For Elise

by Sarah M. Eden

  Miss Haddington laughed lightly. “I don’t believe that sounded quite the way you intended it to.”

  “Mr. Haddington has been quite remiss in calling on you, but I am certain he will soon.” Mrs. Haddington jumped back into the conversation. “Is that Mr. and Mrs. Langley? I had hoped they would visit again.”

  “Indeed, my sister and her husband mean to stay for a few more weeks, at least, before returning to their own home.”

  “We must go bid them a good afternoon.” Mrs. Haddington made straight for the picnic blanket, motioning for her daughter to follow. “Offer her your arm, Lord Grenton,” she said in a scolding tone. “You are a gentleman, after all, and she is a lady. A gentleman always offers his arm. To a lady, that is. A gentleman wouldn’t offer his arm to a gentleman.”

  “I can’t say that is something I’ve seen often.” Miles managed to keep his expression serious.

  “Unless, of course, one of the gentlemen had sustained a wound of some kind and was weak from blood loss,” Mrs. Haddington continued. “Then it would be the gentlemanly thing to do, offering one’s arm.”

  “Perhaps you should feign a desperate injury,” Miles said to Miss Haddington under his breath. “Otherwise, I can make no guarantees.”

  “A lady need not be grievously wounded.” Mrs. Haddington hardly stopped for breath. “She simply needs to be a lady. And my daughter is a lady.”

  “I am aware of that, ma’am,” Miles said.

  Mrs. Haddington’s brows pulled in with confusion. “Then why haven’t you offered her your arm?”

  “You’d best make the offer, Lord Grenton,” Miss Haddington warned him. “Otherwise, this conversation will never end.”

  He held his arm out for her, and she accepted it with a smile. Mrs. Haddington looked the two of them over, then nodded her approval. She moved swiftly toward the picnic blanket, leaving Miles and Miss Haddington to follow in her wake.

  “Forgive Mother,” Miss Haddington said. “She can be very single-minded, especially on such crucial matters as to whom a gentleman offers his arm.”

  “And so she should. If we let matters of such importance slip, what would happen to this country?”

  “We’d be France.” Miss Haddington managed the comment with perfect seriousness, but her smile won out in the next moment.

  They reached the picnic blanket. Mrs. Haddington had already claimed all of Beth’s attention, and Langley was doing an admirable job of appearing pleased to be forced into listening to their conversation.

  “Who is this?” Miss Haddington asked.

  Miles followed her gaze all the way to Elise. Elise. When had she left his side? They’d been walking back to the picnic together when the Haddingtons had arrived. She must have walked away then.

  “This is Mrs. Jones,” Miles said, bringing Miss Haddington to where Elise sat with Anne leaning against her. “And this lovely young lady is her daughter, Miss Jones.”

  Anne looked excessively uncomfortable, pulling in closer to her mother. Elise didn’t quite manage a smile, neither did she look Miss Haddington in the eye.

  “Mrs. Jones”—Heavens, it felt strange calling Elise that, but he did know how to make a proper introduction—“this is Miss Haddington of Ravensworth.”

  Miss Haddington offered a very elegant curtsy. “I am so pleased to meet you, Mrs. Jones. Do you live nearby?”

  Elise didn’t answer. Her mouth moved about silently. She clutched her hands tightly in front of her.

  “Mrs. Jones is a dear family friend,” Miles explained. “My sister and I are enjoying some time together with her again.”

  “Oh.” Mrs. Haddington looked more curious than Miles would have expected. “And Mr. Jones is . . . ?”

  Elise’s chin rose, and a palpable surge of pride filled her posture and expression. “My husband was a soldier. He was lost in battle.”

  Beneath her calm declaration lingered a hint of sadness. Until that moment, Miles hadn’t truly contemplated the grief she must have felt at losing her husband.

  Her husband. In his mind, she was still the fifteen-year-old girl she’d been before. He couldn’t entirely wrap his mind around Elise as a wife and mother.

  “I am so sorry for your loss,” Miss Haddington said. “This war has brought heartache to so many people.”

  “It has,” Elise said, her voice becoming quiet and withdrawn once more.

