Here, now, she had nothing else to contemplate. It was last night when she’d returned home, worried her husband would be there and demand attention, that she realized she would kill herself before allowing Lord Beckett to rut her once more. James had shown her passion, had shown her that there was more to life than pain and suffering. And no matter what, she would always be grateful to him. The aching in her heart thumped painfully, spreading across her chest. James. She sank onto the bench and bit her lower lip, refusing to give in to the sting of tears.
She was almost grateful and relieved when she heard the sudden thump of small feet coming from down the hall. Eleanor tilted her head toward the sound and waited, curious despite herself. Moments later a nun appeared, stepping from the dark dreariness. She did not glance Eleanor’s way as she swept by; her pale face remained cold and stoic, no flush of kindness or greeting. But the small girls following were not so disciplined.
From ages five to ten, some looked at her with wariness, others greed, probably thinking about picking her pockets, but some… some looked at her with a wistfulness that tore at her heart, a spark of hope that said they prayed every night for someone to help them, someone like her. Was she the woman who would take them from this life of pain and emptiness?
It was the last girl… a blonde little thing who caught her full attention. Her big blue eyes met Eleanor’s, and the fear in those orbs were almost Ellie’s undoing. She wanted to scoop the girl up, to bring her close to her bosom and promise that everything would be well. If the lad outside had reminded her of James, this tiny child reminded her only too well of herself. But within a fortnight she would be racing from London, hiding from her husband, and that was no life for a child.
“Samantha!” the nun snapped out, startling the little girl. “Keep up.”
The child scurried forward, and Eleanor could merely watch as she disappeared around the corner. The silence fell once more, and she was alone. So very alone. Fanny would not escape with her, for the lady’s maid had found another position in a country estate not far from her family. James would remain here, bending to Lady Lavender’s will until he perished. Ellie… Ellie would be alone. But perhaps, just maybe, she could find some peace.
The door to the office opened and yet another pale and prim woman in a long, black habit stepped into the hall. The white coif she wore over her head did not soften her hard eyes and stern mouth. If Eleanor had not experienced such hardship in her life, the woman might have actually intimidated her. As it was, she was merely amused.
“May I be of help?” Her voice was low with a menacing growl. It was obvious she didn’t appreciate it when outsiders invaded her domain, demanding entrance.
For the sake of the children, Eleanor searched the woman’s faded blue eyes for kindness but saw none. “I’d like to talk to a Miss McKinnon.”
The woman narrowed her beady eyes. “She is taking a vow of silence. She talks to no one.” The woman started to turn, intending to dismiss her, but Eleanor wasn’t so easily dismissed. It was sheer stubbornness that had kept her going this long.
“Silence?” Eleanor stepped between the woman and the door. “She’s a nun then?”
She tilted her round chin high, glaring down her crooked nose at Ellie. “Not as of yet, but perhaps in a few years, with the right training, she will be fit. If you’ll excuse me…”
But Eleanor didn’t step aside. “If you want your donation, you will allow me to speak with her.”
The woman was silent for a moment, her steely gaze searching first Eleanor’s face and then sliding down the fine silk of her gown. She could practically hear the old witch calculating her worth.
Apparently finding her sufficient, the woman nodded. “Very well. You may use my office.”
She spun around in a swirl of dreary skirts and swept over the threshold. The small room was as cold and depressing as the rest of the place. The only adornment, if one could call it so, was a rather terrifying wall hanging of a bloody and tortured Jesus gazing mournfully down at Ellie. She shivered as she settled, then she settled in the chair across from the mother superior’s small desk. How different the office was compared to Lady Lavender’s succulent room. Two women, each in charge of a rather substantial domain. They might not look the same, yet Ellie noticed a familiar grim determination in both their eyes.
It wasn’t until the mother superior demanded, “Marietta, bring Miss McKinnon,” that Ellie noticed a small mouse of a woman huddled at a table in the corner, her fingers black with ink as if she’d been taking notes.
She pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up her button nose. “But… but she’s—”
“I know what she is!” the woman snapped, making the small nun jump to her feet. “Now obey me.”
The nun scampered from the room. The mother superior settled behind her desk, glaring at Ellie. It was a wry amusement that lit Eleanor’s gaze when the nun offered her no tea or refreshment of any kind. A bully, she was. But Eleanor had dealt with plenty of bullies in her past.
“How much… exactly, are you willing to donate to our Lord?” she finally asked.
Eleanor had to hide her smile. “We shall see. Once I speak with Miss McKinnon and see how she fares, I will make my decision.”
“How she fares?” the woman thundered. “What exactly are you implying?”
Eleanor was saved from answering when the door opened. A young, petite pale creature with warm brown eyes walked demurely inside. Eleanor’s heart hurt just looking at her, the features so like James’s. She knew without doubt that this tired-looking creature was his sister. The urge to latch onto her hand and tear her from the nunnery overwhelmed Eleanor.
“Arabella, this woman is here to speak with you.”
The young woman’s troubled gaze found Ellie’s. “I do not know you, do I?”
“You don’t?” The mother superior glanced Eleanor’s way, damnation and accusation in her eyes.
Ellie shrugged. “I never claimed to have known her.” She turned her attention to James’s sister. “No, you don’t. But I did know your family and I am merely visiting to check on your welfare.”
Her small hands clasped tightly in front of her. She seemed disturbed by the news. “As you can see I’m well enough.”
“Please, Mother,” Eleanor said, glancing at the old woman. “I’d like to speak with Miss McKinnon alone.”
“My lady, I’m sorry but—”
“Alone.” Eleanor’s face went stoic, her gaze cold.
Arabella suddenly looked nervous, like a mouse trapped in the corner by a hungry cat. Or in this case, a demanding woman from the outside world, infiltrating a place of purity and innocence. No, Eleanor did not belong here in the least, but she wouldn’t leave until she spoke to the young woman alone.
“Very well.” The mother superior stood, the legs of her chair screeching over the stone floor. “Five minutes.”
She left the room, leaving the door wide. Ellie had no doubt the old bat was lurking in the hall. “Sit,” Eleanor demanded of the girl. When she hesitated for the briefest of moments, Eleanor was thrilled to see the spark of determination in the young woman’s eyes. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but there was certainly something about this meek woman that intrigued Ellie. With the right gowns and her hair uncovered, perhaps she could pass as pretty.
Eleanor closed the door. “I’m a friend of your brother’s.”
Arabella stiffened, obviously startled. “I see.”
Eleanor settled in the chair next to hers. “You look very much like him.”
Arabella swallowed hard. Although she covered it well, Ellie didn’t miss the pain that flashed across her eyes. “I have not heard from him in years… is he well?”
“He is healthy.” She narrowed her gaze. “But you know he is alive, don’t you?”
She flushed and looked demurely at her lap. “Yes. I also know what my brother is, my lady.” She clenched her jaw, her gaze growing troubled. “At sixteen I decided to find him. It took some
time, but I did. I found him whoring himself at Lady Lavender’s. Agreeing to live here was the only way I could stop myself from becoming him. I was fortunate indeed.”
The horror of what the girl said washed over Ellie. All this time James had been hiding himself away for nothing. How would he feel if he realized his sister knew the truth about his occupation? If the hardness in her gaze was any indication, Arabella wasn’t too pleased with her brother.
“Fortunate?” Eleanor couldn’t help but ask. She supposed it was better than prostituting, but still she would never consider a woman fortunate to be here of all places. She frowned. Why must women always survive, why could they not thrive?
Arabella smiled, dimples pressing into her cheeks in a way that lit up her pale face. Certainly she could land a lovely doctor or lawyer at the least, if introduced to the right people. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but it is better than living on the streets.”
“You know you are very much like your brother.”
