She remembered every detail of that day. The sleet pinging against the window panes in her bedroom, the icy fingers of her maid as she laced her into her gown. The glacial stare of her new husband as he vowed to cherish her for eternity.
I would have remembered.
“You’re mistaken,” Ellie repeated, standing.
Because if you’re not mistaken, it will change everything.
Her mother’s shoulders drooped and her eyes fell to her trembling hands. “I may be, my dear. I so often am these days.”
Guilt pierced Ellie’s gut, and she wrapped her arms around her mother, holding the woman’s sloped back to her breast. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m so sorry for everything.”
She patted Ellie’s hand and leaned her head against her daughter’s temple. “As am I, darling. As am I.”
Chapter 29
“Wakeup,youlout.”
Henry rolled towards the unfamiliar voice and heard the liquor sloshing between his ears. He groaned at the sensation and buried his head back in his arms, his entire body protesting the movement. Years of debauchery had taught him to sleep in a variety of non-traditional places—a fainting couch, the floor of a carriage, one confusing night in the narthex of a church—but the ache went deeper than his bones, to his soul.
Ellie is gone.
“I said, wake up. And don’t you dare vomit on my rug.”
Henry rolled once more, and after a brief but terrifying moment of weightlessness, came in full-bodied contact with said rug. Pushing himself up to a seat, he rubbed his itchy eyes and took in his surroundings. A nicely appointed, though impersonal, masculine bedroom. A large trunk sat partially packed by the bed, as though the owner expected to leave at a moment’s notice. He was next to a soft leather sofa, and the man he suspected was the source of the unfamiliar voice sat in a chair facing him, his face twisted into a glare.
A face with Ellie’s eyes.
“Victor,” Henry said with a low chuckle. “It’s been years, old friend. I trust you are well?”
“Fuck off,” he spat.
“Well, that was uncalled for.” Henry pressed his palm against his eye socket. “Would you mind telling me where we are?”
“Warwick Hall,” he replied, and Henry’s gut clenched. The last time he had been to this house had been years ago, when—
“Why were you talking about my sister last night?”
Victor’s question broke into his thoughts, scattering them like ice breaking over a river. Henry dropped his palm, his mind searching for disparate pieces of his night, hoping to find one significant enough to remind him of what he had said. Ellie had consumed every second of his thoughts since he left her side. “I don’t recall talking about your sister.” An honest enough answer.
“Then do you recall striking Woodstock over her?”
Henry’s eyes popped open as the fog cleared, his mind conjuring a perfect memory of that specific portion of the previous night. Woodstock’s crass words, the fury clouding his vision, the desire to wipe the floor with the man who dared insult her. Henry muttered a low oath. “You were at White’s then?”
Victor sat back, his spine still taut. “I was in another room, but came when I heard the… cause of the disruption.”
Henry winced. No man wanted to hear his sister’s name being defiled by his peers. And yet, it hadn’t been Victor willing to throw fists to honor her. “It needed to be done.”
Victor nodded once in agreement before setting his steely gaze on Henry once more. “Why were you so eager to defend her?”
The question took Henry aback. “You think she doesn’t deserve defending?”
“Of course not,” Victor shot back, his voice barbed. “But I wonder why you, of all people, would speak up for Eleanor, a woman with whom you share only a passing acquaintance?”
Henry’s jaw clenched, and Victor gave a subtle lift of his chin in acknowledgment. “I thought so.” Victor dropped his head and shook it before standing to pace the room, never letting Henry out of his sight. “Are you carrying on with her, then?”
What a horrid descriptor for what he and Ellie shared. “I wouldn’t call it that.”
Victor threw up his hands. “Fine. I’ll be explicit. Are you lovers?”
