Page 91 of To Bed the Bride
There was one maid, younger than the others, who might be persuaded to tell him what she knew.
As he headed for the row of hedges and the back garden, he glanced up at the windows of the house.
A figure in a second-floor window had him stopping and retracing his path. Stepping back, he looked up again.
At first he didn’t recognize the woman standing there in her nightgown, the morning sun making the garment almost diaphanous. A second later he realized it was Eleanor, but not the woman he’d seen weeks earlier. Her face was too thin and pale. Her hair was lank and hanging below her shoulders. She was looking out at the distance with no expression on her face. She might have been a ghost for all the life she demonstrated.
He waved his hands above him, but she still didn’t see him. He moved closer to the house and dug around in the flowerbeds until he found a few pebbles. He’d always been a good pitcher as a boy and hopefully his skill hadn’t deserted him after all these years.
Stepping back, he tossed a fair-sized pebble at her window and hit it at the first try. She flinched, startled. He threw another pebble, aiming this one a little higher. She looked down finally and he raised his arms, stepping back so she could see him more clearly.
Placing both hands against the glass of the window she fell to her knees. She shocked him further by beginning to cry.
It took him a minute to understand the words she was saying.Help me.She repeated the words over and over, her hands still pressed against the glass.
Why didn’t she open the window to talk to him?
It was midmorning and she was still attired in her nightgown. Under normal conditions a woman would have hidden behind the curtains, waved to him, perhaps. Or smiled a little shamefacedly, knowing she’d been seen in her nightclothes.
Eleanor didn’t do any of that. She hadn’t stopped crying or mouthing the words he couldn’t hear.Help me.
“I will. I will, Eleanor.”
Uncertain, he stood there for a moment, trying to decide what to do first. He suspected she was being held against her will, but legally he didn’t have that many options.
Hamilton and Deborah could be seen as parental figures. As a single woman Eleanor had few protections, especially since she lived in their house. The law was murky on this point, especially if the couple stated that she’d been recalcitrant in some way and they were simply attempting to discipline her.
Had they discovered what had happened in his drawing room?
Shame washed over him. He should have paid attention to his initial worry and not allowed so much time to elapse before coming here.
He thought about knocking on the door and demanding entrance, but he didn’t know how many footmen Richards employed. He could be overpowered within moments which would make the possibility of rescuing Eleanor more difficult.
No, he needed a plan. A more secretive plan. Perhaps something even illegal.
Forcing a smile to his face, he sent Eleanor a kiss. Finally, Eleanor nodded, then put her hands together as if she were praying.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Logan was here. Logan was here.Eleanor repeated those three words to herself silently.
She’d prayed for a miracle and God had delivered Logan to her, standing outside in his coat, impervious to the wind that blew his hair askew. When she’d seen him her knees weren’t able to support her weight and she’d dropped to the floor. The window had been nailed shut so she couldn’t open it. Nor had she taken the chance of shouting for fear that she would be heard by the footman outside the door. Every time the door was unlocked she saw him, standing at attention as if on military parade. Not one of them had ever met her eyes.
None of the servants had ever been left alone with her. If they had, she would have pleaded with them to get word to Logan or Mr. Babbage or the authorities.
Logan had seemed to understand that she needed his help. All she could do was keep praying that she was right.
After he vanished she sat where she was, her cheek against the warm glass. Had she misinterpreted his signal? Was he really coming back?Please, God, don’t let this have been a hallucination, a vision I’ve imagined out of desperation.
She hadn’t realized that her aunt’s greed overwhelmed every other decent impulse including any familial feeling for her. Maybe Deborah only had a certain amount of love to share and it was reserved for Daphne and in lesser amounts for Jeremy and perhaps her husband.
Deborah didn’t seem to realize the barbarism of her actions, being so focused on the possible result. Every morning when she came to convince Eleanor to give up her rebellion it was the same speech, the same false concern, the same attempt to play on Eleanor’s emotions.
“Don’t you care about your family?”
“We’ve given up so much for you, Eleanor. How can you be so selfish now?”
“Three little words, Eleanor. Just three little words. Just say it:I was wrong.”
