Page 3 of The Forbidden Love of an Officer (The Marlow Family #7)

Yet Paul had experienced awful things. Death.

Illness. He had cause to be bitter. He had watched friends die and killed others for the sake of freedom in Europe.

He never spoke of those things, though, even when she asked.

He always spoke of good things. But she supposed his months in England were months to forget the Peninsular War.

‘Well? Have you thought about your behaviour, Eleanor?’

Paul’s letter was warm against her blushing skin. Yes, she had thought, and she had made a choice – to leave. ‘Yes, Papa.’

Until this summer she had thought her father was unaware of his daughters, they grew up in the hands of servants, with a daily visit from her mother.

Then, last year, she had reached a marriageable age and he had seen her – but only as a bargaining tool.

He wished her to marry to secure a political alliance.

‘And are you sorry?’

Ellen’s gaze dropped to his shoes. She felt no regret. ‘Yes, Papa.’

‘You will take Argyle?’

Ellen took a breath, longing for courage. She did not feel able to lie to that extent.

‘Eleanor?’

Looking up, she faced his stern condemning glare. His expression was as unreadable as marble. ‘I cannot, Papa. I do not wish to marry His Grace.’ Her father had a way of making other people seem small and insignificant – incapable. ‘Papa?’ Do you love me? Will you miss me?

‘You do not have a choice, Eleanor. You will do your duty.’

His gaze held her at a distance, blunt and cold.

Hers reached out, begging for a sign of his affection. ‘I cannot, Papa. He is so old, and?—’

‘You are being wilful and defiant, Eleanor. You will do as I say and that is an end to it.’

Repudiating words pressed to escape, catching up in a ball in her throat as she longed to argue and plead, to make him accept Paul, but her father did not like emotion.

As children they had been taken away from his presence whenever they cried, or shouted, or laughed.

But today, today she could not quite hold herself back.

‘Papa, please… What would be so wrong with Paul? I love him and he loves me…’

He gave no obvious sign his anger had escalated, yet she knew.

It was in the stiffness of his body, in the cut of his silver eyes as they glared at her.

He was like her in appearance – or rather she was like him.

She had his eyes and his jet-black hair and pale skin.

But she was nothing like him in nature, and she did not wish to be.

What possessed a man to be so cold? He would be handsome if he smiled but he never smiled.

‘Do not be ridiculous, Eleanor. Love… What is it?’ Something you do not feel, Papa.

‘You are talking nonsense. There is nothing in it. You are the daughter of a duke. You have a duty and responsibility, and that is what you must think of in a marriage. It seems you are unrepentant then, and you’ve learned no lesson at all.

You will spend the next full day on your knees.

Study the Bible, ask for forgiveness and pray for guidance.

You will learn, Eleanor. Your mother has been too lenient, letting you dream of such fanciful things.

I will return to speak to you tomorrow, until then you will stay in your room. ’

I will be gone tomorrow . She could continue to argue, she could beg and try to cajole, but her father would never change his mind. He had never done a single thing out of kindness.

Eleanor lowered in another curtsy. ‘As you say, Papa.’

‘As I say indeed, Eleanor. It will be so. You will marry Argyle. I shall write to him today.’ You may write, Papa, but I shall never marry him.

‘Kneel at your bed, child.’ She turned and did so, she had never disobeyed him and even now her heartbeat thundered at the thought of doing so in a few hours. Where would she find the courage? From Paul. Her father would be so angry.

As Ellen lifted her skirt and knelt, her father turned to the door and called to a footman. ‘Fetch the Bible from the chapel, my daughter needs time to search her soul.’

No, she did not. She had found what her soul needed. She had found Paul.

* * *

A quiet knock struck her bedchamber door. ‘Ellen?’

‘Penny?’ Ellen stood. It was dusk, her family had probably just eaten dinner, and their father would be sitting alone at the table drinking his port.

The handle of her door turned but it would not open. Papa had the key.

