Before Three Hundred Guests, the Duke Declared His Marriage Over, Certain His Wife Would Beg Him to Stay — She Placed Her Ring Beside His Glass, Bowed, and Thanked Him for Letting Her Serve His Family

PART 6

Victoria Harkort read his letter in her sitting room with the composure of a woman who had anticipated several possible responses and prepared for each of them.

Lady Victoria — I am aware of correspondence you have circulated in recent weeks regarding the circumstances of my separation, and of the timeline of your involvement in the events preceding it, including your recommendation of my solicitor. I will ask you directly: what was your intention? — Sebastian Wickliffe.

She had expected Eleanor to be quietly erased from the situation — to return to her family and disappear. Instead Eleanor had walked out of Ravenshire Manor with her head up and immediately begun purchasing property in Dorset, which was the kind of thing a woman did when she had spent years preparing for exactly this contingency.

In Kingsford, Eleanor did not know about the letter campaign. She had been too busy.

The grain store building had been inspected. The roof was sound. Three local carpenters had agreed on a rate for the repairs. The first teacher — a woman named Agnes Bright, recently widowed, formerly a governess for two of the county’s most respected families — had agreed to take the position.

They had sat together for three hours at Margaret’s kitchen table and drafted the curriculum. Reading. Writing. Mathematics to the level required to manage a household account independently. Basic legal literacy — enough for a woman to understand what she signed, what she was owed, what she could refuse.

“This last part will make some people uncomfortable,” Agnes said.

“Good,” Eleanor said.

“People will assume you are doing it out of spite.”

“People will assume what they choose,” Eleanor said. “The women in this room will learn what they need. That is what matters.”

The letter from Mrs. Brent arrived on a Wednesday — written informally, without Sebastian’s knowledge, because she considered herself to owe Eleanor a personal word.

Lady Eleanor — His grace has spent the past three weeks reviewing the household records. He has been very quiet. I thought you should know that he understands, at least in part, what he did not previously understand. There is also the matter of letters from Lady Victoria Harkort, of which I believe he has only recently become aware. I tell you this because I believe you deserve to know the truth is beginning to find its way into the right rooms. — M.B.

Eleanor sat with the letter for a long time.

She was not surprised that Sebastian was beginning to understand. She had always known he was intelligent — outward-facing, applied to politics and business and other people’s motives, almost never turned inward.

He would figure out Victoria. He would not figure out her.

Because what had happened between them was not a conspiracy. Victoria had provided the kindling, but Sebastian had supplied everything necessary for the fire. His inattention. His comparative eye. His assumption that Eleanor would always be there, would always manage, would never require tending herself.

Margaret asked her one evening, gently:

“Could you forgive him? If he came to you and asked. Could you?”

“I forgive him now,” Eleanor said. “Forgiveness is not the question.”

“Then what is?”

“The question is whether the woman who would go back to him exists anymore. I did it because I believed in the marriage — and because I believed that if I worked hard enough, he would see me.” She looked at her hands. “He did not see me. He was too busy deciding I was the problem. And while he was deciding that, I had eleven years taken from me.”

“She does not exist anymore. The woman who would go back. I buried her the night I walked out of that hall. And I will not call her back.”

Margaret reached across the table and covered Eleanor’s hand with her own.

“Then build something new,” she said.

“I already am.”

Sebastian arrived in Dorset without warning on a Thursday afternoon, three weeks into that quiet reckoning. He had not sent a telegram. He had simply gotten into his carriage and given the driver an address.

Margaret Caulfield met him at the door.

“Lady Eleanor is not here at present,” she said.

“I will wait.”

“Come in, then. I will have tea brought.”