She flinched at the comment, and Eleanor had to resist the urge to set her down a peg or two. The brat should be honored to be like James. Eleanor sighed, feeling worse than before she’d arrived. James was right, it was better if he didn’t meet his sister, didn’t know the truth. “You both did what you had to in order to survive.”
“Survive?” Arabella released a harsh laugh that belied her gentle disposition. “My brother abandoned us to live a life of sin!”
Eleanor frowned, growing annoyed with the ungrateful chit. “Your brother abandoned you so that you might have the life you couldn’t have with him there. Do you think you would have lived so comfortably had he been working on the docks? Or in a factory?”
“Comfortably?” Arabella shook her head, a lock of auburn hair falling from her coif and caressing her pale cheek. “I don’t know what you consider to be comfortable, begging on the streets, sifting through garbage…”
Eleanor felt ill. There must have been a mistake… but no. She’d known from the very beginning that something was wrong. She’d known she could not trust Lady Lavender. “Did your mother receive money from Lady Lavender?”
“If she did I didn’t know about it.”
“Perhaps… perhaps she didn’t tell you.”
“I promise you, my lady, if we received money of any kind, I would have known. My mother would not have died attempting to steal a loaf of bread, and I would not have almost perished from hunger.”
“Oh dear God.” She pressed her hand to her thumping chest. She had lied. Lady Lavender had lied, and James had no idea. “How?”
“Let me enlighten you,” Arabella said. “My mother stole bread from a baker. When he caught her she had two options, either service him in another, more sinful way, or go to prison. She chose the first. Once word got out, she was known as a whore. Men would come to her for favors and she allowed it because she knew her reputation was already ruined. It was one of those men who murdered her and was never caught. I was so young and very easily could have ended up selling myself on the streets as well. I was fortunate enough to be taken in here.”
Eleanor shook her head, feeling the sudden sting of tears. All for nothing. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When your brother was a child, not yet a man, he was approached by Lady Lavender. She told him that if he worked for her, she would send the money he made to you and your mother. She would see that you were taken care of.”
“She lied,” the woman whispered, finally understanding the horror of the situation. A variety of unsettling emotions swept through Arabella’s eyes. Despair, horror, even acceptance… all at once.
“It would appear so.”
“James…” The woman paled, but shook her head, obviously still confused. “He didn’t leave us?”
“No. Everything he did was for you.”
A single tear trailed down the woman’s pale cheek. For one long moment they were silent. From somewhere in the distance a church bell rang the hour… two o’clock. Her five minutes were long since over, and she wondered why the mother superior hadn’t interrupted. Eleanor reached into her reticule and handed the girl a handkerchief.
Arabella swiped at her cheeks. “Even if I believe you, it does not change anything. I must pay for the sins of my family.”
Eleanor pulled her chair closer and took Arabella’s small, cold hands in hers. The delicate child would have been destroyed on the streets. Perhaps she was better off here. “My dear, the only sins you can pay for are your own. Your brother and mother did what they had to.”
But Arabella didn’t seem to hear her, lost in her own musings. “If I hadn’t been welcomed here, where would I have gone? The factories? The streets?”
She was right. Eleanor had thought there was nothing worse than living with Lord Beckett. She’d thought that only married women were imprisoned. But now… now she realized there were prisons of all kinds. James was imprisoned because of Lady Lavender, and Arabella, she was imprisoned because she had nowhere else to go, no money, no family, no station in life.
“I can’t leave here.” Arabella’s eyes pleaded with Eleanor, as if begging her to understand. “Surely you must realize that?”
Ellie had a feeling it was fear of the outside world holding the girl captive. “I could find you a position in a household, perhaps, as a lady’s maid.”
“And if the world uncovered the truth about my brother?” She smiled kindly at Eleanor. “Besides, I wouldn’t have a clue how to dress a lady.”
Arabella returned her handkerchief. Ellie was torn… torn between her desire to help this woman and her need to flee London. Time was running out.
