The Lady and Her Secret Lover

by Jenn LeBlanc

  Louisa inspected her own hands, the only thing within her sight with which she was familiar. These were not her clothes, this was not her home, there was nothing around her that was comforting.

  The woman came in and spoke with her, the words flowing over and around her, the basic idea of them settling with her, but the actual words spoken lost to her forever. Her family had abandoned her to the Magdalen Hospital for the Reception of Penitent Prostitutes with the explicit directive she was never to contact them again, and if she did, they would notify the authorities of what she was.

  And what was that exactly? A woman who had done her best to find a decent man to marry? A woman who had fallen in love with the wrong person? She was nothing but a woman; she’d done nothing wrong, nothing. She’d loved and cared and tried to be a good daughter. That was all that she had done.

  “I’ll have a cot in the attics readied. You can stay here for the moment. The doctor will be along shortly to check you for lice and disease. Can’t have you bringing anything unhealthy into this home. Can we?” the woman asked, but it wasn’t one that required an answer.

  Louisa looked up at the realization that yet another man was to have power of her person, and it was something she wasn’t prepared to allow for. She felt it begin as a tick in her finger against her elbow. Then it slid along her bones, gathering with it the chill of the room until she shook uncontrollably. Every inch of her being screamed for her to leave. But to where? And to what end? She had nobody. There was no way she would put Ellie in danger by trying to get help from her. Her father had promised to leave Ellie be as long as Louisa did as she was bade. That was all that mattered. She had to trust at least that much. After all, she was the one who’d betrayed his trust. She was the one who was…

  Louisa twisted her hands with the handkerchief she held. It was the one thing she had that belonged to a woman of means. The rest had been taken and replaced with these clothes from God knew where, by God knew who. Who had touched her when she’d been unconscious? Louisa clutched it to her chest as if to hold back the sob that attempted escape.

  Once again she heard heavy footsteps and they crawled up her spine, knob by knob until they wrapped around her neck and forced her to standing. Once again she knew exactly what they signaled. The end of everything she knew. She turned toward the door to the parlor. She could see the front entry from here. She could run through the door, down the steps, and be gone forever. She saw the shadow that came before the woman who heralded those steps, and she did, she ran.

  Louisa ran for the steps she’d only recently been carried up. A man’s voice yelled from behind her and she turned back, tripping over the skirt and tumbling forward—but the ground never came. She’d been caught up, warm arms keeping her from hitting the ground. Louisa took in a deep breath to scream when his arms closed around her, but the scent of cinnamon and rich cigar underscored by a bit of brandy… He lifted her, and the scream stilled.

  He set her on her own feet and took a step back. “Miss Present, we really must stop meeting like this,” he said.

  “Hugh?” He kept one hand on her arm to steady her, and she peeked at the entry to see the woman and the man she assumed to be the doctor, and shied, leaning into Hugh.

  He held her securely. “Louisa.”

  “How did you—” She inspected him, examining him, wondering if she’d lost her mind. She turned back toward the house she’d just run from. The woman pointed at her, her eyes narrowed. “I’ve got to go.” She grabbed his lapels. “Please.”

  Hugh lifted her, placing her in his carriage. “Isn’t that convenient, as I came here for you, Louisa?”

  She sank into the thick cushions, not daring to inspect the world outside the carriage. She felt the carriage sway as he mounted the step, then rock back into the tracks as it pulled away from the curb.

  “Louisa, you’re safe.” He took her hand in his and held her tight.

  She’d been terrified and alert for much too long, and his hands around hers completely overtook her. She felt more safe in that moment than she had in all her life. There was nothing more she could do, so Louisa closed her eyes and allowed sleep to take her.

  When the carriage stopped, he lifted her out and carried her into his home. He loosened her skirt, carefully letting it fall and leaving her in one of her own long cotton chemises. Apparently the farce was only surface deep. He helped her into a large soft bed. “You’re safe, Louisa. I’ll watch over you. Nobody will disturb you here. Sleep for as long as you need.”

  She kept her eyes shut and tried, tried so hard to sink back into that happy blackness, but there was no respite to be had yet. Sleep wasn’t possible while you cried, even as exhausted as she was—the tears, so hot, so heavy…they demanded her attention. She sat up from the bed, took Hugh’s hand and pulled him down next to her, then she curled up in his lap, wrapped herself around him and cried. He held her without a word. He knew more of her story than most people. He’d saved her, after all. Twice now, in fact. Once from that man, and once from her father. It seemed Hugh was forever saving her and she didn’t know how to thank him.

  The thought shocked her silent, and she sat up, moved away from him. She backed up against the headboard and tucked her knees under her chin. “What are you expecting from me in return?”

  “I don’t… No, Louisa, it’s not like that, please believe me. I expect no favor from you. I’m here to help you. Nothing more.”

