“Plans change,” he said. We cannot control everything, Lily. If Eleanor wants to go somewhere, then she can.”
Lily shook her head, her certainty returning, though it was not as steady as before.
“No,” she said. “Not like this. She told me that she would never leave. She promised.”
He had no answer for that. The silence stretched between them, filled with everything he could not explain and everything shedid not understand. Lily looked toward the door again, as though expecting it to open, as though refusing to accept that it would not.
“She is coming back,” she said after a moment. “She will come back, I know it.”
“Lily, I… I do not know if that will happen.”
“Then why not? What did you do?”
“Why do you assume that I am at fault?”
“Because she would not have left if she was not told to. She did not want to. She liked it here with us.”
Lily turned back to him, waiting for him to respond, but Julian did not know what to say. He was entirely at fault, and there was no explanation for it that she would have understood.
“You said she would stay,” she repeated.
Julian held her attention for a moment before speaking, and when he did, his voice was quieter than before, though no less certain.
“I was wrong. I should not have assumed that Eleanor would be happy to stay here when I did not treat her as though we wanted her to be here– as though I did.”
The words did not soften anything.
Lily stood there, absorbing them in a way that did not allow for immediate reaction.
“She left because of you,” she said at last. “Is that what you are saying?”
Julian did not deny it. Lily looked at him for another moment, then turned away without another word, leaving him standing where he was as she moved back down the corridor, her steps slower now, her absence following quickly after. Julian wondered what she was thinking, but he could only do so for a moment before he had to stop himself.
If she hated him, he would understand. Ever since Lily had met Eleanor, she had adored her. There had never been an attempt from anyone to replace their mother with her, but Julian had to admit that Eleanor had filled a space that had been there ever since their mother had left. She was a friend to Lily, her only real friend, and now she was gone and she was alone again.
And the blame lay entirely with him.
Julian remained where he stood, another terrible realization settling in his mind and refusing to leave. He had fallen for his wife, and that was what had startled him so sharply. It was nothing that Eleanor had done at all, and simply that he was as afraid that she would leave as his sister was. It was easier for him to push her away under the guise of it not hurting as much that way, but it all felt even worse.
Because the blame lay entirely with him, and if she did not come back then he would have to remember that for the rest of his life.
He had not lost her to another man. He had driven her away from him entirely of his own accord, and in doing so, he had ruined his entire life, as well as that of his sister.
He simply hoped that, wherever she was, she was happier than she had been with him.
CHAPTER 29
Anne did not allow Eleanor to remain indoors again for long, and Eleanor was grateful for that.
By the following afternoon, an invitation for a small gathering in a neighboring garden had arrived. It was nothing formal enough to demand attendance, but respectable enough to make refusal difficult without good explanation.
“You will come with me, of course” Anne said. “You cannot sit here and convince yourself that this is what you want forever.”
“This is what I want.”
“It is not, and you and I both know that.”
Eleanor considered declining the invitation all the same. The idea of stepping into company so soon after leaving the estate held little appeal, and she was not inclined toward polite conversation that required more effort than she was willing togive. And yet, remaining where she was would not ease anything either. It would only leave her with her own thoughts, circling the same conclusions without any resolution being reached.