“Arabella, you cannot blame your mother, or James. No one is perfect. We merely do what we can to survive. Good people do bad things all the time. It doesn’t make them evil, especially when what they do, they do for others, for love.”
“I had resigned myself, you know,” Arabella whispered. “To this life. I had no family, I had no one. I had nothing else but this. And now… now…”
A glimmer of hope whispered through Ellie. “Will you contact your brother?”
She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears once more and dashing Ellie’s dreams of reconciliation. “I cannot. It would be best for both of us if we went on with our lives.”
Ellie grew grim, her lips compressing tightly. “You are resigned?”
She gave a jerky nod of her head. Eleanor could read the hesitation in her gaze. No person, no one, dreamt of a life of dreariness. Perhaps there was time for her yet. But now… right now Eleanor had more important things to worry about. It wouldn’t do to court her husband’s suspicion.
Eleanor stood. Time was of the utmost importance, and as much as it pained her to know she would hurt James, she must tell him the truth before she left London. “If you are sure you will stay here, then I offer you good wishes.”
“Will you visit again?”
Eleanor wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. “I’m afraid not.”
The disappointment in the girl’s face pierced her heart. She didn’t belong here. Hell, it was obvious Arabella didn’t even want to be here. Eleanor started toward the door. There was nothing she could do for her at the moment.
“Do you love him?”
Eleanor froze; her pulse throbbed. She didn’t need to ask of whom Arabella spoke. Slowly she turned to face her. Even the dourness of St. Anne’s had not destroyed the girl’s romantic notions.
“Of course not.” She forced her lips to turn up, giving the girl a kind smile. “I would never be stupid enough to fall in love with a man who loves so many others.”
Arabella seemed disappointed, as if she had actually hoped her brother could find true happiness, true love. She didn’t understand the ways of the world, having been cloistered in a nunnery for years. She didn’t understand, but then again, neither did Eleanor.
Without another word, she pulled open the door and stepped into the hall. She would send a note to James and tell him the truth. Then
she’d send a note to Arabella, asking her once more if she would like a position in a genteel household. It was all she could do for them. And then… then she would do something for herself… she would leave her husband, leave the country.
She turned to flee the dark and dreary establishment, but the tall, male form speaking with the mother superior at the end of the corridor drew her up short. Even though his broad back was to her, Ellie recognized that figure. A shiver of horror raced over her body, freezing her in place.
As if sensing her presence, slowly, Lord Beckett turned.
Her husband’s gaze met hers, and a slow, tight smile drew up the corners of his cruel mouth. “Hello, darling. Please say you’re not thinking of taking vows merely to escape our marriage?”
Chapter 13
It was easy enough to escape the house. James merely left his bedchamber, strolled down the steps, and walked down the hall and out the door. No one stopped him, of course, as there was nothing suspicious in his gait. Or perhaps they assumed he would never flee because he needed Lady Lavender. His family needed Lady Lavender. At least he had thought they did. But his mother was dead. Gone. And his sister was… he didn’t know where.
All he knew was that if he didn’t uncover the truth he would go mad. And if he had to work in the factories to support his sister, he would.
“Anything is possible,” his father had always said. And the old man had believed it; after all, he’d merely been a poor Irishman, yet he had secured a position as a driver with one of England’s most known families. And they’d had a wonderful, lively life until the day his da had been let go.
James managed to slip unnoticed from the house and headed toward the stables. The crunch of gravel underfoot was the only sound in the quiet estate. The evening was their free time, to do as they wished. Some played cards, some went riding, most took naps, preparing for morning. Come morning, he wouldn’t be here.
He carried no bag, for he owned nothing anyway. The clothing, food… it belonged to her. All he pocketed was the measly money she allotted them. Enough money for a train or coach ticket, perhaps. He left the path and followed it to the back of the house. The stables loomed at the far end of the garden, just as clean and well taken care of as the rest of the estate. His heart did not hammer wildly; he had no urge to run. He was oddly calm. Calmer than he’d ever been. Nothing and no one would stop him.