For one awful moment Eleanor felt dizzy, as if the settee underneath her had tipped over, but then she realized it was her heart plummeting from her chest to her stomach that made her head swim.
Not marry. Cam had said they wouldn’t marry. He’d changed his mind, then. That’s why he hadn’t called the banns or told Amelia about their betrothal. He didn’t want her.
Ice spread from her heart to every part of her, until she was so brittle, a touch would crack her, shatter her into a thousand frozen pieces.
This is what it feels like to lose him.
A hysterical laugh threatened. How fitting, that fate should snatch him away at the very moment she realized she loved him. He’d said fate was cruel, and it was true. Cruel and mocking.
Eleanor took a deep breath and forced herself to address Amelia calmly. “He told you that last night?”
Amelia was watching her with an intent expression far too wise for her tender years. She looked, rather suddenly, just like her brother. She fumbled in the pocket of her dress, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and held it out to Eleanor. “Yes. He gave me this.”
Eleanor took the paper, unfolded it, and smoothed it out on her knee. She gazed at it for a moment, then looked up at Amelia. “It’s a drawing of me. Is it one of yours?”
“Yes. I drew it the day after we made daisy chains in Lady Abernathy’s garden. I showed it to Denny when I finished. He asked if he could have it, and he’s kept it since that day. Until last night, that is, when he gave it back to me.”
“He . . . he kept it?”
“Yes. He’s had it all this time, folded up in his pocket.”
Tears blurred Eleanor’s eyes. Lady Abernathy’s garden party was weeks ago. That was the day he’d told her she didn’t matter, that he cared only that she was a Sutherland, yet the very next day he’d slipped this drawing into his pocket, and he’d carried it with him everywhere ever since. All those weeks, he’d held it next to his heart.
“I won’t tell all of Denny’s secrets,” Amelia said, once again sounding far more mature than her years. “I hope he’ll tell you most of it himself, but just in case he doesn’t tell you everything, I did think you should know . . .”
Eleanor had been staring at the drawing, but her head jerked up at this. “Yes?”
“He said he cheated at the game, whatever that means. I suppose it’s rather bad, though, isn’t it? He said you could never love him, because of the way he’d cheated.”
“But I cheated, too.” Eleanor choked the words out through cold lips.
She’d lied to herself, just as Charlotte said she had. For weeks she’d told herself she didn’t want to marry Cam because she could never love him, but the truth was, she was afraid of him. Afraid to love him. She hadn’t wanted to give him her trust or her love, because she thought she’d lose herself if she did, just as her mother had when she’d married Hart Sutherland.
She hadn’t understood then love wasn’t losing yourself.
It was finding yourself.
And Cam . . . oh, he was far from perfect, but then so was she, and together they were more perfect than they could ever be apart.
“I told him you’d forgive him for cheating,” Amelia said, “but he said forgiveness isn’t the same thing as love. But you love him too, Ellie. I know you do, because I can see it in your eyes when you look at him. Anyway, why shouldn’t you love him? Denny’s the best man ever, and the handsomest, and the tallest, too.”
Eleanor smiled a little at Amelia’s vehemence. Young as she was, Amelia knew quite a lot about being a fiercely loyal sister. “Yes, he is. All of those things.”
Amelia beamed. “I knew you thought so, too. He’s coming here this afternoon to say goodbye to you, so I made an excuse and scurried on ahead to get to you first, because, well . . . it won’t do.”
“No.” Eleanor swiped a hand under her eye. “No. It won’t do.”
“I want you to have that.” Amelia nodded at the drawing still spread open on Eleanor’s knee. “Denny said it didn’t belong to him, but it really does, doesn’t it? It’s yours now, so you can do whatever you like with it, but I thought you might want to give it back to him.”
Eleanor opened her arms to Amelia, who scooted across the settee and dove into them. “What a grand idea.” She kissed the top of Amelia’s blonde head. “Yes. I think that will do.”
* * *
Cam dragged himself up the stairs of the Mayfair townhouse and waited for Rylands to answer his knock. He’d known this moment would arrive—for weeks, perhaps, he’d known, and now it had, he was desperate to get it over with, in the same way a man who’d been shot was desperate to have the surgeon remove the ball.
It hurt less if it was done quickly, or so he’d been told. Painful or not, it would be fatal. Extracting a ball from a beating heart generally was.
“Good afternoon, Mr. West.” Rylands opened the door to admit him, and held out his hands for Cam’s hat and coat. “Lady Eleanor is in the drawing room.”
