The moment Elise disappeared into a back room, Mama Jones spoke. “I am glad you’ve come, Miles Linwood. Ella’s been hidin’ for too long.”
Chapter Three
Elise slid to the floor beside the closed bedchamber door and buried her face in her hands. Miles was in her home. Miles. The person she’d once treasured more than any other on earth, who had once cared so much for her.
The person who had snuffed out the last flicker of light she’d had left inside.
He had found her and, in the instant he’d appeared in her doorway, had torn open her unhealed and unseen wounds. She’d spent four years trying to piece together a life after his coldness had ripped her away from all she’d known and loved. And now he was back.
I can’t go through this again. I cannot.
She didn’t cry as she sat there hunched over by the door. She never cried. Not anymore. But she shook, aching inside, fear mingling with unforgotten pain.
Perhaps if she refused to come back out, Miles would leave. It would be as if she’d never seen him. She could go on as she had before. If he left, he couldn’t hurt her again.
Tiny hands touched her face, pulling her gaze up. Her sweet little girl, her Anne, stood watching her with such a perplexed look in her eyes. Anne had lived so much of her life in hiding, tucked away from the world for her own safety. But a threat Elise hadn’t anticipated had simply walked right into their home.
She pulled Anne into her embrace and held fast to her.
Oh, Anne. What are we to do?
Anxiety shook through her. Miles was not a physical threat, she knew that well enough. But he could deal a blow to a trusting heart from which it would never recover. He, who had once been a rock amidst the storm-driven waves, had left her to the cruelty of the world. She would shield Anne from that pain using whatever means possible.
“Don’t dawdle, Ella. You’re keeping the gentleman waiting,” Mama Jones called out from the parlor.
Mama Jones knew enough of Elise’s history to understand perfectly well why she wasn’t rushing back into Miles’s presence. Elise adored her mother-in-law, but the woman was set in her ways. Once her mind was made up, it was made up for good. If she intended to force this reunion, it would happen whether Elise wished it to or not. Her only source of comfort, though a small one, was that Mama Jones cared for her a great deal too much to insist on something if she didn’t think it best.
She could indulge her mother-in-law in this. A quick moment of introduction, a word or two, and she could send Miles on his way. Mama Jones could not expect more of her than that.
Elise forced an aura of calm, though it did not sink very deep. She could pretend for Anne’s sake. She rose slowly to her feet, Anne firmly in her arms, and turned to face the doorway. She slowly, quietly opened it, needing a moment to watch Miles in preparation for this encounter but without his realizing she was studying him.
He stood looking out the window. Time had darkened his hair from a bright, fiery red to a deep auburn. His shoulders were broader. He held himself with more authority than he had before. She’d seen the earliest hints of that change during the last few weeks she’d lived at home. The whimsical, lighthearted playmate of her childhood had begun to turn gruff and dismissive.
Anne leaned more heavily against her as she too studied Miles. Her brows pulled in, and her dark eyes clouded with uncertainty.
My feelings exactly, dearest.
She needed only to endure his company for a moment, then Miles would leave. She could go on as she had before.
“Ah, you’ve returned,” Mama Jones said.
Miles spun around. Elise held ever tighter to Anne. Her pulse pounded in her head. She kept to the far side of the room, out of reach. She’d not come any closer if she could at all help it.
“Good heavens, Elise.” Miles all but stared at Anne. “She’s the very image of you as a child.”
Anne’s eyes darted from Miles to Elise, then back to Miles, where they then stayed. Anne watched Miles with palpable interest, something she never did. Miles was pulling at her.
“Aren’t you goin’ to introduce ’em?” Mama Jones prodded.
There was no avoiding it, really. “This is Anne.”
“I am pleased to meet you, Miss Jones.” Miles gave Anne the tender smile Elise remembered from her earliest years. If Elise wasn’t careful, Anne would fall under Miles’s spell, thinking she was safe and cared for.
“She’s not called anythin’ but Anne,” Elise said.
“And you are called Ella,” Miles said. “Why is that?”
