She wanted to say that she was afraid. She wanted to shout it out so that he might actually hear her. Afraid of herself and of her reactions! Afraid others might notice or that Cristo Wellingham himself might notice or that the feelings she held deep inside her would never be returned as he made a play for one of the other younger and prettier girls present.
But she could say none of this because to voice even a little of it would be to betray Martin altogether, and he had no idea at all that Cristo Wellingham was the Frenchman who had taken her into his bed in Paris. So she stayed silent, smiling as he took her hand and turned it palm upwards.
‘I want you to go and enjoy this chance, Eleanor. I want you to be happy again.’
That threw her. ‘I am not sad.’
‘Preoccupied, then. Lately you have been different.’
The truth settled around them. His truth and her own at odds, but she could not hurt him with the kindness in his eyes and the history between them.
‘Perhaps we should go away, Martin, far from London, to the hills up north or to the sea on the south coast. The change of air could be good for you after all …’
He stopped her before she went any further. ‘I doubt that I could manage a big shift of circumstance and I enjoy watching the traffic go by from my upstairs bedroom. It always makes me feel a part of the world.’
‘Of course.’ The chance to simply decamp from the city was not an option and so she nodded, knowing that in her capitulation she was risking everything and equally as determined not to.
Beaconsmeade was a large Palladian-style country house situated on rising ground with lawns stretching up to it and parkland as far as the eye could see below.
The party was in full swing when they arrived as a number of other carriages had come at the same time as they had.
With servants and horses and people and luggage the circular drive was awash with movement and Eleanor did not see Beatrice-Maude Wellingham until the very last moment.
‘I am so pleased that you could come,’ the older woman said as she took her hand in her own. Looking about quickly to see if any other Wellinghams were in close proximity, she relaxed when she saw that they were not.
‘I have placed you on the second floor in the blue suite of rooms. The girls are in the larger dark blue room and their mother in the smaller one with an adjoining door. You will have the light blue room a little farther down the corridor. I hope this will be to your liking.’
‘Oh, I am certain it will all be lovely,’ Eleanor replied, wishing as she said it that she might have been allotted a shared room with her sister-in-law as a further safety.
‘The Duke and Duchess of Carisbrook will be coming presently, but Cristo cannot be down until the morning. Lady Lucinda has arrived already with the Henshaws and the Beauchamps.’
‘A full house, then,’ Diana chirped in, standing at Eleanor’s elbow now with glitter-bright excitement in her eyes.
Beatrice-Maude smiled. ‘We will have some of the local families here, too, and their offspring for the evening meal. I am certain your daughters will enjoy their company.’
Sophie and Margaret nodded politely and Eleanor could almost read their thoughts as they did so. It was not the local boys that the girls had set their hearts on at all, but Cristo Wellingham with his silvered hair and secrets. She had been regaled all the way down with his wealth and his prowess at fighting and the château that he was reputed to own in Paris.
Eleanor had longed to ask how they had found out these things, but didn’t because any interest might be misinterpreted and she had no desire for her nieces to perceive a curiosity they would question.
Even now Sophie risked good manners and broached a topic of her own.
‘Will Lord Cristo be coming alone, madam?’
‘He will, Miss Cameron, although I am not certain whether he will spend the night here or not.’
Better and better, Eleanor thought and smiled properly for the first time in days. Twelve hours at most to be in his company and then that would be the end of it. Apart from a few moments of polite and general conversation what really could go wrong? A clap of thunder and the beginning of a shower of rain sent them hurrying inside.
She should never have got on this stupid horse, she thought the next day as it again took the lead and tried to head into the thinning forest away from the track.
‘Keep up, Eleanor,’ Diana called from in front. ‘Use the whip and then it won’t tarry.’
All morning she had been struggling with the steed, and though the whole party had made great allowances for her and had slowed their pace considerably, the beautiful wide tracks in the forest had become too much of a temptation and they had gone ahead to wait for her at the end of the pathway.
The skin beneath the gloves on Eleanor’s hands was beginning to ache with the constant tugging and the rain threatening yesterday was again in sight, bands of dark grey clouds looming overhead.
Suddenly she had just had enough, and, dismounting, she determined to lead her horse on foot.
‘You go on, Diana.’ Her shout made Diana stop, caught between the outlines of her disappearing daughters and Eleanor’s distress.
‘Should I stay with you?’
‘No. Sophie and Margaret may need you and I think I have had enough of riding. Besides, I can see the house from here so shall make my own way back.’ The countryside of Kent was beautiful and in the places where the trees did not stand she saw fields in the distance and the house of Beaconsmeade on the ridge behind.
There was a short silence and then acquiescence. ‘Well, if you are certain …’
‘I am.’
‘I’ll send back a servant to accompany you when I catch them up.’
When Eleanor nodded Diana used her whip hard against the flanks of her mount and was gone, the noises of the small forest closing in again around her.
Silence in a natural way. She felt elated by her solitude, something she rarely had in London. Removing her hat, she loosened her hair so that it fell in waves down her back, the length of it almost touching her waist.
Cristo Wellingham had not come. She had thought he would be there in the morning when she had gone down for breakfast, but he had been delayed and was not now expected to arrive till well after luncheon.
Her eyes went to the watch in her pocket. The servant that Diana had spoken of had not appeared and she wondered why. Almost twelve o’clock now. If she tarried a little and explored a few of the paths that went off this one, she might be away for a while longer. Her thoughts calculated how long she could be away without raising any alarm and she decided thirty minutes or so might not go amiss. The path to her left looked fairly robust and flat and the trees around it thinner than any of the other tracks. If she turned off here?
Marking her exit with a stone she gathered a few of the wildflowers around it and placed them on the top. When she returned to this point she would know to proceed left. Glancing up and down the well-used track once more just to see that no servant had been sent back to help her, she walked into the dimness, leading the horse, and her shape was lost in the shadows.
‘She said she would go directly back and I watched her turn for Beaconsmeade.’
Lady Diana Cameron, Westbury’s sister, was speaking and the shrill panic in her voice was easily heard. Outside the weather was worsening and the clouds threatening all morning had finally broken into rain.
Cristo stepped into the pandemonium, having set foot in Beaconsmeade only ten minutes prior.