Arabella grasped her arms. “What did he say?”
Eleanor looked at her sister’s anxious face. At the hope there, fragile and undeserved.
“He gave me a choice,” Eleanor said.
Arabella searched her eyes. “And?”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
When she opened them, her voice was steady.
“I will marry him.”
CHAPTER 4
“You will wear… ivory. No, cream. No. Ivory.”
Charlotte said it as though she were granting Eleanor a favor, not issuing another decree.
Eleanor stood in the breakfast room with her hands wrapped around a cold cup of tea she had not been allowed to drink. The room smelled faintly of toast and beeswax. Outside the windows, winter sunlight sat pale and thin over the grounds, offering no warmth, only exposure.
“I have no ivory gowns,” Eleanor said. “Only white.”
Lord St. George’s gaze lifted from his newspaper, sharp with irritation. “Then you will have one made.”
Charlotte smiled into her chocolate. “Of course Papa will have one made. A future duchess cannot marry in something… dreary.”
Arabella sat very still at the far end of the table. Her eyes flicked to Eleanor, then away again, as if she knew what her sister was thinking.
Eleanor set her tea down carefully. “A week is not enough time, and I–”
“It is if you stop complaining and start working,” Lord St. George said.
Charlotte dabbed at her mouth. “The Duke plans to marry quickly. One does not keep a duke waiting.”
Eleanor’s fingers tightened on the edge of the table.
It had been less than a day since James, Duke of Langford, had walked into the house and changed the trajectory of her life with the same cold certainty he likely used to sign documents. Since then, everything had moved with alarming speed.
A duke’s intentions were not questioned. They were accommodated.
The house had become a hive.
Lord St. George ordered letters written to London jewelers, modistes, and clergy. Charlotte insisted upon a guest list beyond reason, as though the wedding and wedding breakfast were hers to curate. Arabella stayed silent more often than not, caught between fear and conscience.
And Eleanor, whose name sat at the center of it all, was treated as though she were merely the instrument required to carry it out.
By midday, the drawing room had been transformed into a battlefield of fabrics.
Bolts of ivory silk and lace were arranged across the sofas. A seamstress stood at attention near the fireplace, pins caught between her lips as she waited for instruction. Boxes of ribbons, gloves, and stockings lay open like evidence.
Lord St. George entered first, Charlotte at his side like a triumphant shadow.
“Stand there,” Charlotte instructed, pointing to the center of the room.
Eleanor obeyed, the hem of her plain gown brushing the rug.
The seamstress approached timidly with her tape measure.
