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“What would you say if Alice was found, Father?” Eloise asked.
She knew how much her father detested such questions, and he looked up at her with a grimace on his face and shook his head.
“It’s the eve of your wedding, Eloise. Is that all you can think to ask? After tomorrow, I want no more talk about your sister. It’s been… I don’t know how many years, but she’s gone. She won’t be found. She’s gone. She ran away and won’t be coming back. That’s it,” he snapped, banging his fist down on the table.
But Eloise was persistent. She wanted to know the answer to her question, so she asked it again.
“But she could be, Father. What if she just appeared in our midst? Wouldn’t you be glad to see her? She’s your daughter, after all. I’ve never understood why you never looked for her. Don’t you love her?” Eloise pressed.
Her father tossed aside his napkin and sighed.
“It’s not that I don’t love her, Eloise. I do love her. You’re right, she’s my daughter, flesh of my flesh. But she’s gone. If she returned… I’d be shocked, I suppose, but it’s not going to happen.”
Eloise nodded. She would not dare tell her father she knew better. She was convinced there was some secret remaining as to her sister’s disappearance – something her father would take to his grave if he could.
“I believe she will one day,” Eloise let out.
She had always believed it, though now she knew it was true. Hope had turned to certainty, even as that certainty remained shrouded in questions.
“Then you believe a falsity, Eloise. I’ve told you, enough of this nonsense. Your sister’s gone. She’s not coming back. Wherever she is, she’ll have her own life now, one I wish her every happiness in. Don’t go raking up the past. Leave it be and look to the future. Tomorrow, you’ll be a married woman, and all this nonsense can be left behind,” he said, as the footmen came to clear away the soup bowls.
A rack of lamb was brought in, and talk turned to other matters. But Eloise could not help but smile to herself at the thought of knowing something her father did not, and of being certain – despite all that had happened – of seeing her sister very soon.
* * *
“I find it quite remarkable,” the Baron of Loxbury mused, peering at Alice, who was sitting nervously on a chair by the hearth in the drawing room.
“There’s nothing remarkable about it, Uncle. This is Eloise’s sister, Alice. Miss Alice Snowden,” Jackson said.
His uncle shook his head and muttered something under his breath.
“Why do you insist on this ludicrous pursuit, Jackson?” he demanded.
Jackson glanced at Alice, hoping to reassure her. His uncle could be a dragon, and he was hardly giving the poor woman an easy time.
“Because it’s the right thing to do, Uncle. I’ve already told you, I’m in love with Eloise. This isn’t a ploy to get my inheritance. Besides, it’s not a ludicrous pursuit. We found Alice, and now she’s here. That’s what’s so remarkable about it. Eloise searched for years, and…” Jackson began, but his uncle, as irritable as ever, interrupted him.
“Maybe the poor girl didn’t want to be found? Didn’t you think of that, Jackson?” he asked, and he turned to Alice, who stared at him in terror.
Jackson was beginning to regret having brought Alice to his uncle’s house. But the wedding was the following day, and she had needed a place to stay, having come by carriage to London that afternoon. Jackson had made the arrangements, and he had hoped to spend a quiet evening going over their plans.
“But I did,” she insisted, and Jackson’s uncle scowled.
“They’re getting married tomorrow. What are you going to do? March in there and cause a scene?”
But that was precisely what Jackson intended to do. It was the only way to ensure Lord Crawford gave up his claim on Eloise and called off their wedding. Jackson knew he was taking a terrible risk, and that Alice was the bait, even as she had agreed to be so.
“He won’t listen to reason. He won’t heed anything but a direct assault. It’s the only way, Uncle. He’s a bully, and bullies need to be confronted,” Jackson replied, knowing the irony in addressing the one bully who had tormented him his whole life.
His uncle shook his head and glowered.
“I want nothing to do with it,” he exclaimed, and downing his glass of brandy in one gulp, he stormed out of the drawing room, calling for his dinner to be served on a tray in his study.
Jackson breathed a sigh of relief.
“Good, because we didn’t want you to have anything to do with it,” he muttered under his breath, glancing at Alice apologetically.
“Your uncle is quite the character,” Alice noted.
