by Fanny Finch
“With my father gone, my sister married, and my mother quietly mourning her dead husband, I knew she was what my home needed at the time. Laughter, cheer, joy.
“She would have brought the sun, the rainbow. It was all I wanted. What I needed.”
He bowed his head as he let out a deep sigh. “There was no way I could have helped myself. I fell in love with her. I was hopeless. There was nothing I could have done to stop it.”
By the time Charles made Elise his wife, he was so helplessly in love with her. The kind of love he had never felt for anyone before.
He had committed himself to making Elise happy. He gave her all that she had wanted, and bent his back in sacrifices, just to make her happy.
However, it had not been enough. Nothing had seemed to satisfy Elise. The more he gave to her, the more she wanted. He gave all of himself and more, but she was not content.
Then, he began to lose himself. Many talked to him, his mother, his best friend, his sister, but he listened to no one. Despite the signs, he had been convinced that Elise loved him, and that they would have a happy, healthy life together.
Until one day, his eyes finally opened and he saw the truth.
Charles drew in a ragged breath, aware that he had gotten to the difficult part. The part that had broken his heart into a million pieces. The part that had made him question all that he had known.
His head remained bowed as tears filled his eyes. The emotions arose, overwhelming him, and he feared he would not be able to continue.
Then, something happened.
He felt Eleanor’s hand close over his, and he eventually summoned the courage to look up at her.
She squeezed his hand, offering comfort and in those amber eyes, he saw empathy.
“It is okay if you do not wish to continue, Charles. I will understand.”
He knew she would. He knew this without a doubt. However, he was a man, and he always endeavored to finish whatever he started.
“I would not deny that it is hard. But I must say this, for myself. I have only ever told the story once. And I told it to Mother, Rachel, Thomas and Gaius. I do believe this would, in some way, help me feel better. It is high time another soul knew the truth.”
She nodded slowly, solemnly, and squeezed his hand again. “Then know that I am here with you.”
It was a soft promise, one he knew he would hold dear in his heart, forever.
She would never know what she had done for him, but in that moment, the tide of emotions that had threatened to overwhelm him subsided.
Charles felt suddenly lighter, and he knew he could continue. Closing his eyes, he went back to that night.
“I had gone overseas for three months. It was a business trip and I could not take Elise with me…”
When he had returned, his wife whom he often had to beg before laying with, had been more than too willing to lie with him.
At first, he had believed that she had simply missed him, and he had been too glad to have the wife he had married return to him.
For him, the universe had righted on its axis and all was certain to be well with his marriage.
Alas, the feeling of wrongness and impending doom had begun to creep on him. Tried as hard as he might, he had been unable to shrug it off.
It was the same feeling he had gotten before his father’s illness. So, naturally, he had been afraid.
“It was Mother who noticed it first, that Elise’s body was changing. She called me to the privacy of her chamber one afternoon to share the good news, and her joy.
“Rachel too was with child at the time. Mother was overjoyed at the prospect of having two grandchildren to play with.
“Sadly, I could not share her joy. You see, I knew something Mother did not know. And as such, instead of happiness, I felt shock, and fear.”
Before his journey, he had not lain with Elise for two months. He had gone away for three, and had been back for only one.
“Even if Elise had conceived the child on the first night of my return, it was impossible that she would start showing so soon. After all, it had only been a month since my return.”
Eleanor was feeling shocked. “Did you say anything to the Dowager Duchess?”
He shook his head. “I could not bring myself to. I had not known what to think at that moment. I needed time to think things through, to be certain that I wasn’t mistaken, and that it wasn’t as I feared.”
He had said nothing to his mother. Instead, he had kept the truth he knew to himself, for no one else knew what happened between husband and wife in the privacy of their chamber.
What had he done instead? He had kept his eyes open, and his ears, as well. He had watched and followed Elise, especially when she begun disappearing mysteriously during the day, and going for strange walks at nights.
“Before long, I found out the truth. Elise was having an affair.”
His lips curved into a sad smile when he heard Eleanor gasp. The hand that had held his, flew to her lips. He had been expecting that reaction.
“You are yet to hear the worst of it, Eleanor.”
“The worst of it? Pray, tell me, what could be worse than a married woman having an affair?”
“Elise was not having an affair with a random man. It was a man whom I knew. Liam Fisher. He was someone I had trusted with my business and my family, one who I had let into my home.