‘Mama said I must not speak to you, Papa has forbidden it, so of course she will not come, yet I had to know you are well. Are you hungry? Do you wish me to send you something to eat? Has he beaten you?’

Ellen rose from her kneeling position, even though she had been told not to move yet, she could not shout across the room in case someone heard and told tales on them. Then Penny would be in trouble too.

Ellen pressed her fingers against the door, leaning to whisper through it. ‘I know, and I know Mama cannot defend me, she must obey Papa. I do not want him to be angry with her or you. You should go, Penny.’

‘Why is he angry?’

‘Paul made a marriage offer. Papa refused it. He is angry because I encouraged Paul. Do not become caught up in this or Papa will confine you to your room too.’

‘Captain Harding? Oh, Ellen. I like him.’

Resting her forehead against the wood, Ellen smiled. ‘As do I, but Papa does not. He wishes me to accept the Duke of Argyle.’

‘You cannot marry that old man. He is awful, Ellen… I shall come through the servants’ way and speak with you.’

‘No. Papa would be furious. Do not take the risk. I can manage, I am merely a little cold and hungry,’ and I will be gone soon.

‘But you will not agree to marry that old man. I saw him in the summer and?—’

‘Of course not.’ An urge to share the truth and speak of her elopement shot through Ellen’s heart, another arrow of love passing through it, but it would be wrong to involve Penny.

Penny was fifteen, she would not be able to hide her knowledge if their father questioned her, and Ellen would not have Penny hurt.

‘I miss you. Rebecca and Sylvia do nothing but play silly games. Life is so dull without you.’

Penny’s words tugged as if a cord were tethered to the arrow through Ellen’s heart, and Penny pulled it.

But Ellen could not stay. She wanted to be with Paul.

Her hands trembled as her palms pressed against the wood and she leaned closer, feeling the presence of her sister on the other side in every fibre of her body…

This life, this house, was all Ellen had known. She had never travelled beyond the local towns.

Paul had travelled the world. He had told her what life as an army officer’s wife would be. Hard. She was not to expect luxury. But she would be loved and cared for and adored by him. She longed for it. Her heart ached for it. But voices in her head whispered, be afraid…

‘You will manage without me, Penny.’

‘I know I shall. It will only be for a few days. Papa cannot keep you locked away forever.’

‘Yes, only for a few days.’ Years . A desire to tell Penny the truth fought to break the words from Ellen’s lips. But if her father discovered Penny had been told he’d hurt her. ‘You’d better go. I’d never forgive myself if you were caught.’

‘As soon as Papa allows you to come out, find me and tell me everything. Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye.’ Tears flooded Ellen’s eyes as she heard her sister go.

Leaving Penny behind without explanation would cause Penny pain, but it tore at Ellen’s heart too.

* * *

The room had become bitterly cold. Her father had forbidden anyone to tend the fire.

It had burned out hours ago. Ellen’s knees ached from kneeling, yet still she had not risen, even though no one watched her.

Her father’s will had been forced upon her for so many years it was her instinct to obey.

She would break that tether at midnight.

She read through the Ten Commandments for the thousandth time. ‘ Thou shalt honour thy father and mother .’

Was she about to sin, then, because she was going to run away and betray them? Her mother would be heartbroken – she knew how to love. She was even loyal to Ellen’s father, respecting their marriage vows despite his coldness towards them all.

Ellen could not do the same. She could not stay here. She wanted a life with Paul – even if it was sinful and selfish.

It had been dark for hours, and every time the clock in the hall struck, she had counted the chimes. It was past ten.

Pippa had brought her some bread and cheese at eight, wrapped in a cloth, but Ellen had sent her away with a need to obey her father, at least in that. It was a penance for the moment she would break free and shatter any feelings he had.

Excitement and anxiety warred with guilt and sorrow; sadness weighing down her soul. She did not want to leave her sisters and her mother.

But the sadness was outbalanced by the happiness and expectation that she felt.

She was going to Paul. Running towards love.

