“Tell me he didn’t—” Lydia began with frigid fury.
“No,” Eleanor replied quickly. “He didn’t touch me. Not like that.” She lifted a hand to her temple which was still tender from when he struck her. “He did, however, intend to marry me and sail off to India with me where we could live out some deluded fantasy.”
Her cousins gasped. Bridget went wide-eyed, while Lydia’s mouth dropped open.
“Are you serious?”
“Quite. I saw the ship myself, ready and waiting.”
“Oh my God,” Bridget exclaimed, leaning forward to put her hand over Eleanor’s. “He managed to get you all the way to the docks?”
“Wasn’t the viscount supposed to keep you safe? How could he let that happen?”
“Lord Ackerly managed to delay him, but he did come to my rescue. Just in time,” she added with a smile. “Ackerly is being taken back to India where he will have to face the consequences for his actions.”
“And the necklace?” Bridget asked.
“Returned as well.” Eleanor’s hand lifted to her bare throat as she spoke. She had no idea why she experienced such a sinking feeling as she thought of the bridal piece.
A moment of silence followed, during which the other women exhaled in visible relief.
Then Lydia asked quietly, “And Waring?”
Eleanor’s body tightened with some sort of elemental resistance.As if she simply couldn’t allow thoughts of the man to sink into her consciousness for fear of what it’d do to her. Self-preservation had required that she put him from her mind the moment she walked away from him last night.
She didn’t know if it was her exhaustion after a fitful night or if the cracks that had been forming in her resolve had just reached their maximum stress point, but at Lydia’s soft question, she suddenly fractured. With a giant gulp of air, she held back a sob and swiftly shook her head.
Her cousins shared a glance before Bridget asked gently, “What will happen now? Between the two of you?”
“Nothing,” Eleanor said sharply. Rising from the bed, she began circling her room with agitated strides. “That’s all done now. He’ll go his way and I’ll continue along mine. As if—” she paused to take a breath and shake her head free of the emotional mist crowding her rational mind. “As if nothing had ever happened. It’s for the best. It’s what he said at the beginning would have to happen. It’s what I agreed to. What I accepted. I won’t beg him to stay. I cannot.” She swept a hand through the air. “He should be free to do as he wishes—to live as he wishes. And he’s right! I’d never be content with being left behind. I’d eventually resent his freedom. I’d hate him for doing what he wants when I cannot.” Her skirts snapped about her legs as she pivoted. “It’s ridiculous to imagine anything else. And he’d feel guilty for it, I know he would. He might even convince himself to change. For me. I couldn’t allow that. Because thenhe’dcome to hate me. There’s no scenario where this works, you know. It’s best to just accept—”
“Stop! Just. Stop. I swear I cannot take another word of such bollocks!”
At Lydia’s sharp outburst, Eleanor ceased her manic rambling and purposeless pacing. She turned a startled gaze to her cousin who’d leapt from the bed and stood seething with anger.
“Who in hell said you had to accept such nonsense,” the womancontinued in a curt tone, her eyes flashing. “If you want the man, why shouldn’t you have him?”
“That’s right,” Bridget exclaimed, bouncing on the bed.
“Haven’t you heard what I’ve said?” Eleanor retorted, swiping the back of her hand across her cheeks which had somehow gotten rather wet. “I can’t have him. Not in the way I want.”
Lydia took a step forward, her gaze narrowed and sharp. “Are you certain about that? Do you even reallyknowhow you want him?”
Eleanor scowled in confusion and sniffed back more tears. “What are you talking about? Of course, I—”
“No,” her cousin interrupted again, continuing toward her. “I don’t think you do. Not yet. But you’re going to.” She grasped Eleanor’s shoulders and forced her to meet her steady gray-blue stare.
“You don’t want a husband who leaves you behind while he goes off trekking about the world on exciting adventures.”
“Exactly, I—”
“And you don’t want him to stay home and become miserable because of you. Correct?”
Eleanor huffed, frustrated with the other woman’s high-handedness. “As I’ve said,” she replied through gritted teeth.
“Thereisa third option, you know.”
Eleanor froze.Was there?