“He was an American investor. We had an alliance, so I had allowed him to remain in Finchester, as a guest in my home, for the period that we were meant to conduct business together.”
“Goodness! You were betrayed by your wife and a partner?” Eleanor exclaimed. He felt the amazement in her voice.
“Yes, I was.”
Charles had caught them red-handed, witnessed their betrayal with his own eyes. Had it been otherwise, if he had heard the tale from another’s lips, he would never have believed.
His heart had broken into a million pieces as he saw his wife jump into her lover’s embrace, kiss him more passionately than she had ever kissed him.
And he had listened, as they discussed plans to run away and be together.
“I am afraid we cannot hide the truth any longer, Liam. They are beginning to suspect. Any moment now, they will know that I am with child, and it won’t be long before Charles discerns that the child is not his,” she had cried frantically.
“Hush, my love. Just a little while longer. The business will be completed soon. Then, we shall run away. I shall take you with me to America. You will love it there, I tell you. It is the place of your heart, the place where you should have been born,” he had assured in response.
From denial, to acceptance, to pain. Imagining Elise with another man had been the worst.
His wife, the one who had sworn to be faithful and true to him in the presence of God and man, had broken the most sacred of vows.
He had returned to their chambers and for the first time in his life, he had cried like a child. His agony had raked through him and he had screamed the pain into his pillows.
When Elise crept in hours later, she had been shocked to see him awake, seated on their bed, with a bottle of wine in his hands.
“I confronted her, of course. Quietly. It was so late and I did not want to cause a commotion. I did not wish to draw any attention, or alert people to the scandal I had just uncovered.
“She had been hopeless to deny it. She had gone on her knees to beg for forgiveness as she confessed.
“She told it all. Every single thing. From start to finish. She shared that the affair had begun even before I left for overseas, and had continued after.”
The Elise he had married had cried easily. She cried when she broke a toe nail, she cried when she pricked her finger with a needle. But that night, her tears had been different.
They had been sad, and filled with regret.
He had wondered if she had only felt regret because he had caught her… or if she was truly remorseful. His answer had come soon enough,
when she willingly left with the man.
“All of it hurt me, Eleanor. I had never felt pain like that in my life. My father’s death had hurt me, but it had been nothing compared to the hollow feeling I felt in my heart.
“I lost it all when she confessed to my face that she was indeed with child, and it was the American’s. She had conceived the child while I was away overseas.”
When Eleanor spoke, her voice broke. He wondered if her heart did too, for him.
“My Lord. Charles! That is so terrible. It is such an awful way to be betrayed by someone you loved so much.”
“I agree. It is. Yet, that is not all of it. Elise confided that she had thought to deceive me into believing that the child was mine. However, she had reckoned that I was too sensible a man, to believe the lie.
“I had listened quietly as she told it all. Too weak, too broken to do anything else. After her confession, I finally found my voice. I told her to leave my home and never return.”
Charles had given her until dawn break. He had also promised that no one would hear of her betrayal, for despite all that she had done, he had loved her still.
He had held no interest in tarnishing her image, or bringing shame to either of their families. Then, he had left the chamber to her.
“I spent that night in the field, the cold chilling my bones. I welcomed the pain. It had distracted me from the hole in my heart. That other pain had been too much to bear.
“By the time I returned to my chamber at dawn, every trace of Elise was gone. She had left, and she had taken all of her belongings with her. It was as though she had never shared that chamber with me.”
He released the breath he didn’t even know he had been holding. The hardest part was over. He could breathe now.
“I received a letter from her some days later. It said that she had gone to her parents’ first, and was now leaving England with Liam, for good. I never saw the American, I never spoke to him and that was just as well.”
Too many times that night of the discovery he had remembered the pistol he kept in his wardrobe, and each time, the thought of murder had appealed greatly to him.
If he had come too close to the American, Charles felt that he would have killed the man. Or perhaps, the man would have killed him.
Anyway, someone was sure to die. Staying away had been the best course of action. He had lost his heart. He couldn’t lose his soul as well.
“Elise’s parents came several times afterwards, but I turned them away each time, unwilling to grant them audience. I did not want to see their faces. I did not want a living reminder of what their daughter had done.
“So, they had sent letters, instead. Them, Elise, the American. I threw every one into the fireplace in my study. I am not proud to say this, but it had pleased me, watching them burn.”
“You were hurting, Charles. And you are only human. No one could fault you for that,” she reasoned.
Her understanding soothed his soul. Those had been dark times. He had only been able to tell the truth to his family and Gaius, three months after.
