home in the middle of the night and put you in a mental institution, you would still be with him. He’s the one to blame, not you. You’d do anything for those children.”
Elinor wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “I would,” she said. “I would. It’s only that there are so few things I can do, aside from seeing them in secret.”
“Will you try to visit your boy?” Tha?s asked.
“Of course. I’ll travel to Scotland immediately. Is there a coach heading north in this town?”
“I believe so,” Eden said. “Stay here. I’ll stop and check at the post office.”
He returned a few minutes later. “The coach comes at four in the afternoon. We can take you there tomorrow.”
Elinor checked her timepiece. “If we return home now, there would be just enough time for me to collect my things and make today’s coach. Would you mind very much if we rushed back?”
“No, of course not,” Eden said.
They quickly returned home, and Tha?s helped Elinor pack up her belongings and carry them downstairs. Eden was waiting in the parlor to drive Elinor back to town. Elinor wrapped Tha?s in her arms.
“I love you fiercely, my darling,” she said.
“And I you,” Tha?s said back, squeezing Elinor as tight as she could.
“Take care of our girl, Mr. Smith,” Elinor said to Eden over Tha?s’s shoulder.
“That I will.”
As they left, Tha?s wondered at those words, our girl.
What would it be like to be Eden’s girl? To be taken care of by him?
It was just a turn of phrase.
She could take care of herself.
But it made her imagine an entirely different life.