For Elise (5 page)

Scarlet fever, Miles thought to
himself as the carriage rumbled southward. He thought he’d heard that scarlet fever could cause hearing loss. Other illnesses were often associated with deafness as well.

He looked across at Elise and Anne, both sleeping. They’d sat tense and quiet for the first hour after resuming the trip to Tafford, as had Miles. Seeing them nearly run down by the mail coach had rattled him. Elise may have changed during their separation; she may have become distant and unwelcoming, but underneath it all, she was still his very best friend. And she, along with Anne, could have been killed.

His heart had finally ceased its racing, and his mind had settled once more on the question of Anne. He’d noticed Elise speaking to her, but Anne didn’t seem to comprehend everything she was being told. Her low hearing explained her constant silence and, perhaps, her tendency to stare at him. On the other hand, Anne didn’t stare at Langley or Beth the way she did at him. Miles rubbed the back of his neck, shifting on the carriage seat.

Elise had obviously had little or no money these past years. Had Anne ever seen a doctor, an apothecary, even? Was there perhaps something that could be done?

“How fortunate that Elise is able to sleep,” Beth whispered loudly enough to be heard from the opposite corner of the carriage. “She was so panicked during the ride this morning I had my doubts she would be able to endure this afternoon.”

“Do you remember her being so unnerved by a carriage ride?” Miles asked, looking once more at Elise.

Her face was noticeably softer in her sleep, younger even. For the first time since he had found her the day before, she looked her age. She was barely twenty; he knew that for a fact. But her solemnity aged her far beyond that.

“Do you not?” Beth asked, obvious surprise in her voice. “It was never as pronounced as it seems to be now, but during those last few weeks before she disappeared, Elise was very much afraid—no,
uneasy
would be a better word—of being inside a closed carriage.”

“I do not remember that.”

“It was a very difficult time, Miles. You were struggling with burdens beyond your years, not to mention our father’s death and her father’s. I daresay there is a lot about those weeks that you do not remember very clearly.”

“On the contrary, there are things about those weeks I remember far too clearly.”

“Then try to extract this from your memory.” Beth offered a small, sad smile. “The first Sunday after Father died, you and I and Langley were to drive Elise to church. Do you remember?”

“I seem to recall that she didn’t want to go.”

“She wanted to go,” Beth corrected. “But not in the carriage.”

“That’s right. She was so quiet and uneasy during the drive to and from.” Miles watched Elise as she slept with Anne under her arm.

“Even I was nervous about traveling after . . .” Beth let the sentence dangle unfinished. They hadn’t discussed Father’s death above a dozen times.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Miles muttered. He’d spent a lot of time trying
not
to think about Father and Mr. Furlong and Elise traveling the road leading to Epsworth late at night. He worked hard not to remember that he was supposed to have gone with them to the Gibsons’ dinner party but had stayed at Epsworth. The carriage had never arrived home. Miles had missed the last night of his father’s life.

* * *

Elise awoke with a start. It was dark, and the carriage she rode in was coming to a stop.

“We’ve arrived,” Beth whispered beside her.

“At Tafford?” Elise pulled Anne closer to her.

“You, Anne, and Miles were all sleeping, so Langley thought it would be best to simply push on.” Beth smiled at her husband across the carriage. “We sent word ahead when we last changed horses. Dinner should be ready for us.”

Elise nodded. She was famished. She’d skipped dinner the night before and had hardly touched breakfast. Lunch was the only meal of significance she’d had in more than twenty-four hours. But the thought of Tafford, the grand estate of a peer, overwhelmed her. She’d lived as a member of the lower class for years. She had no place in a magnificent home.

Mr. Langley stepped out of the carriage first. He turned back and handed Beth out. Miles followed, turning to assist Anne, who stared at him as she always did. Elise hadn’t yet decided why that was. Anne was far too young to be fascinated by a handsome face, though Miles had certainly grown into a fine-looking man. The girl was usually quite shy, but she watched Miles unabashedly.

“Elise?” Miles held his hand out to her.

She took a breath. Was she ready for this? The estate wasn’t Epsworth, something she found both comforting and disappointing.

She laid her hand in Miles’s and found the contact even more uncomfortable than the last time. When they were children, he’d held her hand regularly. It had simply been their way. But she couldn’t let it be that way now. Elise carefully took the carriage steps, determinedly keeping her eyes lowered. She very much feared if she glanced up at Tafford, which she felt certain was magnificent beyond anything she’d ever seen, she would falter and stumble.

Feet firmly on the ground, she turned back and reached for Anne. A question pulled at Anne’s brow. “Ma?”

Miles appeared completely flummoxed by her speech. The odd timbre of her voice grated on most people.

“She
can
hear a little,” Elise reminded him.

“And speak a little too, it seems.” Miles watched Anne.

Elise turned her full attention to her daughter, kneeling in front of Anne with her back to Miles. Anne balled her right hand into a fist and rubbed a circle against her belly. That was her way of indicating she was hungry.

