Did Brahm care what the gossips might say? Yes and no. He didn't care what they thought of him, but he definitely cared about not being given a chance. What was the point in trying if no one was willing to give him the chance to try?
Eleanor had promised him a chance and then taken it away.
The snifter was familiar and comforting in his hand. He lifted it to his lips and opened his mouth against the rim. Brandy rushed over his tongue, flooding him with flavor so rich, he shivered as it rushed down his throat.
Sweet God, it was good!
He drank deeper, draining the snifter. His companions chuckled as he lowered his arm. It was an appreciative sound, not a malicious one.
"You drink like a man who has something he wants to forget," one of the gentlemen commented.
Brahm nodded as his snifter was refilled. "I do."
"Then let us aid you in your quest," Lord Mitchley boomed. He raised his own brandy, and the others followed suit. "To forgetting."
Brahm drank as well. Yes, to forgetting. It seemed to be working. He had already forgotten that he no longer drank.
* * *
During the week after Brahm's departure, Eleanor did everything she could to make herself forget him, to get on with her life, but to no avail.
She threw herself into her remaining duties as hostess. The party would be over soon— by the end of next week most, if not all, of the guests would be gone. By that time she was expected to have found herself a husband. No one had ever voiced this expectation, but that had been the whole point to this party, and people assumed it would happen.
No one outside her family— not even Lady Dumont, who knew more than Eleanor was comfortable with— knew that Eleanor had already found the man she wanted to marry, and that she had lost him as well.
So she tried to find something to love in each of the remaining bachelors. Lord Locke had absolutely nothing to recommend him, and so he wasn't a consideration at all. Lord Birch was much more likable, but he didn't stir her interest either. Lord Faulkner was too short, Lord Taylor talked too much, and Lord Eakes didn't talk enough. Minor, petty grievances to be sure, but they were there all the same.
None of these men, however rich or handsome he might be, came close to making her feel as Brahm did. Brahm made her laugh. Brahm knew when to speak and when not to. Brahm had never treated her like a delicate or irrational creature, even though she had no doubt given him reason to. He had never treated her as though she was somehow less than him, or as though he would be doing her a favor by marrying her. And even though she knew he had come there with the intention of atoning for their past and then wooing her, she never once felt as though he saw her merely as a prize to be won.
He was everything she wanted, and she had pushed him away. At the time it had seemed the right course of action, but now she'd be deuced if she could remember why.
Oh yes, she couldn't trust him. Or rather she couldn't trust in herself enough to trust in him, some such rubbish. Why couldn't she? It was an answer she'd never thought to look for when her emotions ran away with her and made her refuse him. Now she thought about it all the time. Why couldn't she trust in them? It was a relatively simple thing to do, was it not? So why did it fill her with terror? Why, after being so certain that he was what she wanted, had she turned him away?
"What are you thinking?"
Eleanor raised her head. She and Arabella were in her room, sitting on the bed in their nightgowns. It was late, very late, but Arabella had made a habit this past week of coming to check on her older sister every night before going to bed. In truth, Eleanor looked forward to her visits and had come to look at them as the only thing keeping her sane.
"I am trying to determine whom I should marry."
Arabella made a great show of twisting the end of her thick braid, her gaze flitting everywhere but to Eleanor's own. "You have already made that decision."
Eleanor's throat tightened. Her sister hadn't even said his name and her heart was pounding like the hooves of a runaway horse. "We have already discussed this, Belle. You know I cannot marry him, and even if I did change my mind, he would not have me now." The realization hurt more than she would admit, for it forced her to consider just what an enormous mistake she might have made.
Brahm might have harbored great feelings for her, but he was a proud man, and no man would give a woman who had rejected him twice a third chance. It did not matter that she'd had good reason the first time, she had handled that situation almost as badly as she had handled the current one.
A gusty sigh escaped her sister's lips. "I know you claim to have some idiotic reason for not being able to marry him, but I still do not understand why you cannot."
Not this again! Eleanor threw her hands up in the air. It was either that or tear her hair out. "Because I doubted him! I believed he betrayed me. I can never trust him."
Arabella rolled her pale eyes. "Oh for pity's sake, Eleanor! I doubt Henry at times!"
"You do?" This was a new addition to the conversation. Actually, they usually never made it this far. Arabella would try to talk to her about things and Eleanor would tell her she didn't want to discuss them. Apparently she had changed her mind. It seemed she was making a habit of that.
Her sister made a face that said,
Do not be so foolish.
"Of course I do. It is only human to doubt. I worry that when I'm fat with child he'll find someone prettier or more mild-mannered than I." Arabella's hands settled on the gentle swell of her belly. Eleanor hadn't noticed just how much her sister was beginning to show signs of her pregnancy. "He tells me that I am silly and I tend to believe him, but every once in a while I am struck by the same fears."
Arabella was unsure of her marriage? How could that be possible? She and Henry seemed so perfectly…
perfect
for each other. "How do you cope?"
"Because, my dear idiot sister, they have the same fears!" Arabella chuckled as though the answer should have been obvious.
It was not so obvious to Eleanor. "Who?"
"Men, of course!" Arabella's fingers still stroked her own stomach. "They worry that their wives might find a younger lover, that their hair will fall out and they will grow fat. They worry about us falling out of love with them just as we do about them. All you can do is trust in one another."
