Page 92 of Duke of Moonstone
“Alexander,” she said.
She crossed the remaining distance between them and put her arms around him. Her head barely reached his shoulder. She pressed her face against his coat, and her hands gripped the fabric at his back, and she held on as though she were twelve years old again and afraid of a storm.
He gently wrapped his arms around her, his jaw clenched and his throat tight—all of him feeling strained.
“You are well,” he said. It came out rougher than he intended.
“I am.” She pulled back, looked up at him, and smiled—watery, brilliant, and entirely Eleanor. “I am very well.”
She is safe. She is whole. She is here.
He released her, stepped back, and clasped his hands behind his back.
“How is Mama?” Eleanor asked, leading them through a narrow doorway into a parlor. The room was small but well-kept—a fireburning in the grate, a tea tray already set out on a round table, two armchairs and a settle arranged around a faded carpet.
“Her health has been stable,” Alexander said. “She asks after you constantly.”
“I wrote to her. Three times. Did she receive?—”
“She did. She read them aloud to me.”
Eleanor’s face crumpled briefly. “I should have written more.”
“You should not have left at all.” The words came out before he could stop them. He closed his mouth.
Frances touched Eleanor’s arm. “Tell us about the cottage. It is lovely.”
Eleanor seized the subject with visible relief. “It belonged to Malcolm’s great aunt. She left it to him when she passed. It was her only property. We plan to live in England of course. Malcolm has the school. But we want to come back here often. It is peaceful.”
“You came all this way to Gretna,” Alexander said. He sat in one of the armchairs. The cushion was worn but clean. “To marry over the anvil like... like people fleeing a scandal.”
“No.” Eleanor sat across from him, her hands folded in her lap. Her chin came up again—that particular angle that meant she was about to say something she expected him to argue with. “We came to Scotland because Malcolm has family here and because we could marry without needing banns read in a parish where people would whisper. But he refused to do it hastily.”
Alexander looked at her.
“He said...” Eleanor glanced at Frances then back. “He said he would not have anyone believe we married in shame. That if we were to do this, we would do it properly. With family present, if family would come.”
“That is why you invited us,” Frances said.
“Yes.” Eleanor’s gaze returned to Alexander. “I wanted you here. Both of you. I wanted a proper wedding with the people I love.”
“And Mr. Frazer,” Alexander said. “Where is he staying?”
“At the inn in the village. He has been there since we arrived. Mrs. Campbell stays with me here. Malcolm comes for meals sometimes, but he does not stay past dark.”
Alexander said nothing.
A man without means, without title, without any of the protections that status provides—and he took separate lodgingsto preserve her reputation. Even here. Even in Scotland where no one knew them.
“The church is in the village,” Eleanor was saying. She had risen and was pulling Frances by the hand toward the narrow staircase. “Come, I will show you my dress. It is not grand, but it is mine, and I love it. And the flowers... Mrs. Campbell knows a woman who grows the most extraordinary white roses…”
Her voice trailed upward with her footsteps. Frances followed, casting one glance back at Alexander over her shoulder. Her expression was soft. Almost hopeful.
She is happy. Genuinely happy. Not performing it. Not pretending. She is twenty years old, in love, and about to marry a man who took separate lodgings because he respected her enough to do so.
The thought sat with him. He did not push it away.
Eleanor reappeared twenty minutes later, flushed and lively, and proceeded to show him every room in the cottage—all five of them—with the pride one shows when displaying a mansion. The kitchen with its scrubbed stone floor. The upstairs bedroom with its sloped ceiling and narrow window overlooking the garden. The tiny study where Mr. Frazer apparently kept his books, dozens of them, stacked on every surface.
