For Elise

by Sarah M. Eden

  Elise lowered her eyes in a wave of embarrassment. “I was humbled enough to need the dresses. I couldn’t ask you for more.”

  Miles touched her face. Elise very nearly melted.

  “Please don’t hesitate to ask me for anything, Elise. Not ever.”

  “I very nearly did say something before the ball,” she admitted. “I was so embarrassed attending such a fine evening without the proper gloves and in my old boots.”

  “You looked beautiful,” he insisted. “You could be wearing regimental boots and still be lovely.”

  Heat rushed to her cheeks. “You are becoming a flatterer, Miles Linwood.”

  “And you are beginning to sound like Mama Jones.” He chuckled softly. “Now”—Miles threaded her arm through his—“what was it you rushed in here to talk to me about?”

  Ah, yes. Her rather unladylike entrance into the library moments earlier. “Your solicitor, no doubt, thinks me a perfect hoyden.”

  “Hanson thinks nothing of the sort,” Miles said reassuringly. “Mr. Cane, on the other hand, has known us both from childhood and, no doubt, knows us for the unruly savages that we are.”

  “That is terribly comforting, Miles.” Still, she smiled.

  “I try to be a voice of reassurance.” Miles squeezed her arm. “In what other matters might I be of assistance?”

  “I wanted to show you this.” She held up the letter she’d only just received. “It arrived a few moments ago.”

  Miles released her arm and took the letter. He unfolded it. In a very low whisper, he read it aloud. “I am closer than you know.”

  A chill rippled through her.

  “You aren’t leaving the house unaccompanied?”

  Elise shook her head. “Not ever.”

  Miles sighed. “I fear there is little else we can do.”

  Mr. Cane and Mr. Hanson had returned to the piles of paper scattered across the library desk and a large round table moved in for their use. “Have you discovered anything?” she asked.

  “Not very much. Of course, neither man knows the actual reason for my search, only that I am attempting to sort through and organize my various accounts and holdings, along with yours.”

  “I know this is hardly a lady’s area of expertise, but might I be permitted to stay? I don’t like being left out of matters that so closely concern me.”

  “Of course.” Tension pulled at his expression. Because of her request? Or the memories attached to their fathers?

  “Mrs. Jones will be joining us,” Miles announced as he directed Elise back to where the two solicitors waited for him. Mr. Hanson merely nodded. Mr. Cane studied her a moment, then shook his head and shrugged as if resigning himself to her participation.

  Miles sat behind his desk and eyed Mr. Hanson and Mr. Cane. Elise enjoyed watching him. Somewhere along the way, he had acquired an inarguable air of authority. The two solicitors seemed to notice it as well and instantly began telling him what he was apparently wishing to hear.

  “These were monumentally bad investments.” Mr. Hanson tapped one stack of papers and shook his head. “An entire series of them. From what I can see, Mr. Furlong made the same investments.”

  “He did,” Mr. Cane acknowledged. “I drafted most of the contracts on their behalf. It was unfortunate they did not prove lucrative.”

  “They were shaky from the beginning,” Mr. Hanson said, a hint of reprimand in his tone.

  “I served as legal counsel for my clients, not as a financial advisor.” Mr. Cane took obvious offense at the insult he perceived in the comment. “I suggested both men consult a reputable banker before embarking on any investment schemes. I know the limits of my expertise, Mr. Hanson.”

  Poor Mr. Cane. He really had worked very hard on Papa’s behalf and must have felt a bit guilty, or at least regretful, when Papa’s finances had begun to turn. Though, as he had pointed out, Mr. Cane could hardly be held liable. If the tension in his jaw was any indication, he was not enjoying this meeting.

  “Did they?” Miles asked. “Consult a banker, that is?”

  “It does not appear they did,” Mr. Hanson answered. “At least, I found no correspondence that would indicate they did.”

  “I would like to look into these investments.” Miles spoke with his air of aristocratic authority. “I was far too inexperienced and had far too much to see to at the time of my father’s death to truly understand the situation.”

