For Elise (12 page)

Mama Jones’s amused smile slipped to one of almost reverence. “I wish you could have known Jim. You’d’ve liked him. Good to the soles of his feet, he were.”

“Sounds like a paragon,” Miles muttered.

Mama Jones ignored him or didn’t hear. “I think you’re like that too.”

“Perfect?” Miles half laughed, half snorted.

“
Good
. An’ you care about people, almost so much it hurts.” She tapped at her heart. “I do suspect you’re quite a bit like him, excepting, of course, that Jim did for Ella what you wouldn’t.”

Something in the sudden sharpness of her voice made Miles’s stomach twist with immediate guilt. “And what was that?” he asked, though unsure he wanted to hear.

“He listened.”

Miles leaned against the wall very near a narrow window and watched as the rain came down outside.
He listened.
Miles had listened to her all his life. He had been the person she had always come to in times of crisis, sometimes even before turning to her own father.

“There be a box on that mantelpiece, Miles Linwood. Bring it to me.”

Miles obeyed, intrigued by the rough, hand-hewn box Mama Jones was so intent on having. She lifted the ill-fitting lid. “Ella made me this box.” She paused in opening it. “It ain’t the most beautiful of things, but she tried so hard at it, bless her.”

Mama Jones lifted from inside the box a single sheet of paper, not of the highest quality but very well cared for. There did not appear to be a single crease or wrinkle on it.

“This here’s m’ Jim.” Mama Jones turned the paper around.

It was a very well-executed pencil sketch. The details were precise. Miles likely would have recognized the young man based only on this sketch had he run into him on the street. He could even tell Jim’s hair had been dark while his eyes were of a lighter hue. And Jim’s mischievous smile had precisely matched his mother’s. But it was his youth that proved most surprising.

“He’s just a boy.”

“Aye. He was but eighteen when Ella sketched this here likeness before he left with his reg’ment.” Mama Jones returned the picture to the box. “Ella was, of course, younger than that.”

“And they were married?” Miles couldn’t help the disbelief in his voice. “They were only children.”

“Part of the reason Stanton folk didn’t take to Ella. Raised their eyebrows at her.” Mama Jones closed the lid of her treasure box and began rocking once more. “Said she tricked him into marryin’ her somehow. Said she weren’t no better than she should be.”

“The innkeeper in Stanton gave her a look that communicated a very similar sentiment.” He returned his gaze to the rain outside. How awful to be so regarded when Elise was, he knew, nothing like the citizens of Stanton had labeled her.

“She’s had a very difficult four years,” Mama Jones said as if in agreement. “I know the things that were said hurt her fiercely, but she never let it show.”

Was that part of the reason she held back her emotions? So those who’d hurt her couldn’t guess that they had? Was that why she hid her feelings from him, because he had hurt her?

“When did she first come to live with you?” He felt as though he were only a few pieces away from finishing the puzzle of Elise’s life away from him.

“Wondered when you’d get around to askin’ me that.”

Miles looked over his shoulder to where Mama Jones sat rocking back and forth. “Jim brought her home late in January. Four years ago.”

Miles thought on that as he rode back to Tafford. Elise had disappeared from Epsworth on December 14, 1810. Four years ago late January was only six weeks after that. Where had she been during that time? he wondered. At least three weeks of that was spent posting banns wherever it was that she and Jim had married.

She couldn’t have been with any family friends—Miles had inquired and come up empty-handed. According to Mama Jones, Jim had been away from Stanton for only a month. Even if he had looked after Elise during the entirety of those four weeks, there still remained a fortnight unaccounted for. Considering she had been very young, unaccompanied, unprotected, and likely very low on funds, the possibilities were not comforting.

Elise had married within six weeks of disappearing from Epsworth. But she hadn’t loved her husband, according to Mama Jones. Jim was, it seemed, quite without fault, so Miles doubted Elise had been cajoled or tricked into the union.