  The food arrived in the next moment, and the Haddingtons joined the picnic. Conversation became general. Almost. Elise didn’t speak a word. Indeed, she sat with Mrs. Ash and Anne, a bit removed from the rest of the party. Anne’s unease was expected, but Elise’s surprised Miles.

  Though she’d not had her come-out before her disappearance, she’d been quite the social butterfly amongst the neighboring families. She had easily interacted with young and old. She had lit up every room she entered. Why, then, did she seem so intent on suddenly disappearing into the scenery?

  Perhaps she meant only to shield Anne from the discomfort of interacting with strangers. It was a reasonable explanation, and yet he sensed there was more to it. That part of her personality had changed. Here was yet another mystery surrounding the one person he’d always thought he knew best.

  Chapter Fourteen

  If Elise never again went on another picnic, it would be too soon. It had begun well. Anne had laughed so joyously. She’d run and spun about and giggled like the happy little girl Elise had always wanted her to be. Life had been too hard, too full of worry and need. But for that one moment, that lovely, lovely moment, Anne had been carefree. Elise’s heart had nearly burst.

  Then the Haddingtons had arrived, elegant and perfectly at ease in the company of wealthy, elegant people. Elise’s longstanding friendship with Miles and Beth had momentarily blinded her to how very different their new places in Society truly were. Her old friends had land and money and positions of influence and importance. Elise was nobody, honestly and truly nobody, with nothing she could claim as her own beyond difficult memories and forgotten dreams.

  Miles had explained to his visitors that Elise was a family friend who was visiting Tafford. The Haddingtons had accepted the explanation, though Elise had felt the dismissal inherent in their postures and expressions. She still remembered the nuances of interactions in Society. Four years hadn’t erased that bit of her education. Miles and Beth didn’t make a point of how far beneath them she now was—they might not have truly given it much thought yet—but the truth was there. Nothing would change that. In her mind, she understood it, but her heart still hurt.

  * * *

  Mr. Cane came to Tafford two days after the picnic. Elise offered an appropriate curtsy after Miles introduced him. Mr. Cane had been her father’s and Mr. Linwood’s solicitor. She remembered him vaguely from his visits to Furlong House. His hair had been thicker then, his waist a little less thick.

  “Mr. Cane, I am certain you recall Mrs. Jones,” Miles completed the introduction.

  “I do, indeed,” Mr. Cane answered with a bow. “Though she was much younger when I last saw her.” He addressed Miles, though he spoke about Elise. She’d grown quickly accustomed to just that sort of dismissal over the past four years. She was no longer a lady of station or wealth. “I suggest we begin directly, as I have no wish to monopolize your entire afternoon.”

  Miles nodded to Mr. Cane and indicated that he should take the chair behind the library desk. Elise sat in a chair facing the solicitor. Miles sat beside her but didn’t speak.

  They hadn’t said much to each other since the picnic. For her part, she didn’t know what she might possibly say. It was hardly Miles’s fault they were no longer equals. And Miss Haddington had, in all actuality, been perfectly cordial, considering their very disparate situations were so very obvious. Elise had no real reason for complaint. She simply felt so utterly out of her element.

  “Forgive the interruption.” Humphrey stood in the doorway with something in his hand. “I did not realize your meeting had begun.
A letter has arrived for Mrs. Jones.”

  A letter. Another threatening one? She’d received the first only two days earlier, then another yesterday. Both were unposted, brief, and undeniably threatening. She knew with perfect certainty the messages were from the unidentified murderer who’d brought such devastation to her life. The man who’d taken so much and then laughed about it.

  She took this newest letter from Humphrey, offered him a quick thank you, then studied the missive in her hand. It was addressed to her and postmarked from Leicester. She didn’t know a soul in Leicester. It was too far from Stanton for her to have made any acquaintance there during her four years away and too far from Epsworth for her to have known anyone there during her first fifteen years.

  The other two letters hadn’t been posted, which worried her. The letter writer had to have been near enough to Tafford to arrange for a hand delivery. Perhaps this one was not another threat but something less alarming. Elise looked up at Miles.

