Arabella’s eyes flashed. “It does. Out with it, this instant, El!”
Eleanor stared at her cup. The tea trembled slightly. “He has left.”
“Left?”
“He said I could do as I pleased,” Eleanor said quietly.
“He said that about your marriage?”
“I believe so, yes.”
Arabella scoffed. “How generous of him.”
Eleanor did not smile. “He said I was free.”
Arabella leaned forward. “And what do you feel?”
Eleanor hesitated.
Arabella’s voice gentled. “El, tell me the truth.”
The truth rose in Eleanor’s throat like something alive.
“I miss him,” she said, and the words sounded too simple for the weight they carried.
Arabella’s gaze sharpened. “That is not the whole of it.”
Eleanor’s chest tightened. “It should be.”
Arabella waited.
Eleanor’s hands curled in her lap. “I did not want this,” she admitted. “I did not want a marriage that was only a title and an arrangement.”
Arabella’s mouth tightened. “He promised you nothing.”
“No,” Eleanor whispered. “I promised myself nothing.”
Arabella’s expression softened further, but her eyes remained steady. “And yet?”
Eleanor’s throat burned. “And yet I hoped.”
Arabella exhaled slowly. “Because he gave you reasons to.”
“Yes,” Eleanor said. “Because he looked at me as if he saw me. Because he touched my cheek. Because he let me into that attic, as if I mattered enough to see his grief.”
Arabella’s jaw clenched again. “Then he left.”
Eleanor nodded, staring at her hands. “He left.”
Arabella’s voice went sharper. “Do you love him?”
Eleanor’s breath caught.
She had not said it aloud. Not even to herself with full clarity, as if naming it might make it permanent.
“Yes,” Eleanor whispered. “I think I do.”
Arabella’s eyes softened, but the sympathy there nearly broke Eleanor. She would have preferred anger. Anger was easier to survive.