Mama Jones had said when she’d first arrived at Tafford that Elise had told Jim about the murders but had not told her. To Jim, she’d confided her difficulties and worries. How had he gained her confidence on such short acquaintance when Miles, who had known her all her life, did not warrant the same trust now?

He listened
, Mama Jones’s voice echoed in his thoughts.

But, Miles countered, so had he. And she hadn’t said a single thing to warn him of her departure. Miles reached the stables and left his horse in the care of his groom. With his mind heavily preoccupied, he made his way to the house and up the stairs to his library. He let out a deep breath and dropped into an armchair, feeling suddenly exhausted. No matter how often he reviewed what he knew, nothing made sense.

Another letter. Elise trembled as
she looked at it. Miles, Beth, and Langley were all present.

She wouldn’t allow her distress to show. She hadn’t found an answer to this particular difficulty that felt right. She had considered fleeing, though she didn’t at all like the idea. However, she had the means of supporting herself should that prove necessary. There was no guarantee the writer of the letters wouldn’t follow her wherever she chose to relocate.

Elise felt the others’ eyes firmly fixed on her. She nervously let her gaze flicker to the envelope and very nearly breathed an audible sigh of relief. This letter had been posted and bore a return address: Mrs. Gibson in Warwickshire.

“It is from Mrs. Gibson,” Elise told the others, proud that she’d kept both the earlier panic and the relief that had followed out of her voice.

“Word of your return must have reached the neighborhood,” Beth said, returning to her finger sandwiches.

“I wrote to the Hudsons the day after we returned to Tafford,” Miles said.

Word had reached their former neighbors in Warwickshire before the arrival of Elise’s unwelcome letters. Could there be a connection? She’d often wondered over the past four years if the murderer was someone known to her. She had found it increasingly hard to trust anyone she came in contact with. That feeling of imminent danger had subsided during her time in Cheshire, but Elise felt it creeping up on her once more.

Who else knew she had returned? Anyone near Tafford. Everyone in the neighborhood where she’d grown up. Mr. Cane. Miles, Beth, and Mr. Langley, though thinking of any of those three as murderers was ridiculous in the extreme. Miles had, she understood, received at least one letter from his cousin, Lady Marion Jonquil, and had written a reply. So anyone Lady Marion might have told would now know.

There were too many possibilities. She couldn’t hide from the entire world. Again, that feeling of lurking danger swept over her. She bit down once more, tensing every muscle to keep herself calm.

“What does Mrs. Gibson have to say?” Beth asked after another bite of her sandwich.

Elise opened the letter and began swiftly scanning the words written there, her heart pounding in her head. “A few pointed statements about my being gone for four years.” Elise kept her eyes on the letter. Miles and Beth no doubt were wishing for the same answers for which Mrs. Gibson was fishing. “Gilbert Gibson is married,” Elise added. They probably already knew that. “Miss Harriet is not.” Then, under her breath, Elise added, “That is not surprising.”

Elise thought she heard Miles laugh. She looked up. He smiled broadly, though his eyes were on his plate. His smile eased her discomfort in an instant, like it had so many times before.

“This means she now knows where you live, Miles.” She could not resist revisiting one of her favorite topics on which to tease him from years earlier. “Perhaps she will discover a relation nearby, and you can finally have the perfect opportunity to make her that long-awaited offer of marriage.”

Miles looked up then and raised an eyebrow, frowning far too severely for sincerity.

“She is such an accomplished young lady,” Elise added, feeling an uncharacteristic urge to laugh.

Miles’s face split into a grin. For no reason whatsoever, Elise’s heart lurched. Color flooded her cheeks without warning, and she couldn’t do a thing to stop it.

“I do not believe I have ever heard a young lady play the pianoforte with as much
enthusiasm
as Miss Gibson was wont to display,” Miles said dryly.

He’d told Elise repeatedly of Miss Harriet Gibson’s almost overwhelmingly loud performances. They’d often sat under their tree in the meadow the day after a neighborhood musicale or dinner, laughing over Miles’s retellings.