  “Please, take a moment to read your letter,” he said. “We’ll wait.”

  Mr. Cane was bent over his papers and didn’t seem to mind the delay.

  Elise turned the letter over and broke the seal. She unfolded the parchment. All hope of this being a benign, friendly note evaporated in an instant. On the paper was written but one sentence.

  Good day, Elise.

  Good day? What did that mean? She didn’t believe for a moment the greeting was friendly or genuine. Good day. It was so commonplace she had likely heard those words from hundreds of people.

  Hundreds of people. Had she been greeted that way by the murderer himself? Was he telling her of a conversation he’d already had with her? Such an insignificant thing might have been said by anyone.

  Elise tried to calm her mind. She would give it some thought when she was alone again. But now was not the time to sort all of it out. She quickly folded the letter once more and looked up at the two men.

  “My apologies for the delay. Please, continue.”

  Miles leaned a little closer. “What was in that letter?”

  “Nothing of importance.”

  His gaze narrowed.

  Elise turned quickly to Mr. Cane. “Let us begin, please.”

  Mr. Cane looked to Miles. “My lord?”

  Miles watched Elise a moment longer before silently indicating Mr. Cane should proceed.

  “Many years have passed since this account was created, but I believe you will be pleased with the changes you will see in it,” Mr. Cane began.

  His voice continued on in the background of Elise’s wandering thoughts. Good day, Elise. She would likely never hear those three words again without worrying that the remark was pointed. How would she know if the greeting was offhand or in reference to this letter? She wouldn’t.

  “Elise?” Miles’s voice broke into her distraction.

  She opened her eyes to find both men watching her closely. “Forgive me,” she said quietly. “I was wool-gathering, it seems.”

  Mr. Cane watched her with palpable patience. “Would you rather we postpone this?”

  “I am fine,” Elise insisted.

  Miles had taken to very pointed studies of her the past few days. He did so again in that moment. It was enough to make Elise squirm, though she managed to subdue the impulse.

  “I will be brief,” Mr. Cane reassured them. “You may remember I served as solicitor for your late father. After his affairs were settled, a small amount of money remained, which, wisely, Lord Grenton”—Mr. Cane looked in Miles’s direction—“as your guardian, set aside in an account in your name.”

  “You did?” She’d heard nothing of this before.

  “I thought, at the time, it could become something of a dowry,” Miles said. “You were only fifteen years old, and after a few years had passed and you were of an age to marry, the investments made on your behalf would, I hoped, have increased the amount to a respectable total.”

  Elise smiled sadly. “And I told Jim I brought nothing to our marriage. He could have been wealthy.” She laughed lightly. Thoughts of Jim brought the usual sadness, so she pushed them firmly from her mind.

  “The man of business you appointed to oversee the investments has given me a full accounting,” Mr. Cane told Miles. “I believe you will be pleased with the results. The original amount was only a little over two thousand pounds.”

  Elise barely managed to hold back a gasp. Two thousand pounds. That would have been a vast fortune the past four years.

  “Mrs. Jones is now in possession of nearly twenty-five hundred,” Mr. Cane continued. “As requested, your man of business has looked over the investments as well. He has declared them to be wise and likely profitable in the long term.”

  “I could have an income off these investments?” Elise asked, hardly believing it.

  Mr. Cane nodded. “Though it would not be a large amount, it would certainly be enough to support yourself.”

  “And my daughter?”

  He nodded again. “You would not be in a position to live in style, but you would be comfortable.” Mr. Cane held a paper out to her. “The details are all here. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.”

  She took the paper and looked over it quickly. The upper classes would have scoffed at the amount, but it was more than ten times what she’d been living on. “Thank you for this, Miles.”

  He smiled a bit. “I only wish it were more. There was so little left after settling your father’s estate.”

  “This is more than I could have hoped for,” Elise said. “And far more than I’ve had the past years.”

  “You aren’t disappointed?” He seemed to have genuinely expected her to be.

  “Not at all. Not at all.”

  Though she didn’t yet know what path her future would take, she had money enough to support Anne and herself. That lifted an enormous weight from her shoulders.