  “I am certain you’ll not be able to regain any of the financial losses from these investments,” Mr. Hanson warned.

  “I am not interested in financial redress. I would simply like a better understanding of where he went wrong. I would rather not repeat the mistakes of the past.”

  Mr. Cane nodded, though the offense in his eyes didn’t dissipate. Having one’s professional aptitude called into question, no matter that Mr. Hanson hadn’t directly done so, could not be a pleasant experience.

  Elise’s eyes met Miles’s. A blush spread across her face.

  “Would you like me to create a summary of the late Mr. Furlong’s investments?” Mr. Cane asked.

  “Yes.” Miles nodded. “They are, as near as I remember, almost identical. So there may be some redundancy. But with both of you gathering this information, we are less likely to overlook something and, thus, less likely to see the Grenton accounts or Mrs. Jones’s drained in similar fashion.”

  “Very good, Lord Grenton,” Mr. Hanson answered.

  Mr. Cane appeared less pleased at the assignment. No doubt he felt this was some sort of trial, his professional abilities being tested.

  “Do you think this will tell us anything?” Elise asked as Miles escorted her to the door, the solicitors gathering up papers behind them.

  “I have no idea.” He sounded pained at the admission. “But at the very least, it might put to rest questions that have plagued me since my father’s death.”

  Elise had never known her father or Mr. Linwood to be anything less than sound in their judgment. If they had been advised to consult a financial expert, they would have. She was certain of it. Why hadn’t they? “I still cannot fathom Papa being so irresponsible.”

  “Nor my father,” Miles said. “It is that inconsistency which has piqued my curiosity.”

  Elise had expected to hear something more substantial, something significant enough to give her more hope. Instead, she only felt more tense, more uneasy.

  “You are frustrated,” Miles said. When they were young, he’d had the uncanny ability to tell what she was feeling with a single glance. He was doing it again.

  “I suppose I was hoping we would sit down and you would give them one of those stern looks you seem to have perfected and they would—”

  “Tremble and weep, perhaps?”

  Elise shook her head and laughed lightly. “No. I had hoped for something more helpful, I suppose, than what was done today.”

  “They have only just begun,” Miles said. “Perhaps they will come up with something yet.”

  Miles put his arm around her shoulders as they continued walking. The natural thing to do next was lean her head against him.

  “Now, on to matters of even greater importance.” Miles was teasing again.

  Elise was glad for it. She’d had too much worry lately.

  “I have been pondering Beth’s feet,” Miles said.

  “Beth’s feet?”

  “Oh, yes.” He sounded almost serious. “I believe they are not much larger than your own. And I am confident I can persuade her to loan you a pair of slippers until we can have a pair or two delivered from Sheffield.”

  “Miles, you don’t—”

  “Do not say I don’t have to,” Miles interrupted. “I wish to. And I am a marquess, you know. I can do anything I want.”

  He sounded so theatrically pompous, Elise couldn’t help laughing. “Are all peers so toplofty?”

  “Oh yes. I’ve only met a few, but I’m convinced the lot of us are unbearable when we’re assembled at Lords.�
�� Miles squeezed her shoulders again. “I shall have to introduce you to a few of the more entertaining amongst our ranks.”

  “Not in these boots, you won’t.” She was only half kidding.

  “Very well. I’ll wear my own boots, though they aren’t half so dainty.” Miles’s eyes softened, sending Elise’s heart flying to her throat, beating hard in her neck. “I hope this means you will allow me to buy you slippers?”

  “Did I ever have a choice?”

  He rested his hand on top of hers, where it lay on his arm. “No choice whatsoever.”

  All Elise could do was lean against him. No words were possible when he looked at her in just that way. Was this what love did to a person? Or did the impact lessen with time? Perhaps, she decided, a person simply learned to function despite the fluttering inside.

  “I believe we will find Beth in the sitting room,” Miles said.

