by Megan Bryce
The tears only prickled lightly this time and she knew the laudanum was taking her to that uncaring place.
Elinor hadn’t come here to bury the widow but she thought it a good time to say goodbye anyway. Goodbye to the widow. To society and respectability.
She would not marry again.
She would love George. She would take what parts of him he could spare from Miss Westin.
And she would be happy for even that.
And she thought that if anyone could play the part of the mistress, it would be her.
The vicar came out of his house to investigate this unknown carriage and a footman intercepted him.
The Dowager Viscountess has come to pay her respects.
Of course, of course.
Elinor waited until the vicar went back inside before stepping down, and then walked knowingly through the gravestones, listening to the birds and skirting the mud.
She carried the little blanket in her arms and when she came to her husband’s stone, rubbed her thumb across his name lightly.
She took much more care to wipe down the little stone with her daughter’s name engraved upon it. She cleaned it, wishing she’d brought a brush, but not stopping until her fingers were rubbed raw and the name shone through.
When she was done, she folded the little blanket up and placed it at the base of the stone lovingly.
And then she lay down on the cold, hard ground beside the child she’d held in her arms for less than a day and the child she’d held in her heart for ten long years, and she cried.
She had no recollection of leaving the cemetery, didn’t know how she’d come to be back home in her bed.
Wasn’t surprised that it was George sitting beside her, reading quietly.
He kept his eyes on the paper and said softly, “You could have told me.”
“I needed to do it alone.”
“Why?”
Because she’d been alone her whole life. Had kept a small part of herself shut up tight, away from all who could hurt her.
Because she didn’t know how to let that part out.
She swallowed, her mouth and throat dry, and George reached for a pot of tea sitting beside him.
Elinor closed her eyes and smiled. “Has Mrs. Potts been up here with you?”
“Sometimes.”
He poured her a cup, helping her sit up to drink it, and Elinor reached for his hand before he could sit back down.
“I had to mourn. I didn’t want you to see.”
“Your daughter?”
She nodded. “All my daughters. The merchant’s, who had green eyes and who loved numbers. Marcus’s, who liked her hair curled and who loved beautiful things. Bertie’s, who was so sweet that I questioned how she could be mine as well. The whippersnapper’s, who was loud and boisterous and never careful. I had to say goodbye to all of them even though they’d only lived in my heart.”
George fell to his knees beside the bed and squeezed Elinor’s hand.
She said, “I had to say goodbye to George’s daughter. Who has golden hair and blue eyes and the most mischievous smile.”
“I haven’t given up on her.”
“I don’t think you should. But it won’t be my daughter. It won’t be ours.”
He shook his head and she talked over him. Didn’t want to hear him say that there was still hope when he was the one to make her give up hers.
“I love you. I’ve never been as happy as I am with you. You brighten every shadow and are worth giving up all my dreams for.”
“Elinor–”
“George,” she said, when she meant to say love.
So she said, “My love. I won’t let you give up on your children. A son, an heir. Steady and responsible, just like your brother and your father and every Ashmore earl who has come before him.”
“What would I do with a son like that?”
“And a daughter. More beautiful every moment you know her, so happy and so delightful that the world is a better place for her having been born.”
George said, his throat tight and filled with tears, “I forgot you play to win.”
“I play to crush.”
“Even when it’s yourself you are crushing?”
She nodded her head, still holding tight to his hand, and said, “Even when it’s me I’m crushing.”
When she’d clawed her way out of the laudanum stupor, she’d thought about going to the country again. To not think, to not feel. But to breathe. To let the dogs run and hunt.
And then she remembered her vow to go to Regent’s Park next time she needed to rusticate.
So she had Mrs. Potts pack her a cold lunch, left George a note for when he got done with learning how to be an earl for the day, stuffed her dogs into her carriage, and prepared to spend the day tramping through country.
And when they got there her dogs bounded happily around her, chasing and barking, and Elinor watched them. She breathed in the earthy scent of green trees and didn’t bother to walk around the mud.
She hadn’t come to think. Hadn’t come to plot or plan.
Two things she excelled at and now. . .had no use for.
All there was left was accepting.
She wasn’t good at accepting.
She was good at wanting. At seeing the future and somehow getting herself there.
She took a deep breath, bending to pick up a stick to throw for Retribution. She threw it again and again until she was breathing hard enough to almost believe that the moisture on her face was exertion and not tears.
Dear Lord, she hoped she stopped crying soon. She’d opened the floodgates and couldn’t get them shut again.
Because what future could she see now?
A future with half a George.
A night here, a night there. His wife and children at home.
His heart divided.
It was all she could have.
And it would be enough.
She just wasn’t sure how to occupy her time, her thoughts, her dreams.
She wasn’t sure what her purpose was anymore and wasn’t sure she would be able to find another one.
