“That satisfies the what and the how,” Elise said, “leaving the when to be answered. When will I receive my quarterly payment?”
“I am not entirely certain.”
Elise pushed back the worry growing inside. She needed her income in order to begin planning for Anne’s and her future. “The next quarter day is the twenty-fourth of June, some three weeks from now. Do you require longer than that to make a journey to Town?”
“I imagine it all seems very simple to you,” Mr. Cane said. “But I assure you, there are complications you wouldn’t have thought of.”
Elise had been talked down to in just that tone again and again the past four years. A few weeks in Miles’s house and she found she was no longer accustomed to it, nor did she have as much patience with it. “Then in lieu of recounting these details of which I haven’t yet thought, I will simply ask again how late you anticipate the payment being?”
“Likely not more than a week or two, three or four at the most.”
Four weeks? That would certainly put a stop to any plans she might make. But there seemed little to be done. “Thank you for the advanced notice,” Elise said. “I will give this some thought.”
He nodded but almost mechanically, as though he did so simply to be doing something, not because he actually approved. It was an unspoken dismissal, one with which she was painfully familiar. Even in her finer dress and as the guest of a marquess, she was still poor Ella Jones from Stanton. Mr. Cane could see that. The ladies at the ball the night before had sensed it.
Elise rose. “I will leave you to gather your papers and such,” she said. “Feel free to pull the bell if you need the staff’s assistance.”
“Of course, Mrs. Jones.” Mr. Cane gave her a very abbreviated bow.
Elise kept her chin up and her shoulders back as she left the room with all the dignity she could manage. She didn’t allow her churning emotions to show. She was finding her new place in the world, somewhere between poverty and affluence. Mr. Cane’s visit had added a bit more complication to the endeavor, but it had also given her a moment to recall the confident person she’d once been. She’d kept up her end of their conversation and had insisted on details from her solicitor, even when he’d been reluctant to give them. She could certainly be proud of that.
She spent the remainder of the morning with Anne, singing songs and drawing pictures in the nursery. Mrs. Ash looked on from nearby as she worked on a bit of mending. It truly was something of a fairy world. All the worries of life seemed miles away when surrounded by the magical beauty of the nursery. Someday when she had her own house, Elise would find a way to recreate at least a small bit of this wonderful space.
But I cannot do that without money. What was she to do if the quarterly payment was even later than Mr. Cane had predicted? She couldn’t continue on as a guest in Miles’s house indefinitely. She could move in with Mama Jones, but what would the three of them live on? She couldn’t look for employment in the village. No one would hire a woman who had been a guest in one of the finest houses in the neighborhood. A woman with a child in tow wasn’t likely to be hired as a governess or lady’s companion.
Elise kept a smile on her face as she played with Anne. When she had a quiet moment, she would think things through and find some kind of solution. In the meantime, she would pretend she wasn’t worried.
* * *
Miles took his lunch on a tray in his room the day after the ball. He’d slept later than he had in recent memory. Society kept the oddest hours. He dressed and headed out to the back meadow for some much-needed fresh air and exercise to wake him up fully.
After a few circuits of the meadow, he passed the back garden. On a bench under the rose bower sat Elise. Miles didn’t have to give it even a moment’s thought but turned immediately up the path toward her.
The few moments he’d spent with her the evening before in the quiet sanctuary of Anne’s room had been by far the highlight of the night. He’d known very few of the guests and hadn’t particularly cared for all the bowing and flattery and empty conversations required at the ball. He hadn’t enjoyed the dancing either. Elise had laughed with him and smiled. Those moments had stayed with him all night.
Elise had yet to realize he was there. She sat on a small garden bench, flipping through a stack of opened letters, her eyebrows knit in obvious concern. Those letters. She’d received at least two over the past week or more, but every time he asked her about them, she immediately changed the subject.
What was in them? Why didn’t she want him to know? He’d been trying to show her he could be trusted. He’d not pressed her but had offered help at every turn, and she’d rebuffed him again and again.
“A penny for your thoughts?”
Elise’s head snapped up, surprise written on every inch of her face. She hastily stuffed the letters into her reticule. “I did not realize you were there.”
“Obviously, else you would have been certain to keep your letters out of sight.”
She dropped her eyes, fussing over the lay of her skirt.
“Why are you so secretive about those letters?” He sat beside her on the bench.
He could see it was not something insignificant. Indeed, the worry in her eyes could not be mistaken.
She turned a bit on the bench and faced him, her sudden smile not the least believable. “How was the rest of the ball? Did no one attempt to wring a proposal from you?”
He would not be so easily turned from the topic. “I know perfectly well the ball is not what you were fretting over just now. Talk to me.”
“I am talking,” she said a bit defensively. “How was the ball?”
“Why are you so unwilling to tell me about these letters? I can see they worry you. You didn’t used to be so secretive.”
She stood and turned away again, her eyes focusing decidedly in the other direction. Her posture stiffened, and her expression turned determinedly unemotional. She was pulling on her suit of armor.
