“Yes.” Jane pressed her lips together, not quite certain of what she might say next if she kept talking. Better not to say anything.
Five years later, and she was still nursing that wound. When would it heal?
Della was staring at her expectantly. When it became apparent that Jane was not going to speak, her friend took up the task. “He would finally be free for you.”
“He was free for mebeforehe formed an engagement with Cecily, you will recall. He made his choice.”
Her cousin. Not her.
Cecily was everyone’s favorite. A touch prettier, a great deal more amiable, and endowed with that nameless ability to draw every eye in the room. Jane didn’t expect the eligible gentlemen Uncle Bertie ferreted out to pay her any attention when Cecily was nearby, even now that she was married. But Eli had been different. They’d become friends when Cecily wasn’t around. They’d been close enough that she’d imagined an attachment there. Imagined that she might be first in his heart.
She’d been wrong.
“But Jane, you aren’t going to hold that against him, are you? It’s all in the past now that she’s married and he’s…” Della was obliged to pause here, searching for the correct term.
Jane supplied it for her. “Miraculously restored to life with no explanation after two years unaccounted for?”
“Well…” Della sighed. “When you put it that way, I suppose it does seem ill-done.”
“Precisely.” Even if Eli was alive (a possibility which Jane was now willing to fix at a generous five percent), he had whittled away his time while everyone believed him dead, never bothering to set ink to paper and put an end to their grief.
Never bothering to put an end tohergrief.
She may not have been the one he’d promised to marry, but Jane had mourned him all the same.
It was unforgivable.
“The man I knew would never have shown such disregard for other people’s feelings. If Lieutenant Williams really is alive, I can only conclude that I gravely mistook his character.”
Della made no reply to this, but only looked back at her with a regretful sort of softness in her eyes. She took Jane’s hand into hers and pressed it gently, and after a long moment suggested they take some tea downstairs, where they would speak no more about Lieutenant Williams and this mysterious letter.
And that was why Cordelia Danby was her dearest friend.
Two
“Remarkable,” said Mr. Filby, the Williams family’s solicitor, at their meeting five days after Eli’s reappearance. “Simply remarkable. Never, in all my career, did I imagine that I would have the opportunity to bring someone back from the dead.” He clapped his hands together gleefully. “The estate should be easy enough, as the entail on the property remains in favor of the eldest son. Once we have your death certificate annulled, you’ll be right back where you were.”
The turn of phrase startled Eli.Right back where you were.He’d only been home a few days, but nothing seemed as he’d left it.
All his savings were gone, his family having seen no need to preserve them after his apparent death. His ship was destroyed, and the navy was still trying to decide where to assign him next. Those of his friends who survived the wreck had been dispersed to new posts, far beyond his reach.
Nor had any word come back from Jane. Only Cecily had replied to him, her letter full of gushing proclamations of joy and closing with an invitation to a rout at her London town house next Thursday.
He couldn’t help but think that if he’d had nothing from Janeyet, it was because she didn’t intend to write. He’d posted her and Cecily’s letters on the same day, after all.
What a mess. He might have made a few mistakes, but Jane would still be happy he hadn’t drowned, wouldn’t she? It really was the bare minimum.
Maybe the mail coach had misplaced her reply.
“How long will it take to annul the certificate?” he asked.
“Oh goodness, I haven’t any notion,” Mr. Filby replied. “This might be the first time that the General Register Office has received such a request since they started recording deaths. Just think, you’ll set the precedent for anyone who comes after you!”
“How wonderful,” said Eli. “I’ve always wanted to start a new trend.”
His mother smiled, but his effort to lessen the grimness of the subject didn’t reach his father, who approached this meeting the same way he approached all things—with much grumbling. “I don’t see why we have to bother registering anything. In my day, the parish records were good enough for everyone. You knew your rector and he knew you. No need to report your doings to some office of meddlers.”
“Let’s not start in on that please, Mr. Williams.” Mrs. Williams sighed with a less-than-affectionate roll of her eyes.