  “We don’t need to bother Beth.” To go begging shoes was nearly too much for Elise’s already battered pride.

  “Nonsense. I have a sinking suspicion your footwear has bothered you far more than you are letting on.” He was precisely correct and seemed to know it. “Come now. We’ll simply pester Beth like we used to until she finally goes along with anything we ask.”

  “And we wondered why she stopped spending time with us.”

  “Unfathomable,” Miles replied, an ironic laugh in his tone.

  Outside the doorway of the sitting room, Elise had second thoughts. She stopped, pulling Miles to a stop along with her. Mortification slipped over her. How would she keep her chin up if she had to beg for shoes? “Do we really have to ask Beth about the slippers, Miles?”

  “You don’t wish for slippers to match your new dresses?” He looked doubtful.

  “I just . . .” She pulled back, needing space to think. “It’s terribly humiliating having to beg for shoes, especially from someone I grew up with. It’s hard enough accepting charity from you, Miles, without—”

  “Charity?” Miles laid his hands on her shoulders. “Have I ever indicated that I saw you as some sort of philanthropic endeavor? That you were a charity case?”

  “I feel like one.”

  His hands shifted to either side of her face, gently nudging her gaze upward to meet his. “My dearest Elise,” he said quietly. “We have shared everything all our lives. Why should that change now?”

  “What, Miles, do I have to offer you in return?” She felt a sting at the back of her throat.

  “You two.” Beth sighed from directly beside them.

  Elise darted her eyes in the direction of the voice. Beth looked frustrated.

  “Well, at least come inside the sitting room rather than enacting this display in the corridor.” Beth turned and walked back through the doors of the sitting room. Miles and Elise followed, a proper distance between them now. “Obviously, my warnings had little impact.”

  “I think you are overreacting, Beth.”

  “I can tell you with certainty that I am not.” She turned to face Miles. Elise took up an unobtrusive position not far from the door. “Mrs. Ash has been working quite hard to squelch the rumors your recent behavior has created.”

  “Rumors?” Miles sounded wary.

  “Apparently, you two were seen in an extremely friendly embrace not many days past,” Beth said.

  Elise felt her cheeks redden. She knew precisely the embrace Beth meant: in the room where Miles had stored her family’s belongings, with the music box playing. At least three servants had witnessed that, though she hadn’t regretted it until that moment. Of course it would spark rumors below stairs.

  “This coming on the heels of the realization that Anne was born a little early,” Beth added.

  The heat that had flooded Elise’s face moments before turned suddenly icy. She was beginning to understand the nature of these rumors. Please, not that.

  “Everyone has noticed the resemblance between Anne and Elise,” Beth continued. “That resemblance has only served to emphasize the one difference between mother and child: their eyes.”

  A feeling of dread crept through Elise. Her breaths grew harder to take. Her head throbbed once more.

  “They are brown instead of blue,” Miles acknowledged. “How, pray tell, is that significant?”

  “Your eyes are brown, Miles. Very nearly the exact shade of Anne’s.” Beth sighed. “I, of course, realize the speculation is absurd, but the staff here does not know either of you as I do. They have conjectured that Anne was not, indeed, born early but was, in fact, conceived prior to Elise’s marriage. Prior to her leaving Epsworth. Prior to her leaving you.” Beth gave Miles a pointed look. “Some have speculated that you, Miles Linwood, Marquess of Grenton, are Anne’s true father and not Mr. Jim Jones. If you and Elise continue with your affections as you have, these rumors will simply grow more credible in the eyes of those who hear them.”

  They were labeling Miles a cad? A rake, even? And she herself was seen as a scarlet woman. Or, at best, a deceived and abandoned schoolroom girl. And what stigma was this attaching to Anne? Her diminished hearing created enough of a barrier between her and the rest of the world without whispers of illegitimacy adding to it.

