She knew the answer, and she felt the disappointment anew. “You do not address me or approach him because of the certainty that he would refuse. Why would you expect me to behave any differently toward him when my situation is far more precarious?”
Philip swore under his breath and took a few steps away. She thought he was leaving before he turned back to her. “We have gone round and round since January, our whole adult lives, I suppose. We get nowhere because neither of us will challenge him nor defy him. You are suffering,” he repeated, “but you shall suffer ten times more if you marry Sir Charles, and I pity you for not seeing that.” He placed a kiss on her cheek, a subtle touch that made her heart thrum. “Goodbye, Eleanor.”
She had always wished to prevent herself from appearing to suffer, always refused to become timid or weak every time her father overrode her or humiliated her, and she did not want anyone’s pity, either. Still, she felt her eyes get hot and her throat close. Philip wanted nothing to do with her, her father had no respect for her, and she might soon be married to a man to whom at best she might be useful.
Knowing that her frustration would be ill-concealed, she left the stable yard to wander through Welland’s park. She passed the kitchen garden that might have rivalled her father’s, and later went into the orchard, leaving the gravel walk to meander through the trees. Anger and sorrow battled for dominance over her heart and mind as she walked.
“Eleanor!” She turned and saw Alice move between two rows of trees and come skipping near. “Eleanor, my dear, you have avoided me long enough.” Alice’s teasing smile faded as she came closer, and Eleanor self-consciously wiped her eyes with her fingers. “What has happened?”
She did not want to talk about it, but still the words, “Philip hates me,” were torn from her lips with a sob.
She covered her face with her hands and cried, and she felt Alice rub circles on her back. “I am certain he does not.”
“He could hardly stand to look at me.”
“Would you expect him to?” Alice asked softly, and Eleanor dropped her hands to look at her. “You could not really expect Mr Brampton to admire you for what you intend to do.”
“He is still my dearest friend,” she said sadly, dashing away more tears, “and I wanted my friend to understand, to sympathise, to hear me when no one else would.” Her tears stopped. It had been unfair to him—and cruel to his feelings for her—to expect him to be the same loyal and loving friend he had always been. She looked at Alice and asked quietly, “It was too much for him?”
Alice nodded and handed her a handkerchief.
“If Philip does not hate me, he made it clear that he has lost all respect for me,” she said, drying her eyes.
“He is only angry, and disappointed,” said Alice. “It shall not last.”
“But we can never be what we once were to each other.”
“I had hoped that Mr Brampton’s being here would change your mind, but I see now how desperately you want to be free from your father.” Alice linked an arm through hers and they walked farther into the orchard. “Your friendship will naturally sink if you marry elsewhere, especially if you and he ever...”
Alice trailed off and Eleanor turned to look at her, and Alice finally said, “I wondered if you and Mr Brampton were ever lovers.” Eleanor felt herself turn red and refused to speak. She could not risk her father learning what had happened in January. “Well, you need not answer, but it would make him less likely to look upon your choice with a kind eye if you were actually lovers. Regardless, you knew that if you married Sir Charles, Mr Brampton would be lost to you.”
“Yes,” she said, “but I was not prepared for how much it would hurt.”
Alice was quiet for a moment. “You would still say yes if Sir Charles would ask you?”
Eleanor nodded. Few things were absolute in life, but her father only allowing her to marry a man with a fortune was one of them. The idea of defying him and saying she wished to marry with no attention to fortune filled her with paralysing fear.
“You would make a good heroine, you know,” Alice said, trying to be lively for her sake. “I should write a novel about you.”
“Me?” she cried, surprised. “I am too rational to be an interesting character.”
“You suffer under a male tyrant, in a house with a mysterious past, and you are desperate to be free. And you are prevented from marrying the worthy hero,” she added softly.
“Write me a happier ending, Alice. It is the only one I shall have.”
* * *
By Friday evening,Lady Longtown had recovered enough from her grief over the loss of her friend in Kent to be in company again. With Philip and Lord Vaughan gone, it was a quiet evening. Eleanor had passed the time between dinner and supper with Lady Longtown, patiently bearing all of her repeated expressions and polite nothings. Listening to her and nodding when appropriate made it easier to avoid Alice’s sympathy, Sir Charles’s suggestive looks, and her father’s existence.
When they were all round the breakfast table Saturday morning, the letters were brought in.
“My lord,” Lady Longtown said to her husband, “I have had a letter from Lord Vaughan to say that he arrived in Kent. I hope he avoids catching ill. So sad about Lady Anne,” she added, with a tremor in her voice. “Lord Vaughan says little, only a brief note to say that he safely arrived.”
Lord Dryden murmured some aside to Sir Charles, and the two men laughed. Eleanor guessed that it had been some mention of Lady Metcalfe.
The footman came around to hand a letter to Eleanor, but General Tilney cleared his throat. “Bring that letter here. Miss Tilney no longer receives her own correspondence.”
Eleanor hoped her cheeks were not red in shame. She wondered if the letter was from Philip, but then realised the foolishness of it. He was not going to apologise for judging her harshly; he was not going to propose to her, or any other such irrational thing. He had gone home. He would spend the rest of the spring working on his calculations, and at some point, someday their paths would cross when she was Lady Sudbury.
