Page 95 of To Bed the Bride
Hamilton sat on the lone chair, studying her. At first she’d been self-conscious during his inspection. Now she didn’t care.
She’d not been allowed a brush and her hair was a tangled mess. The past three days she hadn’t been given any water to bathe. She was surprised the maid came in to collect the chamber pot every morning.
However, today she was marginally stronger. She’d seen Logan this morning. He was coming to rescue her. All she had to do was make it for a few more hours. She would be saved.
Unless she’d imagined him.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d seen something that wasn’t there. One morning she’d awakened, startled to see a table against one wall. A feast had been arranged for her, from ham to roast chicken to flaky, delicate salmon. The smells of the food had awakened her fully. Until she’d walked to the other side of the room, she’d thought everything was real.
She dug her nails into her palms. She had to believe. It was the first time in days that she had any hope at all. Logan wasn’t a hallucination. He was real. She had to hold on to that thought.
“Your silence does you no good, Eleanor,” Hamilton said. “Let me help you. This situation can’t be comfortable for you.”
She knew better than to listen to his blandishments. His voice was soft and almost kind. She could almost think that he was a compassionate man. Yet people should be judged by their actions, not simply their words. Hamilton had agreed to keep her here. He hadn’t done anything to help her.
She remained silent. Her silence always made him leave faster because it frustrated him. Hamilton was not a man given to patience.
If Michael had visited her—and seen her as she was right now—he would have ended the engagement himself.
Had Deborah encouraged him to stay away?She’s in no fit state, Your Lordship. She’s still stubborn, still refusing to listen to reason. A few more days. A week, no less, and she’ll come around.
She could almost hear her aunt’s words.
“Don’t do this, Eleanor,” Hamilton said. “You’re upsetting everyone.”
She let his words wash over her. She closed her eyes and willed herself back to Queen’s Park. The leaves were falling gently to the ground, obscuring the grass. Bruce ran through them with a puppy’s eagerness and daring, his joy easily interpreted. In her mind he barked excitedly, so that she couldn’t hear Hamilton’s voice.
He finally left.
Her sole occupation during the day was staring out the window, measuring the progress of the sun across the sky. Sometimes she guessed which cloud might produce rain and if fog would obscure her view in the morning.
She slept, as she did most afternoons, simply to pass the time. Sometimes, she put her pillow down on the floor and slept in a square of sunlight like a cat.
When she woke the sky was dark and so was her mood.
She had imagined it, after all. If Logan had been real he would have been here before now.
Help me to bear this. Help me to have the strength to outlast them.
Why was she fighting? Was death preferable to marriage to Michael? No, because if she died he would win.
She would have to agree to the marriage. She would have to excoriate the feelings she had for Logan, burn them until they were no more than ash. Then she would blow the ashes away until they were gone as well.
From this point on she would forever be Eleanor of London. She would never again return to her homeland. Why return if Hearthmere was only a shell of itself? The horses would be gone, the house stripped of its furniture and everything valuable. Even the Clan Hall would be emptied.
She would never forgive Michael for destroying her heritage.
Tomorrow she would send word to Deborah that she was done, that the near starvation, the near nakedness, the sickness had worked.
However, she would never call the woman aunt again. With her marriage to Michael she would do everything in her power to eliminate or diminish any advantage her marriage might bring to her aunt, Hamilton, Jeremy, or Daphne.
If she had her way they would never be invited to a function at Abermarle, never attend a dinner at their home in London. She would never recognize them in public and if she was to be a countess then she would be an icy personage, someone to fear.
They would have won yet lost. She knew that, but they wouldn’t. Not for a while.
At six her stomach began to rumble. They had left the mantel clock, so Eleanor always knew the time, the better to anticipate her one meal of the day, no doubt.
She heard the key in the lock and her stomach growled again. In the first few days it had been almost constant. With a few more days perhaps she wouldn’t feel hunger at all.