They had all sworn to take it to their graves. The rest of the servants wondered, the rest of society who knew Charles’s family wondered too.
Many speculated, rumors arose, but through it all, Charles and his family said no word to correct their assumptions or explain things. They simply held their head high through it all.
Four months after, word came that Elise had died in child birth. The child had not survived either. Her family had begged that he attended, to save them from shame.
Despite his anger and hurt, he had gone to her funeral. It was the least he could do to honor her and the love they had once shared.
Regardless of her misdeeds, no woman deserved to die in such a manner. So, in his own way, he had mourned her.
“Everyone had simply concluded that I had sent her away to a safe place during the period of her pregnancy. Sadly, that had not kept her safe.
“Once more, I remained quiet. Society did not have to know anything, especially after her death. I would never insult her memory in such a manner.”
Eleanor nodded, telling him that she understood, urging him to finish telling his tale. He did.
“Her family moved to Scotland afterwards. I suppose remaining in England became too difficult for them. We all moved on with our lives, eventually.”
As he concluded, he looked up at the woman by his side. The sight he met shook him.
Tears streamed down her face, and her eyes reflected the sadness and pain he felt. It filled him with awe, and his hands went to dry those tears away.
“Eleanor,” he whispered.
She sniffed, then joined him in wiping her tears away. When she was done, she gave a small laugh.
“Pay no heed to me, I beg you. Something flew into my eyes, is all.” As she said those words, more tears dropped.
Charles could not understand this wonder. This woman, who had told her story with no single tear, was crying for him? A fist wrapped around his heart and squeezed.
“Eleanor, you are crying,” he insisted softly.
She gave a broken laugh once more, and sought her kerchief from the pockets in her skirts. She dabbed at her face, fiercely.
“I do believe I cannot deny it any longer. Yes, I suppose I am. Pardon me, I could not help it.
“That is such a painful story. And in all of it, all I saw was a man who remained kind and noble, even when he had no reason to be.
“You did not have to protect her person, you did not have to honor her death, but you did so anyway. You, Your Grace, are a kind man.”
Her words warmed his heart and gladdened his soul.
“And you, my lady, are a rare kind.”
“I suppose we really do have a lot in common.”
“Too much, if you ask me.”
They both chuckled, and it felt glorious to laugh with this woman.
“I believe we have been brought together for a reason, Eleanor. Mayhap, the Lord wills that we find solace in one another. I know we have discussed this before, but I shall very much like to be your friend, Eleanor.”
It felt as though a heavy object had been lifted off his chest. Now that there were no untold secrets lying between him and Eleanor, he truly believed now was the time to give their relationship a chance to blossom.
It was sealed when she responded with a blinding grin.
“And I would like to be your friend, Charles.”
That evening, he slept well and he dreamed sweet.
Chapter 23
The birds chirped with pride as they flew across the sky, from tree to tree, their beautiful colors filling the already bright day with more cheer. Though it was way past noon, the sun remained hidden behind the thick grey clouds.
The night before, it had rained heavily. Eleanor had spent most of the hours praying. As the rain winked to a stop, Frances had come up with tea and after sipping gratefully, she had finally gone to bed.
Not that the rain disturbed her, but when it rained so beautifully as the world slept, Eleanor saw it as the mark of a new beginning that would come with dawn. The water from the rain, washing away most of the past.
Nights like that, she happily spent them praying to the Lord, asking that what was to come, be even better than what has been, and of course, for protection for her loved ones.
Last night, she had saved a special prayer for the dark, handsome duke with eyes as blue as the sea. The one who had come to mean so much to her in so little time. The friend whom she had found in the unlikeliest of places, in the unlikeliest of ways.
The sun was kind enough to give them more time, to bask in the cool weather that the rain had brought. But even its absence did not dim the light of the day. It was a beautiful day indeed.
She knew, as she sat down at her pianoforte to play her favorite tune for her household, that this day would end just as beautifully.
There was an hour left until evening set in, but she did not doubt the feelin
g. It came with a surreal sense of bliss.
The windows had been open for the air to come in, the curtains and drapes drawn up just as she liked it. She raised her head, her eyes closed, and filled her nostrils with the cool fresh air that still had the scent of water in it.
Then, she opened her eyes, dropped her head, and easily found a pair of now very familiar blue eyes in the small audience.
The sides of his eyes crinkled, and his lips lifted in a warm smile.