“Elise.” He took hold of her arm, keeping her there as he rose and came to stand behind her. She did not turn back to look at him. “I am not going to insist that you confide in me.” It was a difficult promise to make, sorely tempted as he was to press the matter until she spilled her budget. “But I want you to know that you can. More than that, I need you to realize you are not alone any longer.”
She didn’t respond, didn’t turn back to face him.
“You have been my friend all my life.” He did not know which words would prove the ones that finally broke through to her. “If you are worried over something, I hope you will come to me.”
She shook her head, silent and unrelenting, still turned away from him.
“Truly, Elise. I would do anything in my power to help you if you are in some kind of trouble.”
She spun about. He took an involuntary step backward at the flash in her eyes. This was not the look of trusting friendship he had anticipated. Indeed, Elise looked very nearly livid. After weeks of only the slightest hints of emotion, it was a shocking sight.
“Trouble?” she repeated, her jaw noticeably tensed. “I suppose all I would have to say is ‘Miles, I am in trouble’ and you would rush to my aid?”
“Of course.” His words seemed only to increase her apparent anger. If a look could ignite a fire, Miles would have been nothing but a smoking pile of ashes.
“I tried that,” Elise snapped. She was physically shaking. “‘Please help me,’ I said. ‘I am in trouble.’ My exact words. You were the only person I trusted, the only one who could have helped.”
“What—?”
“I begged, Miles. Pleaded.” Elise was shaking so hard Miles worried she wouldn’t be able to remain on her feet. Her eyes snapped with something very near rage. “‘Help me,’ I said. And what was I told in return?”
Miles felt his heart thud. He had no memory, no recollection of this conversation she was, apparently, quoting to him.
“‘Grow up,’ you said. ‘Grow up an
d solve your own problems.’” She all but spat the words. “Do not talk to me about friendship and loyalty, Miles Linwood. And do not lecture me about trusting you and believing you will help me. I grew up, just like you told me to. I grew up and learned that trust is nothing but a lie.”
She pulled away from him with a jerk, then ran from the garden without looking back. Miles was too shocked to so much as move. What in the world had just happened? And how was it everything kept going so terribly wrong?
Chapter Nineteen
Another tear fell unchecked. In all the years she had lived in Cheshire, Elise had seldom allowed her emotions to get the better of her. And she’d almost never cried. In the few short weeks since Miles had returned to her life, she couldn’t seem to retain control of herself. She’d yelled at him in the garden. She’d let every ounce of anger and disappointment and hurt enter her words and voice. Now she was crying. Sobbing.
Grow up, Elise. Grow up and solve your own problems. She could hear Miles’s words as clearly as if he’d only just uttered them. He had never, until that moment four years ago, turned his back on her so entirely.
Miles had always been her hero. He’d rescued her from scrapes her whole life. He was her very dearest friend, who had loved her through her darkest moments. But everything had changed after the murders.
Elise had spent more than a month crushed under the weight of her situation and all that had happened, a weight of such enormity she couldn’t even begin to fight her way free of it. She hadn’t for a moment doubted that he would help her. He always had.
But in that moment, that time, everything fell apart.
“Miles, I am in trouble.”
He had looked up at her from his father’s desk in the Epsworth library. Dark circles under his eyes spoke of too many sleepless nights. She had faltered for a moment. How could she add to his worries? But there had been no one else she could turn to.
“I need your help. Please, Miles.” Tears clogged her throat. “I am in a great deal of trouble.”
He didn’t answer. Miles simply watched her with a look of pique, as if her words, her very presence irritated him.
Elise took a slow breath, trying to keep her thoughts calm and rational. “I am frightened, Miles. I don’t know what to do.” Her voice broke on the last words. She’d so desperately kept the fear at bay but knew she couldn’t hold up on her own any longer.
“Will you help me? Please?”
Miles’s fists clenched, his jaw growing tight. Every inch of him tensed with anger and frustration.
“Please, Miles,” she begged, stopping just short of actually dropping to her knees. She came and stood beside the desk, pleading with her eyes and words. “Please help me.”
Miles’s eyes snapped as he looked at her standing there. Voice tight, he answered her inquiry. “I am sick of saving everyone. Grow up, Elise. Grow up and solve your own problems.”
He lowered his eyes back to the account book on the desk in front of him. He didn’t so much as glance back up. Elise stood beside the desk, unable to move.
He had spoken. She had asked for his help—begged for it—and he had said no.
“Please, Miles,” she whispered in a last attempt.
His pen scratched across the open page of the account book as if she wasn’t even in the room.
The walls of the book room began closing in around her. Dizziness and nausea threatened to send her toppling to the ground. Fear like she hadn’t felt since the night she’d seen two men shot dead before her very eyes gripped her insides. She was in real and immediate danger and not a soul on earth cared.
Elise walked in an unseeing daze back to her bedchamber at Epsworth and sat on the edge of her bed. Miles had said no. He who had always helped her, who had stood beside her in her most difficult moments, had turned her away.
“Solve your own problems,” she had whispered into the silence of her room. “Solve your own problems.” What else could she have done but that?