She looked across the field and recognized the man tramping across it the same time as her dogs.
Retribution growled low, and then apparently realizing there was nothing between him and his prey, took off. His barks filled the air, calling his pack mates and alerting them to the danger.
Her brother kept coming; he didn’t stumble, didn’t slow. Elinor was almost impressed, and then he lifted his hand toward her dog. Elinor saw the gun and shouted, but Retribution never slowed.
Elinor ran after him, screaming, the other two dogs passing her almost immediately.
A crack rent the air and Elinor screamed, “Noooo.”
Alan kept his pepperbox pistol pointed at Retribution and he waited this time. Waited for the dog to get closer, not wasting any more of his six shots.
Elinor screamed for Retribution, not knowing if she was more worried for the dog or for her brother.
If Alan missed again. . .
He fired.
The gun exploded in his hand, letting off a volley of shots and Elinor dove for the ground.
Alan’s screams made her jump back to her feet and she could see him clutching his hand.
Retribution lay on the ground in front of him.
Alan stumbled, slipping in the mud as Doubt jumped up and knocked him to the ground.
He screamed shrilly as Fear joined his brother, as bones broke and blood sprayed.
Alan screamed, “Mine! It’s all mine! It will be mine!”
Elinor ran, falling to her knees beside Retribution and cradling his bloodied head in her lap.
She whispered, “Enough.”
Then louder, “Enough.”
And then a command to her dogs, again and again, until they could hear her through their blood lust. Until they stopped and backed away from her brother, still growling.
Alan rolled to his side, clutching his m
angled arm and crying, “It will be mine. All mine.”
Elinor petted her poor dog’s head and cried. More tears, and she knew they would never stop now. She didn’t want them to.
She finally laid Retribution gently down on the dirt. She crawled to Alan’s gun and picked it up.
If she was her father’s daughter, she would find Alan’s gear and load the gun. And then she would give it back to Alan. She would use her words and her fists, her dogs, and make him use it on himself.
That was the kind of man her father had been.
Getting what he wanted and destroying others along the way.
Elinor looked at the gun, and wondered what George would do.
What would George have done if it was Anala lying there and the man responsible was lying at his feet?
She didn’t know. But she knew what he wouldn’t do.
She called her dogs to her, scratching their heads when they flanked her and using them to push herself to her feet one more time.
She turned away from her brother, his gun still in her hand, his cries still following her.
She turned away, and George was running toward her.
She held up one bloody hand to stop him but he never did, simply barreled right into her. He lifted her bodily around the waist, hefting her up onto his shoulder, and ran.
He gave one sharp command to her dogs and they followed, running right behind him.
He ran until she couldn’t see her brother, couldn’t hear his angry screams, couldn’t see Retribution.
He ran until they were deep in the trees, until he found a stream and set her down right in the middle of it.
“Sinclair, this water is freezing!”
He scrubbed her bloody hands between his own, wiped her face and hair until she was a dripping, shivering mess.
“George,” he said, and when he met her eyes, she said, “George, this water is freezing.”
He stripped her dress from her body, shrugged his greatcoat from his shoulders and wrapped it around her.
She patted the pocket and when she found it empty, whispered, “Please don’t tell me we’ve lost Anala somewhere in the forest.”
He said gruffly, “She’s at home. I can’t keep a dog in my pocket.”
Elinor shivered. “He killed Retribution.”
“Jones and I will come back for Retribution. We’ll bury him here in the Regent’s Park, under the trees, and he can dream of squirrels.”
More tears. More reasons why they would never stop.
She whispered, “I didn’t know what you would do.”
“I would get you away from him. I would make sure you were safe.”
She never would be.
“He’ll never leave me alone.”
“He will. If he doesn’t know where we are. It’s easy to get lost in India.”
“You can’t leave England, George. Not with me.”
“I can. And I will.”
She said softly, “You can’t. Because your son will be the earl.”
“An earl can be raised in India.”
She shivered again and George hefted her up onto his shoulder. Called her dogs and trudged off, ignoring her protests and muttering, “No law says he can’t be.”
George deposited Elinor at home, ordering her a bath and a brandy. She’d said no words on the ride home, her tears leaking silently down her cheeks.
He wasn’t sure she even knew she was crying.
He let Mrs. Potts fuss over Elinor and took Jones back to the park. To take care of Retribution and Alan Rusbridge.
They found Retribution where he’d fallen but Rusbridge was nowhere to be seen, and Jones spit, putting away his gun.
They buried Elinor’s loyal dog under the trees and George promised he would keep Elinor safe. Told Retribution to only worry about chasing squirrels because he would take care of the rest.
Jones eyed him. “Just how you going to do that?”
“I’m taking her to India.”
“India! She won’t go. She’ll think it’s running. Hiding.”
George nodded, knowing that’s exactly what she would think. “How do you feel about spiriting away your employer?”
