She was trying not to panic. Charles had had aturncoming for a while, and surely it wasn’t too bad. He was probably just tired, or hungry, or else hadn’t drunk enough.
There were all manner of safe, logical explanations for why he’d taken ill, but none of them would stick in Eleanor’s mind. She recalled every incident where he’d been ill enough to go to bed early, too ill to eat much, too cold despite a burning fire, and so on and so on.
Had there been more signs she’d missed? Would a more dutiful, observant daughter have prevented this tragedy? What had shemissed?
Nothing else came to mind. She shifted and shifted in the carriage seat, trying to find a comfortable position.
Nothing worked. She wouldn’t be comfortable until she saw her father. The streets crawled by so painfully slowly she wanted to scream, wanted to fling open the door, fall out, andrunto Jonathan and Louisa’s.
“I’m sure he’s in good hands,” Henry said, after a while.
“Jonathan is an excellent doctor,” Eleanor responded absently, almost without thinking. “How did Papa seem when you left him?”
“Tired and weak, but he was speaking, at the very least. I was able to get him down from Mr. Spencer’s office into the carriage, which I suppose is a good sign.”
Eleanor bit her lower lip until she tasted copper. When the carriage turned, painfully slow, into the street, she flung open thedoor before the vehicle had even stopped entirely. She waved aside the footman, coming to let down the steps, staring at her flabbergasted as she raced past him.
She was vaguely aware of Henry, climbing sedately out of the carriage and coming up the steps behind her, but it didn’t seem very important.
Up the steps, along the hall – past the butler, who was saying something to her, but she couldn’t stop to listen to it – and up the velvet-carpeted steps to the first floor. The parlour was up here, and the patients’ rooms were at the end, and Charles would be…
She nearly ran straight into Louisa, darting out of the open parlour door to intercept her.
“Louisa!” Eleanor gasped. “I heard that Papa… he’s ill? Have you been to see him? I must see him right away.”
“Not right now,” Louisa said, with a determined firmness.
“But…”
“Come in and sit down, won’t you?”
Louisa would not be argued with. She never would, of course.
Eleanor was drawn firmly into the parlour and guided to an overstuffed sofa. She noticed that a tray of tea was all ready to go, and Louisa was even now pouring out a fresh cup for Eleanor.
“You were expecting me, I see,” she murmured. “Louisa, what is wrong with Papa?”
“How should I know?” Louisa responded, a little too quickly, a little too defensively.
“Why won’t you let me see him?”
“Just wait, won’t you! Oh, this is all that wretched Lord Henry’s fault.”
“LordHenry? What has he to do with it?”
Louisa pursed her lips, splashing a little tea over the rim of the cup.
“Well, he was there at the time. He wouldn’tlisten. He kept saying that you needed to know. He… he just kept saying the same thing, and insisted on telling you everything there was to know, even though Jonathan tried to make him promise…” she trailed off, glancing up guiltily, sensing she’d said too much.
Well, she had.
“The whole thing?” Eleanor repeated slowly. “I don’t understand. Louisa, what aren’t you telling me?”
“Let’s wait for Jonathan to come here,” her sister answered shortly. “He’ll explain it better than I can. Oh, what a mess this all is. The thing is, Papa made us promise, Jonathan and me. A solemn promise, you see? What was I meant to do?”
“Louisa, you’re scaring me. What is so serious you can’t tell me? Do you have any idea how worried I am? This isn’t fair. You always treated me like a baby.”
“Don’t act like one, then.”