  “This is ludicrous,” Miles declared. “To think I would . . . would—”

  “I know, Miles,” Beth assured him. “And, as I said, Mrs. Ash has done what she can to counter the damage. But if you two don’t exercise a bit of circumspection, the only solution left to you will be marrying each other. I do not want either of you forced into a marriage of convenience. You deserve to choose the relationships you have and keep.”

  “I’m sorry, Miles.” Dread swept over Elise at the enormity of the implications. Her presence in his home was causing him difficulties she’d not anticipated, and she felt powerless to stop it. “I am so sorry they are saying this about you. It is so terribly unfair. I’ll think of a way to make it right.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Elise had, for all intents and purposes, moved in with Mama Jones. For the past three days, she’d broken her fast in her room, then, after Anne had finished her morning lessons with Mrs. Ash, walked with her daughter to Mama Jones’s cottage, not returning until after the dinner hour.

  Miles understood. Beth’s warnings had unnerved him as well. Neither he nor Elise needed scandal or rumors attached to their names. He certainly did not wish for speculation to taint Anne. After hearing the love in Elise’s voice when she spoke of her late husband, Miles couldn’t condemn her to a marriage that was any less loving. He cared about her, loved her even, but as a friend, a brother, a lifelong companion.

  “It is, perhaps, best to put a little distance between you,” Langley said from atop his mount. They’d ridden out that morning and had spied Elise making her daily pilgrimage. “I do not think it would be wise for her to become too dependent on you.”

  “You think I would fail her?”

  “On the contrary.” Langley kept his horse to an easy canter. “Watching you since her return, I think you would go to the ends of the earth for her.”

  “I would.”

  “And I think she is beginning to trust that you will. What happens to your Elise when it is time for her to be on her own once more?”

  “On her own?” Was she leaving? Had Langley heard something to that effect?

  “She cannot live here indefinitely, Grenton. For one thing, Beth and I really do need to return to Lancashire, and without our chaperonage, her presence here would be ruinous for you both.”

  “But where would she go?” Miles’s eyes blindly surveyed the land around them. Elise had no one. She had no home. Thanks to a few well-made investments, she had an income, but it was not much.

  “I would guess she will return to living with her mother-in-law,” Langley said. “She is probably beginning that transition already.”

  Miles thought of the poverty in which he’d found Elise. She’d begged scraps from a heartless shopkeeper. She could not go back to that. He could not
allow it.

  She would be living with Mama Jones on Tafford land. He could see that she was taken care of, that she never went hungry. She would have new dresses and slippers and picture books for Anne.

  But the thought wasn’t comforting. His misgivings, in fact, only increased. The Lord of the Manor bringing offerings to a tenant cottage would only give rise to more rumors. She would be seen as a kept woman. But to have her so close and be unable to help her, unable to see her daily as he’d become accustomed to—frequent visits would create the same problems as gifts—would be unbearable.

  “Beth has suggested that Elise come to Lancashire with us,” Langley said, recalling Miles to the present. “My mother, as you know, has remarried, so the dower house at Gilford is vacant. Elise and Anne, along with Mrs. Jones, could live there with no difficulties for as long as they wish. And, of course, there would be no hint of scandal or impropriety connected with that arrangement.”

  “But Lancashire is so far away,” Miles objected immediately.

  “Part of the benefit, Grenton.”

  “I could visit.” He was really only thinking out loud, trying to reconcile himself to being so far from Elise.

  “It would be best if you didn’t. Not often anyway. And, then, only to the main house.”

  “I will not travel all that way and not see Elise. It would be preposterous.”

  “Seeing your sister would not be reward enough for rough roads and nights at inns with questionable reputations?” Why did Langley seem like he was laughing?

  “You might think me an unnatural brother for saying so, but no, it would not be,” Miles replied curtly. “Elise is a sister too. Except, she’s more than that. I’m not certain I can explain it beyond her being a very close friend. We have shared our entire lives, Langley. We were never without one another, and losing her four years ago was like losing part of myself. In a very real way, she is my other half. The one person on this earth I could not imagine living my life without. I—”