Jones cocked his head. “Seems like a good way to get dismissed. ‘Course, if she’s leaving anyway. . .”
Fifteen
George had two visits to make.
He began with Miss Westin, and though her mother rushed from the room as soon as she was able, Miss Westin merely looked at him and pinched her lips together.
“Somehow I think Mama was mistaken about your reason for visiting this morning.”
“You are more astute than your years would suggest.”
She settled back in her seat, looking as if she was discussing tonight’s menu.
“Honestly, seeing you dance with Lady Haywood that night was a relief. I couldn’t ever figure out just how to get you to lose your mind over me. It was vexing.”
George smiled. “If you’d only been a few years older we might have had a go of it.”
“Or perhaps if you’d been a few years younger.”
He nodded at her barb. “Or that. But now you can go back to your young swains and find one to wrap around your finger permanently.”
“I know I’m supposed to, aren’t I? But I had too much fun with them all to pick just one now that I’m free of you.”
Sinclair looked down at his boots and tried to keep from laughing. She was much better at jousting with him now that she’d been jilted. Perhaps it wouldn’t take five husbands after all.
He said, “I’m off to India,” and she exclaimed, “India! Now I am even more pleased you didn’t offer for me. I think Mama will find she feels the same.”
He bowed. “Miss Westin, should I ever return to England, I know I will find you sitting in the center of any room, a passel of men running around mindlessly doing your bidding.”
She bowed her head to him. “Thank you, Mr. Sinclair.”
He turned, making it to the door before she said, “I hope you and Lady Haywood are always as happy as you were that night. I hope one day I will find a man who looks at me like that.”
“I hope the same, Miss Westin. For the both of us.”
He opened the door, bowing to Lady Westin as he passed her in the hall, hanging his head and trying to look rejected and dejected.
Lady Westin gasped and rushed into the room to question her daughter. George heard a muffled, “Hetty?”
And then a loud, “Mama, he’s going back to India!”
“India?!”
“I had to say no.”
George took his hat from the butler and said sadly, “She had to say no.”
“Yes, sir.”
The countess was gone visiting but George asked if Lady Camilla was taking visitors and then was escorted to the nursery where four girls were playing much louder than any man could expect.
He hugged three of them, kissed dollies, and even endured having his hair brushed for a long minute.
Camilla watched him and finally said, “You’re going away.”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“I’m going home.”
“I’d like to see India someday. Perhaps.”
“I hope your father brings you to visit one day.”
She thought about that for a moment, silently, and George had to agree he couldn’t see his brother in India, either.
She looked down at her shoes and said, “He’ll be very angry with you, won’t he?”
“Very.”
“And you’re still going to go?”
“Yes. The world won’t end if you’re not good all the time, Camilla.”
She didn’t look convinced and he scooped her up into a giant bear hug.
“I wish I could stay, my serious little butterfly. Will you give your mother a great big hug from me?”
She nodded. “And papa?”
“And papa. Tell him. . .tell him that he is too serious and he should come play wit
h your dolls more.”
She nodded again obediently and said, “Will you write me a letter while you’re on the ship?”
“I will. And from India. And send you little trinkets to carefully wrap and put away and never, ever wear.”
She thought about it for a long moment, then said, “I’ll wear one if you’ll send two.”
He chuckled. “I’m on to you, Lady Camilla.”
“One is never enough, Uncle George. Isabel likes to break things.”
“She’ll grow out of it.” He looked at the one-year-old as she crawled around on the floor, dragging a doll by its hair. “Probably.”
“If she does, I’ll write you a letter to tell you about it.”
He smiled sadly and squeezed her again. “I look forward to every letter you send with bated breath.”
“And I look forward to yours.”
He put her down and she bowed to him. The perfect hostess, just like her mother.
“Goodbye, Mr. Sinclair.”
“Goodbye, Lady Camilla.”
He walked to the door, trying not to cry. Trying not to think of what he was going to miss.
The next time he saw Camilla, if he ever did see her again, she’d be another eight years older.
Camilla stopped him at the door. “Uncle George, does you leaving mean you’re not the hero?”
He stuffed his emotions down and thought he’d start sending her plays along with the trinkets.
“It depends on who you ask but I’m nearly certain that’s exactly what it means. I’m nearly certain it has always been your father.”
Sebastian was in his library of course.
George let himself in and then stood just inside and looked at his brother.
Sebastian said, “I’m not going to like whatever you have to say, am I?”
George shook his head.
Sebastian went back to his figures. “I can’t even imagine what else you could possibly heap upon me. I’ve already resigned myself to the widow at my table should she ever decide to show and possibly even as a sister--”
He choked, then cleared the air as if trying to erase that possibility.
“But both you and Flora seem happy with my acquiescence. I shall simply have to hope that you can defy the odds and produce an heir. The widow’s son is better than no son.”
