Chapter 21 #2
Eleanor understood immediately. Julian had never wanted the conversation to end with words alone. He had wanted her looking at him, distracted, and he wanted everyone else watching her instead of Sophie.
“Sophie!”
The child’s head turned.
“Mama!”
Eleanor pushed through the crowd. The man glanced back, saw her, and tightened his hold on Sophie’s hand before hurrying toward a waiting carriage at the end of the lane. Panic surged through Eleanor, but it did not paralyze her.
She ran.
Her skirts caught around her ankles as she crossed the pavement while strangers turned to stare. Sophie began to cry as she finally understood that something was wrong.
“Mama!”
“I am coming!”
Eleanor gathered her skirts and ran harder. The carriage door was already open, and the stranger lifted Sophie toward it. Eleanor reached the carriage just as his foot touched the step.
“Let her go!”
Her cry carried through the street. The man turned, and for a moment, Eleanor saw surprise on his face. He had evidently expected a frightened widow who would freeze beneath the shock of what was happening. He had expected the hesitation that might give him enough time to disappear with her child.
He had misjudged her.
Eleanor seized Sophie’s arm and pulled her toward herself.
“Give me my daughter!”
The man struggled to keep hold of her, but before he could force Sophie into the carriage, another voice rang through the lane.
“Take your hands off her.”
It was Gabriel.
Eleanor looked up and saw him running toward them.
Whatever explanation might have been required as to why he was there was forgotten the moment she saw him. He had meetings in town, she knew that, and all that mattered was that he was there.
The man released Sophie and turned to flee. Gabriel caught him before he had taken three steps. The struggle lasted only seconds.
Gabriel seized him by the coat and threw him against the side of the carriage with enough force to leave no question as to who controlled the situation.
“Where were you taking her?”
The man said nothing, and so Gabriel pressed harder.
Eleanor scarcely heard them. She had Sophie in her arms, and her daughter was crying against her shoulder, clutching at her dress with both hands.
Eleanor wrapped her arms around her and held her so tightly that Sophie protested weakly before burying her face against her mother’s neck.
“I have you,” Eleanor whispered, though her own voice shook. “I have you. You are safe.”
Sophie clung tighter. Eleanor closed her eyes for a moment, pressing her cheek against the child’s hair.
“I was so frightened, Mama.”
The words broke something inside her. She had always feared that when the moment came, she would freeze.
She had spent so much of her life enduring instead of acting, accepting the decisions of others because she believed there was no alternative, but when she had seen Sophie being taken, there had been no hesitation.
There had been no question of whether she was strong enough.
There had only been her daughter.
Gabriel finished restraining the stranger and turned toward them. His face was pale with anger, but when his eyes found Eleanor, the anger changed.
“Eleanor.”
She looked at him. Neither of them spoke. They had both been terrified, but Sophie was safe between them, and Eleanor suddenly felt the full weight of what had nearly happened.
Gabriel came closer. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
His gaze moved over Sophie. “Is she?”
Eleanor shook her head. “Only frightened.”
Gabriel exhaled slowly. “I heard the commotion and saw the carriage. I thought…”
He stopped, but he did not need to say anything further. Eleanor understood. She looked down at Sophie and then back at him.
“They used a disagreement Julian caused with me to draw her away.”
For once, Eleanor did not feel like someone waiting to be saved. He had arrived when she needed him, but she had already been running toward Sophie before he ever reached the lane.
She had fought, she had refused to let fear make her still, and Gabriel seemed to recognize it as well.
“You went after her.”
Eleanor nodded. “I was not going to let them take her.”
Something warm and fierce appeared in his expression.
“I know.” His hand closed gently around her arm, not pulling her closer, only steadying her. “You did exactly what I would have done.”
The words affected her more than she expected. She looked at him, and understood that he was not looking at her as a woman who needed rescuing. He was looking at her as his partner, his equal.
The realization settled quietly inside her, changing something she had carried for years. A carriage waited nearby, its horses restless and stamping against the road. Gabriel glanced toward it before turning back to Eleanor.
“We need to get Sophie somewhere safe.”
Eleanor nodded. Together they moved toward the waiting carriage, Gabriel walking beside her while Eleanor held Sophie securely in her arms. She no longer felt as though she were being carried through a crisis by someone stronger than herself.
She had fought for her daughter, and Gabriel had fought beside her.
At last, in spite of the danger that threatened them at every corner, Eleanor was beginning to feel that she could truly win. People had witnessed it, the cruelty that her own relative showed toward her, and that had to count for something.
And she had protected her daughter, and that had to count too.