For Elise (27 page)

Miles paced the length of
the library.

Two months. Elise had said Anne’s birthday was in two more months. That meant she was born in August. Elise had married Jim in mid-January. Babies born at seven months simply did not survive.

But if Anne had actually been born after the usual amount of time, Elise would have to have been with child before leaving Epsworth, just as the servants had speculated.

I am in a great deal of trouble.
Suddenly, Elise’s declaration the night before she’d fled took on new meaning. A woman unwed and increasing was indeed in a great deal of trouble.

Miles rubbed his face with his hands. No wonder she’d been so frightened.

Leaving seemed like the only option.
Elise had told him so only days earlier.
I was hungry and very, very ill. I was too weak and too poor to do anything to save myself.

Miles’s throat grew tight as he recalled her words.
Weak and poor. Hungry and ill.
Expecting a child and entirely alone in the world.

But then Jim found me. And he saved me.

“God bless you, Jim Jones,” Miles whispered into the empty room. The young man had given Elise the protection of his name, had saved Anne from the shame of illegitimacy, had saved them both from starvation or worse.

But who, Miles silently demanded, was the rake who’d created the situation in the first place? He could think of no one in whom Elise had shown an interest all those years ago. There’d been no one he could recall who had shown any interest in her.

She’d been fifteen years old, for heaven’s sake! So fragile after witnessing and barely surviving an unspeakable crime. What kind of monster would take advantage of that?

But the answer settled into his mind, leaving him instantly ill.

The murderer.

Elise had said just that day that she believed him a threat to women specifically. She had also said she believed the unidentified man had dark eyes. Anne’s eyes were dark.

Miles sank onto a chair. “Oh, merciful heavens.”

She’d been only a child when this had happened.
Fifteen
years old. She had been so young and innocent and untouched by the world. He could see in his memory Elise dancing in the meadow only the day before their fathers’ deaths, giggling at the thought of an assembly.

He dropped his face into his hands. She’d been entirely unprotected.
He
had been hiding at home, avoiding the dinner party because it would have been uncomfortable. He hadn’t been there to protect her, and he’d failed her again only a few weeks later.

“Miles?”

To hear Elise’s voice at that moment startled Miles to the point of actually jumping.

“Mama Jones said you wanted to see me.”

He looked up at Elise, but all he could see was the fifteen-year-old girl she’d been, the joy that had radiated from her. He realized quite suddenly that a light had gone out in her eyes the night of the attack. He hadn’t seen it since. Not in the days immediately afterward, not in the weeks since she’d come to Tafford.

“Are you unwell?” Elise asked, crossing the room to where he sat in the same seat he’d occupied during Mama Jones’s visit. “Truly, you seem very upset about something.”

“Oh, Elise.” It was all he could get out. Miles closed his eyes and hung his head. He had failed her so monumentally. How much she’d endured, and entirely alone.

“Miles?”

Miles couldn’t bring himself to look up at her. He knew he would see that lurking sadness in her eyes and couldn’t bear the added guilt.

“Are you upset with me?”

That was the last thing he wanted her to think. “No, Elise.”

“Will you tell me what is wrong?” Concern etched her voice. “I believe I am a good listener.”

Miles let out a frustrated breath and forced himself to look into her face. “We don’t talk as easily as we once did.”

“I wish we did.”

Miles took gentle hold of her hand. She didn’t pull away. “What can I do to show you I am trustworthy?” Obviously, she hadn’t thought him so four years ago.

Elise glanced quickly at the door, which she had apparently closed when she’d entered. Was she thinking of leaving already? But she didn’t.

“I am sorry the staff has been saying so many things about you,” Elise said. “You don’t deserve to be treated that way.”

“They have been saying unflattering things about you too.” The rumors had implied that she had been brazen, fallen. “Do you not feel you also deserve better treatment than that?”

A flicker of pain passed through her eyes in the moment before she dropped her gaze. “I do wish they wouldn’t talk about me. The people in Stanton did that also.”

They had probably pieced together the evidence that cast doubt on Anne’s parentage.

Elise moved a little away from him, slipping her hand out of his. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” She wasn’t looking at him, but Miles felt as if she were pleading with him. “But they treated me as if I had. Looked down on me and”—Elise looked at him once more, an almost desperate look in her eyes—“I didn’t do anything to deserve their condemnation.”

“I know, Elise.” Miles rose and crossed to where she stood.

“No. You don’t understand. They thought that . . . But, I didn’t . . . None of it was my fault, Miles. I—”

“Elise.” He tried to stop her increasingly frantic words. Her ability to remain frighteningly calm had been slipping lately. Would she break down again?

“
I
didn’t do anything. I wasn’t—”

Miles pressed his fingers to her lips, the way she always hushed him. Her pleading eyes locked with his own.

He shifted his hand to her cheek. “I know, Elise.”

