The duchess had to give her current companion credit for at least trying to hide her emotional turmoil. Evaline Grenford spilled the tea she was trying to pour, blotted the letter she was instructed to write, pricked her finger with the needle when she was set to some sewing, and completely forgot what she’d been sent for on five separate errands, so that she had to return to Eleanor to ask for the instructions again. But she denied anything was wrong; pasted on a smile that looked more like a rictus; insisted she was perfectly fine.

Until Her Grace set her to reading a story about a faithless man who left the woman who loved him, and then at last Evaline broke down into the tears she so desperately needed, and Eleanor was able to enfold her in her arms and listen to the story she already knew. A man who offered his love, but who took money from the duke and Evaline’s father to go away? Evaline’s heart was broken, and more — her pride was hurt.

“I am sure they must have threatened him,” the girl wailed.

From what Eleanor had heard, the young man had accepted his payment with every evidence of satisfaction. “Do you think so, my dear?” she asked, and Evaline coloured scarlet.

“No,” she whispered. “I think he did not love me as I loved him. Oh, but it hurts!”

Eleanor stroked the girl’s hair. “I know. I know, Evaline.”

“How can you know? You are married,” the girl wailed. “You have never lost as I have lost.”

Eleanor’s stroking hand did not pause; her comforting murmurs did not cease, but the eyes that looked sightlessly across the richly appointed apartment shone with unshed tears.

20 years earlier

James appeared as if from nowhere, slipping his hand under hers and leading her aside through a doorway. The room beyond was not being used for this afternoon musicale. They were alone.

Eleanor threw herself into his arms, pressing her lips to his, and for a moment he returned the desperate passion of her kiss. But all too soon he drew back. “Eleanor. My love. I had to see you one last time.”

“Last time?” Eleanor had known it was coming ever since she had heard of the duel, but she did not want to believe it. “No, James. No, you cannot go.”

“If I stay, I face charges. The king is determined to make an example, and if the duke dies, I will be hanged for murder.”

Eleanor was shaking her head. She did not care about the duke. “This is all his fault,” she hissed. “But James, surely your father…”

“My father, your father, and Haverford. They’re all in it together. Eleanor, I hope he does die. At least then you will be safe.”

Eleanor shivered. She had refused her father’s plans to marry her to the Duke of Haverford, and the old beast had reacted by attempting to compromise her at a Society ball. No. Call it what it was — to ravish her, and with her father’s blessing. If James had not arrived in time…

“Come with me,” James begged. “I can look after you, darling. And we’ll be together. We can face anything together.”

Leave England and her mother and sister? Her friends? But Eleanor hesitated only for a moment. “Yes. Now? Shall I come now?”

Someone rattled the door James had locked, and they heard her companion’s — say, rather, her jailor’s voice. “Lady Eleanor? Lady Eleanor, are you in there?”

“I need to make some arrangements. I’ll send you a message, my love.”

They met for one more kiss, and then James slid up the window and climbed over the sill. “Tomorrow. I will come for you tomorrow,” he whispered.

“I’ll be ready,” she promised.

And those were the last words they had ever exchanged. That same night, her father sent her, heavily guarded, into the country. The very next day, so she found out later, the Duke of Winshire’s men had caught up with his disobedient son as James attempted to scale the walls into Haverford House, and had taken him bound and gagged aboard a ship bound for the East via the Cape of Good Horn.

He would come back, she told herself. She had merely to keep refusing her father, and one day he would come back. She endured imprisonment, even beatings and starvation, holding hard to her trust in her love, until the day the news came. James had been killed. She no longer had a reason to live, but her body refused to die. When Haverford offered once more for her hand, she accepted, hating him less than she hated her father. Though that would change.

This little bit of back story fits with my next story for the Bluestocking Belles. Paradise Regained catches up with James Winderfield, rebel son of the Duke of Winshire. He is very much alive, some 20 years after his attempt to elope with Lady Eleanor Creydon, our very own Duchess of Haverford and the mother of the Marquis of Aldridge.