Gwen watched them, a faint warmth blooming in her chest despite everything.
They were so different, the two sisters. Arabella, with her dreams and frowns and sudden laughter. Eleanor, with her calm mind and clipped speech, already deemed a spinster and seemingly untroubled by the word.
They had been her raft more than once. Now, she might be taken from them by a single man’s decision.
“I wanted to cry,” she admitted, her voice low. “When he said it, I wanted to fall at his feet and beg. But I did not. I stood there and thought of ledgers. Time. Numbers. How many nights I had left.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. “How many?”
“Twenty-one,” Gwen answered.
Arabella groaned softly. “You should not have to think in numbers. You should be thinking of dances and suitors and whether your hair pleases you.”
“My hair has never pleased me,” Gwen said.
Arabella sniffed. “Your hair is lovely. You only dislike it because he says otherwise.”
Eleanor cleared her throat. “Gwen, you spoke of nights. That is less usual language for a threat of a convent.”
Gwen hesitated, her heart giving an uncomfortable little leap. “I am counting opportunities.”
“Opportunities for what?” Eleanor pressed.
“For mistakes,” Gwen said lightly.
Eleanor’s gaze did not waver. “You mean for escape?”
Gwen looked away. The fire cast a flickering glow on the Chinese screen in the corner. “Perhaps.”
Arabella squeezed her hand harder. “Good. We cannot simply let him cart you off to a convent. We must run away instead. It is obvious.”
Eleanor pinched the bridge of her nose. “Running away is never obvious. It is rash. It is scandalous. It is, in most cases, disastrous.”
“In some cases,” Arabella countered, “it ends with true love and a cottage in Scotland.”
“Half the novels in the libraries are not evidence,” Eleanor protested.
“They are for me,” Arabella insisted. “Listen. We find a carriage, we pack your belongings, we whisk you and your mother away in the dead of night. William can join you later, once he is safely out of school. You disappear to Bath or the Lakes or some charming little town where no one has heard of Howard Tull.”
“Howard would send notices,” Eleanor cautioned. “And solicitors. And possibly the magistrate. He is not the sort of man who loses things quietly.”
“Then we hide her more cleverly,” Arabella said.
Gwen drew her hand back gently, placing it in her lap. “I cannot simply vanish and leave my mother to endure his anger alone. If I run, she must run with me.”
Arabella nodded as if this were the most natural condition in the world. “Of course.”
Eleanor pursed her lips. “Your mother, does she know about this plan?”
“Not yet,” Gwen admitted. “I only just left the morning room when Martha told me you were at home. I came here first.”
“You chose correctly,” Arabella said. “We are much better company than your stepfather.”
Eleanor ignored that. “What do you hope your mother will say?”
“That she will come,” Gwen whispered.
Silence fell. It was softer than the earlier ones, filled with memory of Cordelia’s bruised silences, her quick, apologetic smiles, the way she shrank and then bloomed again whenever Howard’s temper left the room.