“I never could command the undivided attention she did.” Elise felt a laugh bubbling inside. She allowed a smile but nothing beyond.

“You were always too talented for the kind of theatrics she employed,” Miles said.

“I haven’t played the pianoforte in four years,” Elise whispered, unable to meet his eyes any longer.

Her face felt too warm for her blush to be unnoticed. If asked, she couldn’t have accounted for her reaction to what ought to have been a simple conversation. He had offered a compliment, yes, but nothing to make her flush the way she was.

Elise heard chair legs scrape the ground, and in the next moment, Miles stood beside her. He leaned down, whispering in her ear. “Four years is far too long.”

Her heart had stopped before. Now her pulse was pounding in her neck.

Miles picked up her plate and held his free hand out to her. How she wanted to accept it. She’d held his hand so often as a child and as a young lady. A person would have been hard-pressed to find them together without their hands entwined, so common had the gesture once been between them. She’d missed that so deeply. But returning to that symbol of their once-close relationship felt too risky, too vulnerable. If she let him take her hand, how would she ever keep him from breaking her heart again?

She rose from her chair but kept her letter in her hands as an excuse. His disappointment was obvious but fleeting.

“You must come thumb through the pieces of music in the music room,” he said.

“You have a music room?” she asked as Miles led the way down the corridor.

“Have you not been given the grand tour, then?”

“No.” She’d felt enough like an interloper without pulling Mrs. Humphrey from her duties.

“We do, indeed, have a music room, complete with a harp, a pianoforte, and seating for as many delighted listeners—or horrified, depending on the performer—as one could hope for.”

“You, Papa, and Mr. Linwood were the only listeners I ever forced my efforts upon,” Elise said as they stepped inside a room she hadn’t yet visited.

“Forced?” Miles laughed. “You were always a fine musician, Elise.”

The music room was everything she could have hoped for, with exquisite furnishings and silk-hung walls. Decorated in shades of blue and gold, it was both tasteful and elegant. The air was not stale or damp, testament to a staff who kept the house in good working order and a household income sufficient for low-burning fires. No matter the effort they’d employed, she and Mama Jones never had been able to quite rid their small home of the dampness in the air.

Miles set Elise’s plate on a small end table not far from a highly polished Broadwood grand. Elise had never in all her life played such an elegant instrument.

“This is your seat, Elise.” Miles pulled her to the instrument stool. “The music is housed in this cabinet here.” He indicated a deep-cherry armoire. “And you are to play whenever you please, for as long as you please.”

“Thank you, Miles.” She turned to face him at the exact moment he turned to face her.

They stood mere inches apart, looking into each other’s eyes. Something in the atmosphere around them turned thick. Elise couldn’t have looked away from those beloved brown eyes if she’d tried.

Too much lay between them for anything to be as it had been, but for all of that, he was her Miles—her dear, sweet Miles—and she had missed him acutely.

“Four years is too long,” Miles repeated his earlier declaration in an almost breathless whisper.

She had the very distinct impression they were no longer speaking of the pianoforte. He didn’t step back away from her.

“I was across an ocean, Elise, but still, I thought of you. Every single day, I thought of you and worried about you.”

Elise felt a sting at the back of her throat and a prickling behind her eyes. “I have had people looking out for me,” she replied in a whisper, feeling compelled to reassure him. Miles looked as if he blamed himself for her suffering in the years of their separation. She, somehow, couldn’t bear to have him take the entirety of that weight on his shoulders, no matter the role he’d played in her desperate flight.

He set his hand lightly on her arm. “Was Jim good to you?”

“He was very kind to me.” Her heart grew heavy as it always did when she thought of poor Jim Jones. “He stood my friend when I was entirely alone.”

“Was I not your friend?” Miles pressed, his brows knit together.

She knew an honest answer would break his heart, so she didn’t reply. Her silence, however, seemed enough.

“I’m sorry, Elise,” Miles whispered, dropping his hand and stepping back. “I am not even sure what I did to lose your faith so entirely, but I am sorry for it—more sorry than I can even say.”