“Ella’s a fine name,” Mama Jones observed, rocking calmly in her chair.
“But her name is Elise.” Miles sounded increasingly frustrated. He turned away, pacing again and rubbing his face with his hand.
Elise took a small step backward. Frustration had been his defining emotion during the terrible last few weeks she’d spent with him. She didn’t at all like seeing that look in his face again.
“You’ve seen me, and you’ve met Anne. Now you can just go on your way.” Elise spoke as firmly as she could manage. Seeing him again was undermining every bit of peace she’d found in the last four years.
He looked at her once more. “Beth is here in town.”
Beth. The name brought an unexpected moment of longing. Beth had been both older sister and surrogate mother to her. But no. No. She couldn’t face even more memories.
“Will you come to the inn to see her?” Miles asked.
“No.”
“Might I bring her here?”
“No.” Would he not leave her be? Had he not hurt her enough already? “Just go, Miles. You aren’t welcome here.”
“How long do you plan to be in Stanton?” Mama Jones asked before Miles could speak a single word.
“How—? Uh—” After fumbling a moment, Miles pulled himself together. “Only through this afternoon, actually. We are having a carriage wheel repaired and should be on the road again very soon. Immediately, I would imagine. But . . . now . . . I could not leave now.”
“You must,” Mama Jones replied with a firm nod of her head.
Relief swept through Elise.
“And you must take Ella and Anne with you,” Mama Jones added.
“What?” The word ripped out of Elise. Take them with him? Was Mama Jones mad?
“Of course,” Miles answered, a sudden air of eagerness in his tone. “They must come. We are traveling to my home. There is more than enough room there. She is like family and—”
“Mama Jones is m’ family.” Elise cut over him, stepping closer to the woman in the rocker. “And this is my home. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
“Child.” Mama Jones looked up into Elise’s face. “You must go.”
“I’ll not leave you.”
“Sweet child.” Mama Jones patted Elise’s hand.
“Ma’am.” Miles crossed to the rocking chair.
Elise immediately moved farther away. She set Anne on the floor, placing herself between Miles and her daughter.
He knelt in front of the rocking chair. “I would be most pleased if you would also agree to come to my home. I could not ask Elise and Miss Anne to leave behind any member of their family.”
“I’m of a mind to accept your offer. Ella can go with you today,” Mama Jones said authoritatively. “And Anne, o’ course.”
This was insanity. “Mama—”
“If Miles Linwood’ll arrange for a cart, I’ll see that our things are brought to his home, myself along with ’em.” Mama Jones pierced Miles with a stare. “Know this, Miles Linwood. If you take my Ella from here, you’re responsible for her. She cannot come back.”
“This is not his decision.” Elise tried to make her objections but wasn’t permitted to.
“I assure you, Mama Jones,” Miles said. “You will, all three of you, be looked after. I promise you that.”
An empty promise if Elise had ever heard one. “I am not leaving.”
Mama J
ones turned her gaze to Elise. There was a firmness in her expression that couldn’t be ignored. Mama Jones had made up her mind.
But Elise would never agree to this lunacy. “I will not leave. Not with him.”
Her very personal objection brought shock to Miles’s expression.
“Miles Linwood,” Mama Jones said. “Go see if you can find something interesting out the window to keep you busy a moment while I have a talk with m’ daughter.”
Miles obliged but with several glances back at them.
“What is this madness, Ella?”
“I am acting mad?” Elise lowered her voice to a whisper. “You know what he did and why I can’t go with him now.”
Mama Jones’s expression softened. “I know you were hurt, and I know you’re afraid now. But you are tossing away an opportunity you will never have again.”
“I’d not call this an opportunity.”
Her mother-in-law clearly didn’t agree. “You’d be leaving behind poverty, Ella. Miles Linwood’d never let you go hungry.”
“I’ll not sell Anne’s safety and mine for a mess of porridge.”
Mama Jones took Elise’s hand in hers. “You’ve reason to be afraid; I’ll grant you that. Laws, I’d be surprised if you weren’t terrified.”
