Chapter 15 #2
By the time they reached Ravenscourt, Eleanor had steadied herself enough to step down from the carriage without revealing the turmoil inside her. She found a letter waiting for her when she entered the drawing room. The handwriting stopped her immediately.
“Lydia,” she whispered.
Her sister, the girl Eleanor had spent years protecting. Lydia had remained at home while Eleanor had been sent away to Bath after their father’s death, and was the daughter their mother kept carefully guarded, while Eleanor had been the one expected to sacrifice.
Her marriage to Lord Marbury had secured more than Eleanor’s own position. It had secured Lydia’s. The dowry had given her sister the chance at a happy marriage, a comfortable home, and the life Eleanor had once dreamed might be hers, not that Eleanor ever blamed her sister for that.
My dearest Eleanor,
I have delayed writing only because I have hoped each day that the next would bring better news, but I can no longer pretend I have not heard the whispers reaching London.
I do not know what truth there may be among them, and I will not believe a cruel thing society chooses to repeat, but I cannot remain silent when I know you must be facing such distress.
Please tell me how you are truly keeping.
I know you have always been determined to appear happy.
You were the one who smiled when everyone else knew you were unhappy, the one who told me not to worry when there was every reason to.
I hope you will not do the same now and insist that everything is perfectly manageable when you are carrying more than anyone should have to bear.
How is dear Sophie? I think of her often and wish I could see how much she has grown. I am certain she must be a comfort to you, and I hope she knows how very loved she is.
My husband sends his regards and asks that you know you have our support. He has heard enough of the rumors to be troubled by them, because he knows how people can be cruel when they decide they have found a villain. We both hope the matter is settled soon and that you are able to return to peace.
I think of all the things you did for me when we were younger, and I wonder whether I ever properly thanked you.
I know now that many of the sacrifices you made were far greater than I understood at the time, and in case I have not shown enough gratitude, you should know that I thank you for it all.
Please do not think you must protect me from your troubles. I am no longer the little girl who needed you to stand between me and every difficulty. I am your sister, and I want to stand beside you now. Write to me when you can.
With all my love,
Lydia
Eleanor lowered the letter slowly. For a moment, she allowed herself to feel the desperate uncertainty of whether she would still be Sophie’s mother when it was all over, then she folded the letter carefully and reached for a fresh sheet of paper.
She could not tell Lydia the truth, not all of it at least. She could not write that she had spent the morning being questioned as though she were a criminal, nor that there was a real possibility Julian might succeed, so Eleanor did what she had always done. She protected the people she loved.
Her reply was warm and affectionate, and it assured Lydia that she and Sophie were well, that the matter was unpleasant but manageable, that society was prone to exaggeration, and that she had every confidence the truth would prevail.
When she finished, Eleanor sealed the letter and held it for a moment before setting it aside.
It was not the whole truth, but that was the burden she had chosen to carry. After everything Lydia had been given because of Eleanor’s sacrifices, she could not bear to be the reason her sister’s happiness was threatened.
That evening, Eleanor found Sophie in the nursery after supper, sitting with her new governess while a book lay open and forgotten in her lap.
Sophie was usually full of questions, eager to tell stories about the portraits she had discovered or the rooms she had explored, but that evening she was unusually quiet.
The governess looked up as Eleanor entered.
“She has been rather out of sorts this evening, my lady.”
Eleanor immediately crossed the room. “What is it, darling?”
Sophie looked at her for a moment before reaching out her arms. Eleanor sat beside her and gathered her close.
“Are we going to leave again?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“What makes you ask that?”
Sophie played with the edge of Eleanor’s sleeve.
“Because everyone keeps looking worried, and when people looked worried before, we left.”
Eleanor closed her eyes briefly. There it was, the very thing she had tried so carefully to hide. Her daughter had felt every change. She had felt the uncertainty after her father’s death, heard the whispers she should have been too young to understand, and it had all gotten to her.
“No, sweetheart,” Eleanor said softly. “We are not going anywhere.”
“Not even if people are saying things?”
The question was so innocent that it hurt. Eleanor held her tighter, not knowing what else to do.
“People say many things when they do not know the truth.”
“But you know the truth, and Gabriel knows too, so there is nothing wrong.”
Eleanor hesitated. The certainty in Sophie’s answer almost made her smile. The governess quietly gathered the book from the table, giving them privacy. Eleanor smoothed Sophie’s curls back from her face.
“You must not worry about grown-up troubles.”
“But you worry.”
“I am your mother. Sometimes mothers worry.”
“Will you stop?”
Eleanor kissed her forehead. “I will try.”
It was the most honest promise she could give.
She remained with Sophie until the child grew tired, reading the same page twice because her thoughts kept wandering elsewhere.
When Sophie finally drifted off, Eleanor stayed for several moments longer, watching the peaceful rise and fall of her daughter’s breathing.
She hated that Sophie had learned to recognize fear at such a young age.
Later that evening, when Eleanor returned downstairs, she found Gabriel waiting near the drawing room. His wary half-smile told her immediately that something had changed.
“I have been called away for a short time,” he said.
“Is everything all right?”
“It is a matter concerning the estate.”
Eleanor nodded. After the carriage ride earlier, after the kindness he had shown her, she found herself wanting to say something she could not quite form.
She wanted to tell him she was grateful, and to ask him what he truly felt.
She wanted, impossibly, to know whether she had imagined every moment of tenderness between them.
But she remembered how foolish it was to build hope on uncertainty.
When Gabriel left the room, Eleanor stood in the quiet drawing room and made a decision.
She could not continue allowing suspicion to poison every interaction, not when she was to live in the same household as them for the rest of her life.
She had been unfair to Cassandra, and she knew that. Whatever existed between Gabriel and Cassandra, whatever history they shared, Eleanor owed it to herself to stop imagining the worst and seek the truth.
So she went to find her.
It was later than she would normally have called on anyone, but Ravenscourt had long since abandoned the usual formality of ordinary evenings. The household was too unsettled for such things.
She approached the room where Cassandra often sat, but before she could knock, she heard voices within, and she recognized one as Cassandra and the other as Gabriel. His voice was low, strained in a way Eleanor had never heard before.
“You cannot ask me to do that,” he said.
Cassandra answered, though Eleanor could not catch it. There was a sharpness there, that much was clear.
“You still love—”
The rest disappeared beneath the sudden rush of blood in Eleanor’s ears. She froze at once.
“Cassandra, you know that is not—”
But Eleanor heard no more. She stepped back before they could discover her standing there. The corridor suddenly felt too narrow, the air too thin. She had come seeking reassurance. Instead, she had found exactly what she had feared.
Every careful kindness, every moment of warmth, every glimpse of the man she remembered had meant nothing more than affection from a heart that belonged elsewhere.
Eleanor returned to her room without making a sound. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, fighting the ache that settled in her chest. The most awful part of it was not that Gabriel loved someone else.
It was that she had allowed a foolish part of her to hope he did not.