Had her sister not been listening to her when she did talk about her and Brahm? "But I do not trust in Brahm, that is the problem."
"No," Arabella insisted with a knowing smile. Just which one of them was the elder sister? Wasn't Eleanor supposed to be the one who had all the answers? "You trust in Brahm. You would never have given him a chance to prove himself if you did not."
Eleanor lowered her gaze. "I thought I had given him a chance, but I know now that I did not."
Her sister made a
hmpf
sound. "How long did it take you to realize you were being irrational?"
Eleanor shrugged, her own fingers toying with the lace on the edge of her sleeves. "A few moments, maybe less. As soon as the shock wore off I began to think more clearly."
"There, see?" The other woman's smile was bright with confidence. "Anyone would have been shocked by what you saw. If I found a woman in Henry's bed, I would want to know what the hell she was doing there. Of course, we share a bed, so that would truly be a strange occurrence."
Eleanor couldn't even summon a grin at her sister's cursing, despite how strange it sounded coming out of Arabella's mouth. Instead she sank deeper into the well of despair and self-loathing she had fashioned for herself. "I should not have doubted him."
"Poppycock." Arabella lightly slapped Eleanor on the leg as though to chastise her for such thoughts. "You do not doubt him, you doubt yourself, and now you are punishing him because you are afraid to leave the safety of Papa's house and finally have a life of your own."
"I am not!" Was she? Was that why she had reacted as she had? Out of fear? It had occurred to her that while Brahm found it so easy to dismiss what others thought of him, she did not. Did part of her worry that society might think her a fool for giving him another chance when he had so wonderfully alienated himself from most good
ton
?
No, she refused to think that she could be so shallow. Foolish she might be, but she was not a snob.
Arabella shot her a knowing glance. "You are so afraid. You've spent the entirety of your life making certain your sisters were well looked after, and during that time you built a nice little cocoon for yourself. Tell me, what is the worst that could happen if you marry Brahm?"
God, she didn't want to think of the worst thing. He could die. No, that would be awful, but it wouldn't be the worst. "He could find someone else to replace me." Yes, that was the absolute worst thing that could happen, especially if Eleanor continued to love him after his feelings for her had died.
Did that mean she loved him now? Arabella prevented her from pondering the question. "So could you."
A vehement shake of her head answered that question. "No, never." She knew herself well enough to know that when she loved, it would be forever.
"You do not know that any more than you know he might do the same to you." Arabella's words were so calm and logical, Eleanor had no choice but to consider them despite her own resistance. "Why are you not worried about you betraying him then?"
"Because I would never do such a thing!" How could she even ask? Did her sister honestly think so little of her? She would never be so disrespectful to her husband, no matter how awful their marriage became.
Arabella fiddled with her braid again, one hand still on her stomach. "You know, Lydia said the same thing to me once."
Eleanor froze, an odd icy heat prickling her flesh. "I beg your pardon?"
Arabella shrugged, as though she had said nothing of import, rather than something that stopped Eleanor's heart. "Lydia once told me that she would never betray her marriage vows."
Anger took root in her chest. How dare Arabella make such a comparison. She knew that Lydia had been involved. Eleanor had not kept that from her. That first day after Brahm left and she had talked to Lady Dumont, Eleanor had been too vacant from herself to know better than to confide everything to the sister closest to her. "I am nothing like Lydia."
"No, you are not." At least Arabella wasn't going to argue it. Eleanor might have had to kill her if she did. "And Brahm is nothing like the man he was ten years ago. Who knows what either of you will be like in another ten years, but are you willing to throw away the chance of a good and happy life just because you are afraid?"
"I— " She had no answer. No words would come. Arabella was right. Was she willing to do that? Which would be better, a few short years of happiness with Brahm or a lifetime of nothing but the same thing she'd been living for the last ten? Or worse, marriage to another man whom she would always compare to Brahm, knowing that he would never measure up?
The answer came to her with such clarity, she wondered why it had taken her this long to realize it.
It was time to stop living her life like a hermit. She had finally been given a chance to have a wonderful, eventful life. She could be a wife, a mother. She could be her own woman and do all the things allowed to a married lady. She could go out in society and make friends— London had always held an appeal for her.
And she could spend her nights in Brahm's arms, spend her days getting to know everything about him, growing old with him.
Yes, there was a chance it would not work between them, but there were hard times in every relationship; hadn't her father and Arabella both told her that? There was an even better chance that she and Brahm could have a beautiful life. If their mutual fascination with each other hadn't faded after ten years apart and an eternity of bad feelings, surely it could only grow with the proper care and nurturing?
Her father had also told her to stop being afraid of what might happen and enjoy what she had. She and Brahm might make a mess of things, but they might make a beautiful life together. She would never know unless she took the chance and followed her heart.
She shot Arabella a hopeful gaze. "Do you think he might return if I asked him to?"
Her sister's expression changed then, taking on an edge of anxiety and uncertainty that caused Eleanor's heart to give a painful leap. Arabella knew something that she didn't.
"I think it would be best for you to go to London, dearest. The sooner the better."
Eleanor pressed a hand to her chest. Dear heaven, had something happened to Brahm? Please God, no. "What do you know?"
Arabella shifted uncomfortably. "There have been reports from London— "
"Gossip, you mean." It was impossible to keep the sneer from her voice.
"Perhaps. There is talk that he has been seen at several clubs and parties about town."