“No, you don’t,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “There’s something I didn’t tell you. I never told anyone except Jim.”

Miles could feel her trembling. She began lowering her head once more.

“Elise. Do not look away from me now. I need you to hear what I’m saying.” Miles looked directly into her eyes, holding either side of her face. “I
know
. Jim told Mama Jones. And she told me enough for me to piece together what happened.”

Elise paled drastically. “It wasn’t my fault,” she said almost without making any noise.

“I never for one moment thought that it was. I only wish you’d told me
before
you were desperate.”

“Oh, Miles.” Tears flowed freely. “I kept hoping I was wrong. I waited until I was absolutely certain. Once I knew, I tried to tell you. Again and again I tried.”

“But I pushed you away.” The bits of memory were falling into place, forming a picture of his past that he felt utterly ashamed of.

“You were so very busy, and every time I started to tell you, you insisted you didn’t have time to listen to my troubles. Eventually, you didn’t want to listen to me at all.” She brushed a tear away with the heel of her hand. “Those were the worst days of my life.”

He pulled her into his arms. There would never be words enough to apologize for those thoughtless moments.

From inside his embrace, she continued her explanation. “I was too afraid to tell anyone else. Even young as I was, I understood how Society views an unmarried lady in that state, no matter how the situation was created. You were the only one I was certain wouldn’t condemn me.”

“And I wouldn’t even listen.” He rubbed her back as he held her, wishing he could somehow return to that awful time and make this right.

“If I had been older or less fragile in the wake of all that happened, I might have made a better choice than running away,” she said. “At some point in the last four years, I realized I could have talked with Beth. She and I were not as close as you and I were, but she would have helped. She could have found a place for me to go, away from prying eyes. But problems are always easiest to solve in hindsight.”

She sighed and leaned more heavily against him. Miles kissed her hair, then rested his cheek on the top of her head. “How did Jim find you? It honestly seems almost miraculous.”

“I have always considered it the greatest miracle of my life.”

He adjusted his position enough to look into her face. “Would you tell me? If it’s not too difficult to talk about, of course.”

“Do you truly want to hear it?” Her doubt was understandable. He had on more than one occasion been more than a touch gruff about Jim and his rumored perfection. But knowing what he did now, he’d replaced his jealousy with an unspeakable gratitude.

“I truly do,” he assured her.

She nodded. Miles led her over to the window seat and sat. She took the space beside him and slipped her hand into his.

“I rode the mail coach as far as Cheshire before I ran out of money,” she said. “So I hid in a small tool shed behind an inn.”

He felt sick thinking of his dear, sweet Elise huddled in a shed all alone.

“That was my home for ten days. Ten miserable, terrible days. I kept hidden and quiet, sneaking out only to try to find food. Jim came upon me in the alley behind the bakery when I was searching through crates for any bits of flour or dough that might have been there. He didn’t say anything for a long moment but simply looked at me as though he were reading all the details of my life.” She wrapped her fingers more firmly around Miles’s, her eyes focused off in the distance. “He bought a half-penny bun from the baker and gave it to me. He said I didn’t need to say anything or tell him anything; he simply could feel that I needed help. There was something about him that I still can’t even explain. But I knew in that moment that I didn’t have to be afraid of him. We sat on a bench, and he told me he could see that I was in trouble and would help in any way he could.”

Elise slipped her hand free and wrapped her arm around Miles’s. Miles leaned into the corner of the window seat, settling in as comfortably as he could so she wouldn’t feel the need to leave. He had waited four long years to understand what had happened to her.

“I told him everything. I know that seems foolish, considering we’d known each other but a few minutes, but he was the nearest thing to an actual angel I think I’ve ever come across. He was good in a way that filled every part of him. I never worried, never doubted.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “I needed that. I needed the reassurance of someone I trusted from the very beginning. He really was a miracle.”

A miracle, indeed.

“Leaving Epsworth was likely not the wisest decision,” Elise said, “but it was the only solution I could think of at the time. And I cannot for a moment regret that it brought Jim into my life. He gave me hope at a time when I had none. And I like to think that knowing I was with his mother eased some of his worries.”

“What do you think Jim would say knowing that you and I have found each other again?”

“He would say, ‘I told you so.’” A smile was evident in her voice, a sound that did Miles’s heart a great deal of good. “And then he would laugh the way he always did. He was the happiest person I’ve ever known.”

“I think I would have liked him.” Miles was surprised by the realization but grateful to know he’d begun to let go of his envy of the poor young man.

“I know you would have.”

They sat in the window seat for a long while, neither feeling the need to speak or leave. The secrets that had long separated them were giving way. The walls were crumbling at last. He knew enough now to understand why she had struggled so much over the past weeks to trust him again. He hoped that her willingness to tell him about Jim was a sign that some of her wounds were beginning to heal.