“I am.” Elise could hardly find her voice.
“You must be strong enough and brave enough for this, my darling Ella.” Mama Jones patted her hand. “Though the path has its risks, walking it will offer Anne a life she’d not have otherwise. She’d not be pushed aside by an entire world that sees her as nothing but a poor child hardly worth acknowledging.”
“She would still be a poor widow’s daughter no matter where we go,” Elise pointed out.
“But a poor widow’s daughter who’d have a doctor when she needed it.” Mama Jones held firmly to Elise’s hand. “I cannot promise you everything will be easy or that you won’t be hurt again. But Anne deserves better than this dark, damp corner of nowhere.”
Elise glanced at Miles across the room. The very sight of him made her heart pound out a dread-filled rhythm. “I can’t do this, Mama. I can’t.”
“It is often those things we think we can’t do that we need to do most.”
Elise knew then that she was beat. Mama Jones had made this a matter of walking the hard road to help Anne. Elise couldn’t argue with that. She would have to go, but she didn’t have to let herself be hurt by him. She held tightly to Anne’s hand as she walked back toward the room they shared. Anne looked over her shoulder, no doubt at Miles.
He’ll break your heart, dearest. He’ll break it clear to pieces.
“You’ll pack quicker if you leave Anne with us,” Mama Jones called after her.
“I’m not leaving her with him. Not ever.” She shut the door firmly behind her, not knowing whether to rage or weep. The quiet stillness of her life was evaporating before her eyes.
Nothing she did would undo the upheaval of the last hour. But she would do the one thing in her power. She would never let Miles get close enough to hurt her again.
Chapter Four
Anne Boleyn had likely looked more pleased during the march to her own execution than Elise did walking at Miles’s side to the inn.
One did not generally expect to be met with simmering rage whilst rescuing one’s dearest friend from deprivation and poverty and returning her to the bosom of her loved ones. It wasn’t entirely unreasonable to think a person might get a smile at the very least. But Elise’s stoic aura of displeasure could be only one of two things: either she was afraid, or she was angry. Miles didn’t at all like either possibility.
Those blue eyes of their childhood that had always been full of joyful exuberance were guarded and snapping now. Her mouth, which had once perpetually smiled, remained tight and unyielding.
When she was four, only a little older than Anne appeared to be, she’d begged him to tie a parchment of scribbles to a bird so it could fly a letter to heaven for her mother to read. Tears had filled her eyes when he’d told her that birds could not carry messages to heaven. Elise had cried and Miles, not more than eight years old himself, had simply sat beside her in the meadow behind Epsworth, holding her hand. She had turned to him then for comfort but certainly didn’t want it now.
What did I do wrong? She had shielded Anne from him, clearly seeing him as a threat. And she’d expected him to leave them both behind.
I will not leave. Not with him. Those words echoed in his mind, growing more confusing with each repetition.
He ushered Elise and Anne into the inn. The innkeeper’s gaze slid quickly to Elise. Miles didn’t at all like the curiosity in the man’s expression or the almost smug smile he gave Miles. The innkeeper had clearly jumped to an unflattering conclusion of Miles’s intentions and Elise’s morals.
“Point me in the direction of Mr. and Mrs. Langley.” Miles summoned the aristocratic demeanor the Duke of Hartley and Miles’s cousin Lady Marion Jonquil had recently helped him perfect. It worked almost magically.
The innkeeper made a deferential bow, no longer eyeing Elise with such blatant denunciation. “Mr. and Mrs. Langley are in the front parlor.”
“These bags are to be placed in our carriage,” Miles said.
He received a silent acknowledgment.
Miles placed his hand lightly on Elise’s back to usher her inside. She flinched. Flinched!
Every rejection cut deeper than the last. He hung back until she’d stepped inside the parlor. Beth stood near a window beside Langley, watching with wide eyes the woman who had preceded Miles into the parlor.
“Allow me to take your cloak,” Miles said quietly to Elise when she neither spoke nor moved. She hadn’t even looked in Beth’s direction.