Elise had to look away from his pained expression. His suffering pierced her usually impenetrable armor. It had always been that way. They’d shared everything and had understood each other better than any other person on earth. To see him hurting, knowing she had caused it, pricked at her.

“What can I do to regain your trust?” Miles asked.

Her trust? Her trust had died long ago.

“I don’t know.” Elise shrugged, fighting the loneliness that suddenly engulfed her.

A heavy silence hung between them. Elise could hear Miles’s long, tense breaths. She forced back the tears that threatened to fall.

“I wish you would give me a chance,” Miles muttered before turning on his heels and leaving her alone with her unsettling thoughts.

* * *

“In all honesty, Langley, I’m beginning to lose patience with her.” Miles felt like a traitor saying such a thing about Elise, but he had to release some of the pressure building inside.

“‘Beginning to lose patience with her?’ Is that your gentle way of saying ‘tempted to throttle her?’” Langley grinned at him as they made their way down the corridor. “I’d say you have reason to, though I suggest you not actually follow through.”

Miles was grateful for a reason to smile amidst his frustration. “Good of you to look out for her.”

“Nothing of the sort,” Langley said. “I am looking out for
myself
. If you throttle poor Elise, it will put a damper on Beth’s current pet project and that would prove disastrous for me.”

“Will it?”

“If this ball falls to pieces, she will insist on throwing a ball every week for the rest of our lives to make up for her current disappointment.” Langley pretended to grow worried. “No gentleman should be expected to endure that.”

“Beth is planning a ball?” Miles hadn’t heard as much. “While she’s here, I would imagine, which means I am hosting it.”

Langley grinned at him. “Congratulations.”

Miles sighed. “Do you happen to know when this ball is meant to take place?”

“On Friday.” Langley stopped in front of the sitting room and pointed toward the closed door. “Beth is in there even as we speak, making unnecessarily extravagant plans with Mrs. Haddington.”

“Mrs. Haddington? In other words, there should be a great deal of talking at this ball.”

“Talking. Eyelash batting. Coy fan waving.”

“Run while you can, Langley.” Miles tugged at Langley’s jacket sleeve. “Save yourself.”

“Laugh all you want, Miles. I
can
run. You, however, cannot escape this.” They continued down the corridor. “You are a peer with an old and respectable title, estates, and an income few can even fathom. All of that would likely be enough to garner you invitations to every social event ever planned. But, Miles, you are all of those things
and
unmarried. That is a combination no mother with an unwed daughter and any degree of social ambition could possibly be expected to resist. You, my poor brother, are fresh meat.”

They stepped out the back doors and onto the terrace. “You are certainly building my enthusiasm for this ball,” Miles said dryly.

Langley laughed and slapped Miles on the shoulder. “Only offering a friendly warning. You have escaped the marriage mart longer than anyone could have predicted, but they have your scent now. The ladies of Society will not leave you be until you are either married or dead.”

“I expect you to extricate me if the ball grows dangerous.” Miles chuckled. “We can plan an escape route ahead of time, just to be safe.”

“An excellent idea, beginning now. I propose we spend the rest of the afternoon going for a bruising ride; that way the ladies cannot talk us into helping plan anything.”

“Genius.” Miles gladly made his way to the stables. He hadn’t anticipated a ball, but there seemed no way of avoiding it.

He’d last been in London for the social whirl when he was only nineteen, too young to be anything but annoyed by it all. He likely wouldn’t mind it now, but the timing and location were far from ideal. The house and title didn’t yet feel like his. He was still finding his way in this strange new existence he had inherited.

Perhaps a ball was exactly what he needed. A lighthearted distraction. And Elise might enjoy it. She’d often talked about making her debut. She had shared in great detail what she’d imagined her come-out ball would be like, the soirees and musicales she meant to attend. She’d dreamed about it but had never had her Season, never attended a single ball.

Here was a start. He could give her back bits and pieces of all she’d lost, and maybe in time, things would go back to the way they’d been.