  Louisa watched him. What she knew of him in the past had been genuine, and she craved so desperately some sort of human contact that was genuine. Craved it like a piece of her had gone missing with Ellie and there would never be a way to replace it, so she wished to fill it with any temporary thing she could and he was here…rescuing her. Filling her up. And he had rescued her. And he had offered for her. And what choice did she have at the moment? “Thank you,” she whispered and reached out to him.

  He held her hand and seemed to be happy to sit and wait for her to decide what was next.

  “How did you find me? How did you know?”

  “I had someone watching your house. The conversation with your father put me off, and the fact that the man who attacked you is known to him, he introduced you, yes?” She nodded and dipped her face to hide behind her knees. “It didn’t sit correct with me. So I had someone watching. They saw Maitland run—”

  “Ellie, oh God!”

  “Maitland is home safe. She’s with her family, and to my knowledge nothing else has happened. But I’m watching over her too now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, Louisa, you were always a friend to me. As odd as it seems—our ridiculous ballroom friendship—you’re the only one who listened to my maundering and pining for Amelia. You’re the only one who ever understood that.”

  “I’ve lost everything.”

  “You have me, and I’ll do everything I can to help you.”

  “Hugh, you’re too good to me…I don’t understand how you came to be such a gentleman.”

  “Please don’t call me that. It hardly signifies what it should these days. I don’t wish to be tossed in with the lot of them at the moment.”

  “You’re not the same as them. I cannot fathom why I’ve been so blessed as to have met you, if you truly wish nothing in return.”

  He smiled then, and part of her knew he was aware she would never bring herself to fully trust in him, though it would be rude of her to so bluntly state it.

  “I’m not sure I know how to trust anymore. What will come of me? I cannot stay here in your home.”

  “You cannot, that much is true. Though I may have an idea.”

  Louisa froze, her fingers turning to ice, and she started to pull away. “So you do want something from me?”

  “No, Louisa, not like that. I know you need somewhere to go, and if you have somewhere, I will help you get there. I’m not without means, even as meager as they are. But if you have nowhere, if you have no one, I would help to place you with my friend. It’
s at least two years until she’ll be coming to London, so quite safe. Far from here. Somewhere nobody would ever think to find you. Somewhere I could see you, and check on you. Somewhere I know you would be safe and cared for.”

  “No one is searching for me regardless, I fear.”

  “Someone will always be searching for you.”

  “She shouldn’t.”

  He stopped at those two definitive words and watched her for a moment.

  She was too tired to hold herself up anymore and allowed her body to slide against the polished headboard until she was lying against it, and she stretched her feet out beneath the cover. “I am so terribly lost.”

  “I found you, and I won’t allow you to be lost again. No matter what you decide for your future. We can discuss it later. You should rest. Please know I expect nothing, and you are safe. You are not lost, you are here, and I will care for you.”

  “I don’t understand why.”

  “Because I’m able.” He squeezed her hand one last time, then pushed up from the bed. He pointed out a glass of water, the doorway that would lead to his water closet, his dresser should she be bored and want to rummage…which made her smile, and he returned the smile then turned and left, shutting the door so carefully she almost didn’t hear the click of the latch.

  Her eyes fell shut and it was then she slept.

  Ellie

  Ellie stared at Endsleigh across the parlor and wondered what he’d come for. She couldn’t possibly hope for word about Louisa, could she? She nodded to the butler and shut the door. She was no lady and her father’s money was what was going to buy her husband, not some preconceived notion of chastity society deemed important for ladies.

  “Endsleigh?” she said, and he turned from his position staring out the front window.

  “Miss Eliot Rigsby.” He bowed then motioned to the settee and sat next to her. “I’ll cut to it, shall I? I have a letter for you to read. You may read it here in this room with me present. The moment I leave, it will come with me so I can be certain it will be destroyed. If these terms are acceptable?”

  “Do I have a choice?” she asked, knowing the answer but needing to hear it nonetheless.

  “No, sadly. This is the single option.”

  “So be it.”

  He took her hand in his big, warm one and squeezed, then he reached into an inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a tightly folded letter, handing it to her. She took it and stood, walking to the window and unfolding it. It was warm from the pocket against his chest and the words were smudged, like…tears on wet ink, and Ellie knew this was going to hurt.

  Ellie, my love. I have to leave. I am so sorry to have involved you with my family. If I had any conscience at all, I should have walked away from the first time we met and never looked back. I knew what I was doing, bringing you into my life. But I am selfish, and I wanted. So very much did I want.

  You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. You are brilliant and brave and wonderful. I’m blessed to have known you in the ways I have, and I want you to know that I will treasure every moment we shared for the rest of my life.

  I am safe. I will be safe. Please do not ask Hugh to say anything more, for he won’t, and it’s for your own safety as well as mine. Don’t ever give up on your dream of finding someone to spend your life with. You can find someone to share that cottage with still, but it won’t be me. My heart breaks as I write this but I cannot leave you with any hope for the future, because we don’t have one. We cannot be together, not ever.

  This hurts, it will hurt, but it will ease for both of us with time. We’ve only just met—you’ll find another. You’ll be happy. And I will be safe, far from London and the family I trusted to protect me.

