Page 63 of Snowbound Surrender

She trailed after him, suppressing a grimace. The last thing she wanted was to be beholden to him in any way. Her angst was replaced by concern. Callum was favoring his right leg, making his gait uneven.

“My trunk is too heavy, sir. Pray put it down, and I can send someone else for it.” She came up beside him and laid a gloved hand on the arm that balanced the trunk on his shoulder. Themuscle was hard and twitched under her fingers. She jerked her hand back as if stung.

“Who?” he asked gruffly.

“Pardon me?”

He made a show of looking up and down the empty lane. “Who will you send for?”

Consternation filled her. “Your leg— I’m sure Charlotte?—”

The look he shot her made her clamp her mouth shut. He resumed walking with his uneven stride. “Your sister’s fingers are agile from her sewing, but she is not sturdy enough to lug this monstrosity to her cottage. Are anvils the first stare of fashion for the fancy folk this season?” The barest hint of tease threaded his words along with an emotion she recognized intimately—bitterness.

Still, it was good to feel her ire rise up to replace any sympathy she might have been feeling for him. “As if you would know the latest fashions. Anyone would send you to the servants’ entrance dressed as you are.”

“That would suit me just fine. I’ve always been able to charm a pasty or two from any cook.” His old charisma had bubbled up but quickly popped. “Of course, that was before. I would probably get chased away with a broom these days. Not that I could run as fast and far as I used to.”

She had no trouble keeping pace at his side and stared over at him. His profile was unsmiling and broody.

“Is it a recent injury?” The question popped out before she could stop herself.

She was horrified at her forwardness, especially toward a man she held such feelings of antipathy for.

They had reached her sister’s cottage but stood outside the gate. The withered remnants of fall flowers and leafless shrubs lined the path. He swung the trunk from his shoulder andcocked his injured leg out, putting most of his weight on his good one.

“Do you really want to know what happened?” he asked with no rancor in his tone.

The answer was an unequivocal yes. But the harder question to answer was why was she burning to hear the tale. Did she want to use the information to tweak him with later? Was it idle curiosity? Or would hearing of someone else’s misfortune lessen her own? Was she so selfish and pitiful?

Maybe. Probably. But she didn’t have time to examine her motivations. Her sister burst from the cottage door. “Eleanor! You have arrived safe and sound. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow’s coach. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to meet you.”

Eleanor only had a blink to take in her sister’s stylish woolen forest green gown with gold accents before she was enveloped in a tight hug. Tendrils of Charlotte’s beautiful honey-blond curls had come loose of their pins and tickled Eleanor’s cheek. She smelled of rose water and herbs, fresh and so spring-like it was hard to believe it was approaching the winter solstice.

The welcome was warm and direct and the opposite of what had been aimed at her the past six months in London. Eleanor sagged and set her cheek against her sister’s shoulder like she had when she was a child with a skinned knee.

“You can set her trunk in the entryway, Callum. Thank you so much for escorting Eleanor from the inn.”

Eleanor knew she should thank Callum as well, but if she lifted her head, he would see the tears that had gathered and could imagine what sort of offhand hurtful remark he might make. She managed an indelicate sniff to keep from leaving a snotty trail on her sister’s lovely dress.

Charlotte slipped an arm around Eleanor’s waist and guided her inside while saying over her shoulder, “Will we see you at the festival, Callum?”

“I haven’t decided. Good day, ladies.”

The door closed, and Eleanor’s tears came in earnest.

“Oh, my dear heart, have things been so terrible?” Charlotte led Eleanor into a cozy sitting room, guided her to an armchair by the fire, and handed her a crisp, beautifully embroidered handkerchief. It seemed a shame to spoil it with tears.

Charlotte pulled up a chair to sit close and take first one and then the other of Eleanor’s hands to peel her gloves off as if she were a child come in from playing in the cold. It was the first time in months she’d lost control of her emotions. Once the dam burst, it was hard to contain the torrent, but finally, with a gusty blow of her nose, she took one shuddery breath after another. Charlotte was patient and didn’t pepper her with questions even though Eleanor could feel her brewing curiosity.

“The past months have been…” Eleanor searched for the right word. Terrible—horrid even—but more than that, it had been… “Lonely. So very lonely. It was a shock to lose James in such an outrageous fashion, of course, but then… Everything that came out afterward made it the scandal of the season.”

While the cuts had hurt, the pitying looks had been a worse kind of pain. The kind that ached and spread like an infection.

Marriage to Mr. James Denholm had elevated her status from the daughter of a newly wealthy cit to the lower echelons of the ton. James had been the grandson of an earl. The third son of a third son. Raised with the polished manners and expectations of a lord but without the title or the money of a man in the line of succession.

Eleanor was pretty enough to draw male gazes, but it was her dowry that had landed her a gentleman. She had heard the whispers from the mothers and daughters of the ton…mushroom,upstart,cloven. But she had smiled and persevered, winning over most of the ladies and gentlemen of James’s set. Or so she’d thought.

And then James had broken his neck racing his curricle on a wager. Such a stupid, childish way to meet his maker. That had been bad enough, but as soon as news of his death circulated, everyone from the tailor to the bootmaker to (worst of all) the madam of a whorehouse had come to their front door to call in her husband’s debts. The madam had made clear if she was not reimbursed for the frequent use of her girls that she would stoke the already ruinous rumors as to James’s character.