Yet what else would she run to? All she knew was his love bore more weight than her mother’s or her sisters’.

It owned her heart and made it pulse – not simply made it feel tender.

The clock began to strike again, the sound echoing. One, two…

Ellen knew how many times it would chime.

Leaving the Bible open, she rose, even now unable to fully disobey and close it.

Her feet were numb and her knees stiff, the price she had to pay for what she was about to do.

Everyone in the house retired early to avoid wasting candles. They rose with the sun and retired with it. They would all be in bed.

The chilly air made her shiver, or perhaps it was the overwhelming blend of excitement and fear. She still could not believe she was doing this. She took a leather sewing bag from a cupboard and began emptying it of embroidery threads and ribbons. The clock outside chimed nine… ten… eleven…

Ellen’s eyes adjusted to the shadows cast by the moonlight pouring through the open curtains. She looked about the room.

One hour.

She picked out undergarments and three of her muslin dresses.

Then she fetched her hairbrush and the mirror her mother had bought her when she’d reached six and ten.

That had been over a year ago, but she could remember the day as if it were yesterday.

She had been here in her room, and Pippa had been brushing her hair out before bed with her usual one hundred strokes.

Her mother had come in to say goodnight and she had carried a beautiful wooden box containing the set.

When she had given it to Ellen, she had said it was to mark Ellen becoming a woman. She’d kissed Ellen’s cheek and wished her happiness.

That is what she was running to – happiness. But she could not fit the beautiful box in her bag, so she left it and just packed the brush and mirror.

She sifted through her gloves and picked four pairs, and she picked a dozen ribbons to change the look of her dresses, and some lace to drape at the necks of her evening gowns.

She had no ball gowns. She had never been to a ball, although she had watched one through a door that had been left ajar when her father had held one here.

There were many things she had to leave behind, bonnets, shoes, dresses, her lovely room with its pretty paper painted with birds – her sisters – her mother.

Pain caught in her bosom, sharp and tight, like the press of a little knife slipping into her flesh.

How would she live without them, and yet how would she live without Paul?

And if she chose to stay, what if Papa would not bend and he forced her to take the Duke of Argyle? No, she was doing the right thing.

She stopped and looked about the room. She could take nothing else. But she wished she had thought to cut a lock of her mother’s and Penny’s hair at some point, to remind her of them. It was too late now.

She wiped away a tear before closing the bag and securing the buckle. Then she took her riding habit from where it lay in a drawer and began to change. The thick velvet made it too hard to fit in the bag and it would keep her warm as they travelled.

It was a fabric her mother had urged her to buy, a burgundy red, as deep a colour as port. She was lucky that it fastened at the front so she could dress in it without Pippa’s help.

When it was on, she looked in her long mirror which stood against the wall in the corner of her room, and saw a woman.

Not a child any more. A woman about to desert her family.

Sighing rather than face the guilt which crept in, overlaying her excitement, she turned away to collect her bonnet, cloak and a pair of kid leather gloves.

She would have taken her muff, but she feared carrying too much.

Lastly she put on her half boots, and laced them neatly.

Then she looked into the mirror again, at the Duke’s daughter. She would not be that now. She would be an officer’s wife. She would no longer live in luxury but in simplicity. It was what she chose. It was what she wanted.

Her gaze spun about the room, looking at everything one last time.

‘Goodbye, Mama,’ she whispered into the darkness.

‘Goodbye, Penny.’ Her voice caught as tears burned her eyes.

‘Goodbye, Sylvia and Rebecca. I will pray for you all, I will pray for your happiness and good fortune.’ She paused for a moment as though she half expected them, or the house, to reply.

No sound came. She picked up her bag and went to the servants’ door, then out into the narrow hall.

It was little more than a person wide and pitch-black.

She hurried down the spiralling steps which would take her to the service area and the stables; the fingertips of her free hand skimming across the cold plaster on the wall to guide her way, while her heart pounded out a rhythm that made her light-headed.