  But what was she to do about the letters?

  * * *

  “She’s keeping something from me. I can sense it.” Miles turned to make a fourth circuit of Mama Jones’s small parlor.

  “An’ how long did it take you to decide that, Miles Linwood?” Mama Jones asked, rocking rhythmically, as always. And as always, she seemed a moment away from laughing at him. “Somewhere between disappearin’ without a word all them years ago an’ hardly speakin’ to you now she’s been found? Somewhere in there, was it?”

  Miles couldn’t help a begrudging smile. “I meant something new, something recent.” He would wager the letter she’d received during Mr. Cane’s visit was connected to the increased tension he saw in her.

  Mama Jones narrowed her eyes. “I’ve seen it too. Something’s weighin’ heavy on her mind.”

  “Precisely.” Miles began a fifth turn around the room. “She hasn’t confided in you either?”

  “Ella’s always kept her own counsel. She keeps everything to herself, her worries and joys, her struggles and triumphs. She keeps it hidden.”

  “She didn’t used to do that,” Miles said.

  “Ah,” Mama Jones said, the sound one of feigned discovery. “Perhaps, then, that’s your next clue.”

  “Clue?”

  “She keeps her feelin’s bottled up,” Mama Jones explained in that mysterious-like way she seemed so proud of. “But she didn’t used to. Seems there must be a reason for the change.”

  Miles stopped his pacing to study the woman watching him from her rocking chair. Again she wore a look of ill-concealed amusement. And yet Miles didn’t truly think she found the situation funny.

  “Was she always so closed up in the years you have known her?” He didn’t know if she would answer his question. Mama Jones could be very close-lipped herself.

  “Aye, that she were.” Mama Jones nodded in time to her rocking. “Ever since Jim brought her home to me. ‘Mama,’ he says, ‘here’s m’ wife, Ella.’ ’Twere a surprise to me. Jim roared out laughin’ when he saw my face so bewildered. He finally told me all ’b
out how they came to be man an’ wife. But through the whole story, Ella just stood silent and still, holding to his arm as if she was terrified of him leaving her. She didn’t smile, didn’t laugh when Jim got to tellin’ things in his funny way. She just stood there with sad eyes an’ listened.”

  “She and your son were married already when you met her?” For some reason, that surprised him.

  “Aye.” Mama Jones nodded once more. “He were away from home, soon to be joinin’ up with the army, he was. I expected him home sooner, but Jim was wont to wander at times. Came home a few weeks late and with a bride.”

  “How long was he gone?” He hoped Mama Jones would continue her revealing story. It was more information than he’d had from her yet and far more than Elise was likely to provide.

  “Near about a month.” A certain twinkle in Mama Jones’s eye told Miles that bit of information was significant.

  “And you didn’t know Elise before that?” It did indeed seem strange.

  Mama Jones shook her head. “Jim didn’t know her neither.” Her look became pointed.

  “They met and married within a month?” Miles blurted the question as he began pacing again.

  “An’ posted the banns,” Mama Jones added.

  Having the banns read required three weeks. Which meant Elise and Jim Jones had become betrothed within a week of meeting each other, less if any amount of traveling had been completed in that time frame.

  “Were they so much in love, then?” He wondered at the odd growl in his voice as he spoke.

  Mama Jones laughed out loud, thoroughly annoying Miles. “I’d wager a yellow boy you’re jealous, Miles Linwood.” She chuckled. “You, who had her love, jealous of m’ boy, who only had her gratitude.”

  Mama Jones continued to chuckle, but Miles’s mind was spinning. Her love. Had Elise loved him all those years ago? She’d been so young when she’d left home. He couldn’t imagine fifteen-year-old Elise nursing an unspoken passion for him. Lands, he’d only been nineteen himself. They’d been more like siblings than sweethearts.

  “Now don’t go frettin’ your breeches into a bundle.” Mama Jones chortled when Miles stared wide-eyed at the rather descriptive admonishment. “Ella left her heart behind her when she came to us, but she weren’t pining away over some flimmy-flammy romantical notion. She did love you in her sweet little way. I knew it. And Jim knew it.”