“I’ll return to Far Hope, Your Grace,” Eleanor said, her voice quiet but also very steady. “As soon as the carriage can take me.”
It was nearly embarrassing to see what a short way she’d come in the night; the road that had seemed leagues long in the rainy darkness turned out only to have been four short miles, and all of them were passed easily—if jouncingly—enough in the carriage. She made the mistake of saying this to Jarrell, who sat scowling out the carriage window, and his scowl deepened.
“There’s no such thing as a short mile in the moors,” he said.
“I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
He wouldn’t look at her. “The memory of you nearly dying will always evoke powerful emotion in me. I apologize.”
Defensiveness spiked through her. “I ran because I didn’t think I had a choice, Your Grace.”
He didn’t like it when she called him that, she could tell by the dark look he shot her. “You always have choices.”
“Says a peer who’s never had them taken away.”
“You have a choice now,” he said, ignoring her dig. “Do you not?”
“I allow that I do.” However excruciating that choice might be.
“I wish you safe, Eleanor,” he said. “That’s all. Safe and happy.”
She couldn’t resist, even though she wanted to. “I’ve already told you how I could be happy.”
His eyes were troubled, his sensual mouth pressed into the very shape of unhappiness.
“I know,” he said after a moment. “I know you did.”
And that was all. If she’d hoped the carriage ride would change his mind, if she’d hoped that at the eleventh hour he would realize he could set aside his grief and that they belonged together after all…
Well, she’d be a fool to hope. That was more than plain now.
I should tell him.
Before they got to the house, she should tell him what she’d decided. She didn’t want him to be hurt, to feel betrayed—but she also didn’t know if she could stomach arguing with him just yet. Because he would argue, but then he still would not offer her what she really wanted, which was his heart.
She took a deep breath as the carriage rattled over a stone bridge and into the deep valley of Far Hope. She would do as she’d always done when faced with a painful future––find a way to bear it and bear it gracefully. The tricks were many; it was imperative not to linger on the unpleasantness, to remember the necessity of her actions, to hold on to whatever small pleasures she could reasonably count on.
At least in that, she was assured some reward. She would make her future life a palace to pleasure, even if that palace were only a mere shadow of what could have been if Jarrell would have opened his heart to her. But at least she’d been completely honest, completely vulnerable.
Finally, for the first time in twenty years, she’d reached for what she wanted. There would be no wondering what could have been if only she’d been braver, because she had been brave, she had tried her hardest to carve out something for herself that she thought was impossible.
Now there was nothing left but to face her future.
Alone.
Chapter Twelve
Jarrell’s entire body hurt as the carriage rolled to the front of Far Hope and stopped.
His bones ached, his blood simmered. His heart felt like it had been threaded with slivers of glass, and he was hot and brittle everywhere. As if he were not a man, but ashes molded in the shape of a man.
As if he would crumble into smoldering dust at the slightest touch.
He hated himself, loathed himself, could not even stand being himself as he’d sat next to Eleanor and watched her look serenely at the hills as they drove back to his cursed ancestral seat. He’d done that, he’d made her put up her shield of placid reserve once again. Last night she’d been avid, curious, unleashed, and he’d stolen that away from her. With his refusals.
With your cowardice.
A cowardice he wasn’t even sure kept him safe any longer.
No, it was better this way. She was better off this way too. He was sure of it, although it was hard to be sure of anything when he could still smell the rain and flowers scent of her, and when he could still vividly recall the way her blond tresses slid like so much teasing silk over the pink points of her nipples.
There was a moment—a dizzying, disorienting moment—as he handed her out of the carriage and saw her silhouetted against the ancient stone house of his ancestors, when he felt a splinter of what could have been. A future in which everything he’d ever wanted and needed flowered together as one vibrant and sacred bloom.
And he’d given it up.
I had no choice, he thought dully. What kind of husband could I be to Eleanor if I’m already willing to let go of Helena’s memory only a week after meeting someone new?
But the thought no longer felt as true as it had even a few hours ago.
Your sin is not grief but fear.
Could it be that easy?
Could he be more afraid than he was broken?
The questions dogged him as he escorted Eleanor up the shallow steps and into the main hall where they were greeted by Eleanor’s parents, an impassive butler, and a thin cloud of interested guests, openly gawking at the returned bride on Jarrell’s arm.
“Eleanor!” Lady Pennard exclaimed, rushing forward to pull her daughter into her arms. “We were so worried, we thought you might have been lost out there, that you might have—”
She didn’t finish her thought, but it was clear to everyone around her, clear to Jarrell.
They thought she might have died. And when he thought of how easily she could have, of how cold and limp she was when he first found her last night, the glass splinters in his heart burrowed even deeper.
How could he have survived if she’d died?
But he would have to survive without her, wouldn’t he? He’d made sure of that last night when he said he would not marry her; he would have to survive just as he had after Helena had died.
You could do more than survive. You could start living instead.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Eleanor was insisting, giving her mother’s arms a squeeze before pulling back. “I simply went outdoors for fresh air and got lost on the grounds, that’s all. I’m so grateful to the duke for finding me in time.”
It was the story they’d agreed on—the story that would be officially circulated—that, not feeling well, Eleanor went outside for the air and had gotten lost. It was ludicrous, since Far Hope’s grounds were all hemmed in by craggy, louring moors, and it was quite difficult to wander off the grounds without being very, very aware of it, even in the dark. The servants and guests would know enough of her disappearance and the ensuing search that gossip spreading to the rest of the ton would be inevitable. But so long as there was an official story, the scandal of her flight would be muffled at least.
The scandal of an ended engagement, however…
“I believe we have some matters to discuss,” he told Eleanor’s parents and gestured toward the library. Eleanor’s father seemed to understand immediately, but to Jarrell’s surprise and gratification, he only looked thoughtful, not angry. In fact, her father found Eleanor’s hand and tucked it through his arm, as if wanting to reassure himself that his daughter was here and close and alive.