“Eleanora? You’ve gone pale.” Stasia’s fretful voice pulled her from her spinning thoughts. “You did know Nando was leaving for Varros, did you not?”
She could not speak.
He had left her.
Nando had abandoned her, and without a word of why or when he would return, if ever. Stasia’s words of warning before her wedding returned with potent, searing force.
Between the two of us, I am not certain he has the capacity to be the sort of husband you deserve.
What she had meant, Eleanora had known then, was that she didn’t believe Nando had the capacity to be faithful. That marriage, like most of his vices, would grow tedious. That he would become bored and flit away to something—orsomeone—else.
“Did he not tell you?” Stasia repeated, her tone edged with desperation.
“N-no,” she managed, her voice trembling, her gut churning with ominous portent.
All three sisters seemed to gasp in unison.
“I don’t understand,” Stasia added. “Why would he tell Mr. Tierney and me of his travel intentions and yet not inform his own wife?”
Why, indeed?
Eleanora feared she knew the answer.
Still feeling a combination of numb and ill, she held her friend’s pitying gaze. “So that I could not dissuade him, of course.”
“Nando detests all manner of conflict.” Stasia paused, biting her lip before appearing to collect herself. “Oh, my dear. I am so very sorry.”
The naked sympathy on her face was too much. The room had begun to spin, and Eleanora’s stomach would no longer be quelled.
She reached for the elegant chamber pot which had been discreetly placed, clean and at hand should she require it, and promptly retched.
Scratch,scratch, scratch.
The sound brought Eleanora from the depths of her misery at some point after Stasia, Emmaline, and Annalise had taken their leave. An indeterminate span of time had passed since their call and the terrible realization that Nando had abandoned her. She had denied the aid of her lady’s maid, refusing to speak to anyone.
Needing, quite desperately, to be alone so that she could weep in peace.
And weep she had.
She had sobbed. Viciously, hideously, and without end. Until her nose had been plugged, her eyes were swollen, her head ached, her wounded shoulder throbbed, and there was seemingly not a drop of tears left for her to shed. She had dampened five handkerchiefs, one of which had been embroidered with Nando’s initials in the corner, and that had made her cry harder.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Sniffling, she sat up in bed, cocking her head to the side, listening. It was coming from the door joining her bedroom to Nando’s. For a moment, her heart leapt. Had he returned?
But no.
For then came the distinctive sound of a meow.
“Benvolio,” she murmured, utterly astounded at the prospect.
Had Nando not just abandoned her, but his cat as well?
Still feeling weak, her stomach knotted in threat of another violent upheaval, she rose from her bed, making her way across the room to the closed door. Reaching for the latch, she opened it.
With a trill, Benvolio pranced over the threshold.
He had left the cat behind as well.