Elise pulled the rag quilt more tightly around her shoulders and leaned her head against the cold glass of the window in Mama Jones’s parlor. She forced herself to breathe slowly. A moment more and the memories would be safely tucked away again.
Rain trickled down the window, the trees outside rustling in the low wind. The house was warmer than their tiny house in Stanton had been. Warmer. Bigger. Nicer. Miles had arranged for Mama Jones to remain in the cottage free of rent and to receive a small annuity, less than he had originally attempted to provide for her, Mama Jones being both stubborn and proud, but more money than she had ever known before. Miles had appeased her sensibilities by explaining that he owed her that and more for caring for Elise, who had been, after all, his ward.
For all of his refusal to help Elise in her hour of need, he’d certainly risen to the occasion with Mama Jones.
“How much did you tell him?” Mama Jones abruptly asked. They hadn’t spoken much since Elise and Anne’s arrival nearly thirty minutes earlier. Anne lay on the rug before the fireplace, sketching trees and flowers.
“Not very much.” Elise’s voice quivered. Her emotions sat so near the surface.
“So is Miles Linwood less confused than before or more, I wonder.”
“I do not know.” She turned enough to watch Anne as she silently worked.
“He is trying hard, Ella,” Mama Jones said almost scoldingly. “And though he disappointed you in the past, I think he is a good un.”
“You believe I should confide in him?”
“Why did you trust my Jim?” Mama Jones asked in turn, rocking slowly.
“He was eminently trustworthy.”
“An’ who was it, Ella, that raised that trustable young man?”
“You did,” Elise acknowledged with a slight smile in Mama Jones’s direction.
“I know a good man when I sees him. Miles Linwood’s good to the tips of his fingers.”
A sting of emotion clasped Elise’s throat. Had she not shed enough tears? She turned back to the window. “I do not want to be hurt again.”
“Can’t be helped. We all are hurt now and again. It is the misery that buys the joy.”
Elise wiped at an escaping tear. If she didn’t stop soon, the dam would burst.
“You’ve been long enough without joy, my Ella,” Mama Jones said in her authoritative way. “Time to turn over your misery.”
“Suppose things only get worse.”
“Worse than you cryin’ at m’ window?” There was some wisdom in that. “You say you’re not able to trust Miles Linwood. So trust me instead. Tell him your troubles. Some of them, anyway. See if he doesn’t help you like I think he will.”
“I am not sure I can,” Elise admitted. “There is too much.”
“Give a little, Ella. Just a little.”
* * *
It was no use. Miles had racked his brain all afternoon and evening only to come up blank. Nowhere in the recesses of his memory was there a conversation like the one Elise had referenced earlier in the day. Yet her words had a horribly familiar ring to them.
Grow up and solve your own problems.
Perhaps it was merely Elise’s almost constant insistence that she dealt with her own troubles that sparked that feeling of recognition, but he doubted it. Miles was convinced despite himself that he had indeed said such a heartless thing to her, and he would wager he’d done so very near the time she’d disappeared. The memory, it seemed, had become lost in a quagmire of tense and overwhelming recollections.
He sat in the chair behind the desk in the library, flipping absentmindedly through the Tafford accounts. His foot tapped. The fingers of his free hand drummed the arm of his chair.
How long before Elise’s disappearance had they had that painful interaction? What problem had she been attempting to get his help to solve? Had he ever addressed it? Had she tried to ask him again? Miles wished he could remember.
The house was so still he actually heard the quiet footsteps of someone’s approach.
He looked up from the account book and experienced the strongest rush of déjà vu. Elise stood not far from the desk, watching him, her expression wrought with anxiety. She clasped her hands tightly in front of her.
“Might we talk?” She sounded oddly resigned, as if she were pursuing the conversation under duress.
“Of course.” Miles rose from the desk and hurried around to stand directly beside her.
Elise’s eyes darted around the room. “Somewhere else?” she whispered, her cheeks pinking slightly. “Please.”
Why not the library? “Certainly,” he said. Beth and Langley were in the drawing room. “The music room?” he suggested.
The slightest hint of a smile turned her mouth. She nodded mutely.
Knowing the music room would be empty and most likely dark, Miles brought a brace of candles with him as they left the library. He offered his hand, unsure if she would take it.
What precisely did Elise intend to say to him? Was he to be raked over the coals once more?
She slipped her hand inside his as naturally as she had at three years old. A very good sign. Before they’d even reached the library door, Miles realized Elise was shaking. With anger like before?
Miles squeezed her hand inside his and glanced at her face. Her expression was a study of neutrality. She was making a concerted effort to appear unaffected, like always. Her trembling hand told another story.
They spoke no words between them. Elise didn’t look up at him. He hoped she wasn’t having second thoughts. If her demeanor was any indication, the topic she meant to broach was significant. This was the opportunity he had been hoping for, if only she didn’t change her mind.
The music room stood empty when they arrived. Miles lit several of the wall sconces. Elise held herself perfectly still in the middle of the room, noticeably pale and utterly silent. She pushed a loose strand of hair from her face with a trembling hand.
For Elise Page 13