“We will eat in a moment,” Elise told her as she nodded and made the motion of spooning food into her mouth.

Anne looked over Elise’s shoulder, no doubt at Miles. It hadn’t taken the girl long to realize where their meals were now coming from.

“Let us get you settled,” Miles said.

Elise stood and took a deep breath, releasing what tension she could. Anne took firm hold of Elise’s skirts, and they stepped forward.

For the first time, Elise glanced up at Miles’s home. Her mind remained full of visions of Epsworth and its Tudor facade. Tafford was quite different: a mishmash of styles and eras, no doubt the result of generations of extensions and improvements. The house was enormous, but its haphazard assembly was oddly inviting, as if it were a friendly mutt completely unaware of its dubious appearance.

“This is your home?” Elise didn’t know why she was whispering.

“This is Tafford, the home of the Marquess of Grenton for some three hundred years,” Miles answered.

That stopped Elise in her tracks. “You’re a
marquess
?” This was more than a mere rise in standing. Other than dukes and the royal family, Miles now outranked the entire kingdom.

Miles raised an auburn eyebrow as if he found the situation quite ironic. It
was
ironic in an awful way. They’d been separated for more than four years. They’d both lost their fathers, their homes, and their fortunes. Miles had inherited an old and prestigious title, fortune beyond anything they could have hoped for in their previous situations, and a fine home. Elise, on the other hand, had more than once gone a full day without food, had clothed her daughter in dresses made from remnants begged from the draper’s, and had no home or money to her name.

What am I even doing here? I am as far beneath him now as the dirt under our feet.

“Humphrey,” Miles greeted an austere individual who absolutely had to be the butler. His expression was far too starchy to be anyone else.

Elise instinctively pulled back. The top-lofty butler would not approve of a widow of obviously straitened circumstances entering the house of a peer to whom she was not related. Would he assume the worst of her?

“Courage, Elise.” Miles smiled at her. “Humphrey is more of a puppy than a bloodhound.”

At that pronouncement, Humphrey’s chest puffed, and his chin and nose lifted in obvious disapproval of his master’s description.

“I trust Mrs. Langley’s letter arrived.”

“It did, my lord,” Humphrey answered quite correctly. “And might I say that the household is quite pleased that you and Mrs. Langley have been reunited with a friend of such long standing.”

Elise blinked a few times. Had the stuffy butler just bestowed his approval? And why, she demanded of herself, did that realization threaten to break her composure?

“Thank you, Humphrey,” Miles said. “We are, indeed, most pleased to have found Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Humphrey, I am certain, has prepared a chamber for her.”

“Yes, my lord,” Humphrey answered, walking with them into the entrance hall, where he proceeded to take Miles’s hat and coat.

A maid was on hand to relieve Elise and Anne of their outer coverings. Elise stumbled only a moment with the now-unfamiliar service before allowing her coat, bonnet, and extensively mended gloves to be taken. Anne took a little more coaxing.

Elise used the minute or so required to hand over her outer things to look surreptitiously at her surroundings. The exterior of Tafford gave the impression of uneven cobbling together, but the inside, or the entry hall, at least, was anything but haphazard. The floor was smooth tile set in an intricate pattern of black and white. The walls were painted a light blue, landscapes and portraits hanging at pleasing intervals. Entry tables bore vases of freshly cut blooms. A majestic stairway led to the upper floors from which a landing overlooked the entry below. The space exuded taste and wealth.

“Mrs. Humphrey has chosen a room for you near the nursery,” Miles told Elise, coming to stand directly beside her and speaking in a low whisper.

She didn’t like the close proximity or the familiarity of the position. With Anne pressed to her side, she placed more distance between them and Miles.

He hesitated only a moment before continuing. “Does that meet with your approval?”

“My approval wasn’t needed to begin this journey. Why should it be required now?”

“Mama Jones did run a little roughshod over you, I admit, but—”

“Mama Jones wasn’t the only one,” Elise muttered. She took another long look at the finery around her. This wasn’t her world any longer. She almost couldn’t bear to even stand in the entryway. “Where will Mama Jones be placed? I’d much rather be near her, whether it’s in the attics or a tenant cottage or somethin’ like ’at.”

“She is to come as a guest, Elise. Not as a servant.”

“She would feel . . . uncomfortable as a guest in a house like this, Miles.” She shook her head. “
I
feel uncomfortable as a guest here.”

Miles stopped on the step and looked at her, that same look of hurt he’d borne earlier. “Don’t say that, Elise,” he said. “I know this isn’t Epsworth, but this is my home. I want you to be comfortable here. I want you to feel like it is your home, the way our homes were interchangeable for us as children.”

“We none of us belong in a place like this.” Elise shook her head as she looked around at the grandeur. “Not Anne. Not Mama Jones. Certainly not me.”

Miles continued climbing the stairs but didn’t speak. Elise felt him stiffen and sensed she’d upset him, but she’d spoken no less than the truth. Their lives were not the same as they’d once been. They were no longer equals. She realized that even if he didn’t yet.