Page 80 of The Duke's Sinful Deal
When the door was opened, Eleanor stood near the center of the room.
She did not turn at once, though it was clear she had heard them enter. Her posture was rigid, her hands clenched tightly around something she held before her.
Letters.
Arabella recognized them at once.
“Eleanor,” she said.
Her sister turned.
The expression that met her was not merely anger. It was sharper than that, edged with something closer to betrayal, though it was the anger that carried forward first.
“You will explain this,” Eleanor said, her voice controlled only by effort. “Immediately.”
Maxwell stepped forward then, just enough to be acknowledged without intruding upon the exchange. “Lady Eleanor,” he said, inclining his head. “The Duke of Northwood.”
Eleanor’s gaze flicked to him, taking in his presence without softening in the slightest. “Your Grace,” she said, the title precise, though it did nothing to temper the force of her attention.
Then she looked back at Arabella.
“What have you done?”
Arabella drew in a breath, but the words did not come as easily as she had hoped.
The drawing room, which had seemed warm and familiar only that morning, now felt too still, too contained for the force ofEleanor’s anger. Light fell in steady bands across the carpet from the tall windows, catching at the pale blue of Eleanor’s traveling gown and the tight white crush of the letters in her hand. The fire had been lit despite the mildness of the day, and the faint crackle from the grate only sharpened the silence between one question and the next.
“I know how it must look,” Arabella began, careful to keep her voice even. “But it was not done thoughtlessly.”
Eleanor let out a breath that was almost a laugh, though there was nothing amused in it. “Not done thoughtlessly?” she repeated, staring at her as if she could not decide whether to be wounded or furious first. “Arabella, I returned from my trip to find two letters waiting for me, one from you and one from a man I have never met, calmly informing me that you are married. Married. And you expect me to believe this was done with care?”
Arabella took a step forward without meaning to, drawn by the strain in her sister’s voice as much as the accusation in it. “I did not want you to hear it from anyone else,” she said.
“And yet I did not hear it from you, not truly,” Eleanor shot back. She lifted the letters slightly, the paper shaking just enough to betray how tightly she held them. “I heard of a decision already made. A ceremony already finished. A life altered before I was even given the chance to stand beside you.”
Arabella flinched, though she tried to hide it. That, more than the anger, struck where she had no defense.
“Eleanor,” she said softly, “I am sorry.”
Her sister turned away at once, as if the apology only sharpened the wound. She crossed toward the hearth, then stopped there, one hand pressed briefly to the mantel while the other still held the letters at her side.
“Sorry does not undo it,” Eleanor said, her voice lower now, though no less strained. “Sorry’ does not give me back your wedding day.”
Arabella looked down for a moment, her fingers curling against the fabric of her skirt. She could feel Maxwell’s presence a few feet away, quiet and steady, not intervening, not crowding the conversation, but not leaving her to weather it alone either. The awareness of him steadied her more than she wished to admit.
“I know,” she said. “And if I could have found a way to spare you that hurt, I would have.”
Eleanor turned back sharply. “Then why did you not wait? Why did you not send for James? For me? For anyone with a grain of sense?” Her gaze flicked briefly toward Maxwell, then back to Arabella. “What could possibly have been so urgent that you chose this?”
Arabella opened her mouth, closed it, then tried again. “The situation?—”
“The situation,” Eleanor repeated, the word clipped. “Yes, I gathered there was some situation, though neither of your letters thought fit to explain it plainly enough to make any of this reasonable.”
Arabella felt heat rise into her face, partly from nerves, partly from the memory of exactly how little could be explained without saying too much. She glanced once toward Maxwell, then back at her sister.
“There was talk,” she said carefully. “A witness. A misunderstanding that could have become something far worse if we had not acted quickly.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. “Then it should be undone just as quickly.”