She unfastened her cloak and slipped it off her shoulders, handing it to Miles without looking up at him. Miles had almost forgotten about Anne. She was Elise’s very copy in appearance, yet she was so quiet and still, entirely unlike Elise at that age.
Elise bent down, apparently saying something to Anne and pointing toward the small fire across the room. The little girl made her way there without a sound.
Beth’s eyes locked with Miles’s. “Elise?” she silently asked.
Miles managed a half smile and nodded. His sister fought for composure as she stepped closer. She would be so disappointed at Elise’s lukewarm reception. Beth had been devastated when Elise had disappeared. How could he possibly prepare her for an Elise who did not seem at all pleased to be with them again?
Miles looked to Langley, hoping to convey the silent message that his support might be necessary. Langley moved smoothly to his wife’s side just as she reached Elise’s.
Elise had removed her bonnet, and Miles could tell Beth was staring at her thick curls. Her eyes would be the other indisputable clue; they had not changed physically, though they bore a different look than before.
“Elise?” Beth asked, her voice quiet and uncertain.
At the nearly whispered question, Elise turned and looked at Beth, her face full profile to Miles. She still had the tiny dot of a nose he’d once teased her about and the adorably small mouth that had pouted so sweetly when she was a child.
This was his Elise. Even Beth hadn’t been his companion as often as Elise had. And something, he knew after all this time, was terribly wrong with her.
Elise tensed, though her gaze never wavered. “Beth,” she whispered, her words tight, as if she held others back.
Beth clasped her arms around Elise fiercely and held their childhood friend, tears running down her cheeks. Elise allowed herself to be embraced but did not return the gesture.
At least she didn’t flinch.
Miles moved toward the fireplace, feeling chilled and uneasy. Anne looked up as he approached, her brown eyes watching him closely. What would it take to make the child smile? Every child ought to smile. “Hello, Anne,” he said quietly.
She watched his face as he spoke, seemingly mesmerized, but offered no retur
n greeting.
What made these two so solemn? Elise had already pulled back from Beth, who was attempting to dry her eyes and cheeks but finding the effort futile. No emotion registered on Elise’s face except the wariness that never seemed to fade.
“Is this your daughter?” Beth asked, motioning toward Anne. “Well, it must be. The resemblance is remarkable. What is her name?”
Miles looked down at the girl, wondering how she felt hearing herself spoken about. But Anne was still watching him, not taking note of anyone else in the room.
“Anne,” Elise said.
Beth glanced from Anne to Elise. Langley watched his wife and Elise. Miles kept an eye on all of them.
“That is a very beautiful name,” Beth said.
There was still no reaction from Anne. Perhaps the girl was timid? But her continued study of Miles made him doubt that.
“Excuse me, my lord,” a voice interrupted from the doorway.
Miles felt Elise’s gaze on him and, as he turned to look in the direction of the voice, allowed his own eyes to meet hers. He saw a momentary flash of surprise and confusion. It only made sense. When they’d last been together, Miles had been merely Mr. Linwood, but now he was the Marquess of Grenton.
“Your carriage is rigged ’n ready, your lordship.” The man at the door bowed as he spoke.
“Thank you. We shall be there directly.”
Miles saw Beth squeeze Elise’s hand. But he also saw a certain hardening in Elise’s expression, and the tiny ember of emotion that had crept into her eyes after being reunited with Beth seemed to be extinguished.
“Elise will be completing our journey with us,” Miles informed Beth and Langley.
“Of course she will be.” Beth replied as if the idea of Elise not coming was utterly preposterous. Then she began looking about the floor. “Has she no bags, no trunks?”
“I ordered her bags placed in the carriage when we first arrived,” Miles answered.
Beth offered an apologetic smile at her doubt in him. “Forgive me. I am simply so overwhelmed. I ordered the kitchens to pack a basket. I will ask that they add more to it, for Elise and sweet little Anne.” Beth lowered her voice. “Is anyone else expected?” The question dangled, another inquiry left unspoken.
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