  Ellie, Ellie, my beautiful, brave, brilliant love. I will always love you. I will forever miss you. If I had known those last kisses were to be our last, my love, I would never have stopped kissing you. If I’d known the last I saw you would be the last forever I would never have blinked.

  But I must go and I will live along the memories of you for the rest of my life.

  Yours always,

  Lou

  She read it again, then again, until her own tears streaked the ink as well. She ran her fingers over the ink, feeling the words placed there by Louisa and knowing she would never see her again. She read it once more until it was so smudged as to be illegible, but still she tried. staining her fingers with blue like blood from a pain that came without a cut.

  “Maitland.” He reached for her shoulder, his hand reminding her he was there.

  She sobbed, crushing the letter to her chest. “My Louisa,” she said as she looked up to him. “I’ll never see her again, not ever?” Saying the words aloud sent a spear of pain through her chest, splitting her open, the pain spreading like wildfire though her veins.

  “No, Maitland, it’s impossible.”

  “But she’s safe?”

  “I will ensure it, always.”

  “She gone?”

  “She is.”

  “She’s gone. It feels like a dream. Like…a dream.” She shook her head, unable to explain how the whole thing was fading already, as though it were nothing but momentary magic, brought by the fae. “She’s gone,” she whispered, clenching tight on the letter, the last vestige of her life. “I should have kept something. I have nothing. I had no idea she would be gone so soon. I had no idea. I’ll have nothing to remember her…from when she was mine.”

  She heard him sniff and glanced up in time to see him turn away, a hand wiping at his cheek. “I should go,” he said, and she knew this was it. The one thing she had, this simple note, these words that she’d made with her own hand. The one thing that was left. She lifted it once more, the ink dried in a watery pattern of sadness. Their tears mixing on the page as their legs had once tangled.

  “Tell her I will always love her.”

  He nodded and put his hand out. She stood before him, clutching the paper in her hands, memorizing the words, the way she’d written her name, the name she would never hear again. She tore the letter, removing her name written by her Louisa, and tucked it away in her corset. She said goodbye to Louisa, and she said goodbye to Ellie, and she placed the ruined paper in his hands, then turned and walked from the room.

  After

  Three years later

  London

  1881

  Love —bittersweet, irrepressible— loosens my limbs and I tremble.

  Sappho

  Ellie

  Ellie thought if she could get to Endsleigh that this time, maybe, he would relent. It had been three years. Three very long years, and he’d managed to avoid her at every turn. She attended balls she knew either Endsleigh or Trumbull would attend, even dancing with Trumbull once by pure accident when he was attempting to distract society from the fact that his brother had proposed in the middle of a ballroom. Then once again at that brother’s wedding all the way up country at the Eildon Hill Estate in Roxleighshire. That had been a very long trip to be ignored and avoided incessantly, though the wedding had been spectacularly glorious.

  But tonight was the night—she could feel it in her bones. Something was different in London lately, and it wasn’t simply because Endsleigh was back. There was something electric in the air, and it felt to her like possibility.

  Society was abuzz with speculation because of the particular attendees of tonight’s ball, which included Endsleigh but also a Lady Amelia and Duke of Castleberry. You couldn’t go outside without hearing someone gossiping about the elusive Lady Amelia, daughter of the Duke of Pembroke-by-the-Sea.

  Tonight Ellie planned to attend that ball, to corner Endsleigh somehow and speak with him. To make him listen. She needed Louisa like she needed breathe. It did not lessen, and it certainly hadn’t passed. It never would. She wrapped a hand around the locket that carried the torn parchment with Louisa’s name on it. She would never walk away, and if Louisa had, she would find her and she would run.

 
She’d pestered her aunt, begging her to take her tonight until she’d relented. The carriage bobbed around a corner, and Ellie couldn’t stop grinning.

  “You should be married by now. I shouldn’t have to see to you at this point. You had a miraculous coming out and immediately botched it for whatever reason, refusing every invitation, and here we are three years in and you’re still my problem.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I appreciate you accompanying me though.”

  “I’ll be seen as a failure for my part in your refusal to marry.”

  “I would never lay blame—”

  “How could you? I’m blameless.”

  “Yes, of course, aunt.”

  The carriage came to a halt and they disembarked, Ellie following close behind her aunt. The ballroom was full and brimming, and the first thing she saw was Endsleigh dancing with a beautiful woman in white, her deep-red hair in a tight swirl around her crown, with a massive diamond brooch pinned through the curls at her nape. She was stunning and they moved together in perfect unison. But it almost seemed as though the woman didn’t wish to be dancing with him.

  “Maitland.”

  “Yes, aunt,” she said and followed her through the crowd to where she preferred to stand—close enough to the punch to make her trips less obvious. She watched them dance, then watched them walk outside to the bordering gardens and when Endsleigh returned alone, she saw her opportunity. “Aunt,” she said, “I’d like to dance with Baron Endsleigh.”

  “Well, girl, then let’s see to it.”