The air in the drawing-room was thick with tension, heavy as the scent of beeswax and roses from the garden outside. Eleanor did not turn when Edward spoke. She remained before the gilded mirror, tracing the curve of her lips with a deep crimson stain, the colour of claret. The emerald silk of her dress clung to her form, elegant yet daringarmour for a woman who knew her worth.
Edward stood rigid in his evening tailcoat, his fingers fidgeting with his cravat. His voice was low, almost pleading. “If youre so certain Im unfaithful, then tell the company gathered here whose son you really fathered! You confessed it to me yourself!”
Eleanor set down the lipstick with deliberate precision. Her reflection was serene, unreadable. “And what, pray tell, is wrong with him, Edward?” Her tone was cool, measuredthe very absence of emotion unnerving him. He was accustomed to her fiery retorts, to quarrels that ended in reconciliation. But this icy composure was foreign.
He hesitated. “Its onlyMother might think it too bold.”
A faint, humourless smile touched Eleanors lips. “Your mother would find a nuns habit indecent if I wore it. Or have you forgotten her whispered theatrics to Aunt Margaret last week? How I was making eyes at old Mr. Whitakereighty-three and half-blind?”
Edward flinched. He remembered the conversation, had stood in the hall pretending not to hear as his mothers poisonous words slithered through the house. That evening, he had told Eleanor to rise above it.
“Please, not tonight,” he begged. “Its her fiftieth. Let us just endure itfor my sake.”
*Endure.* The word had become the refrain of their marriage these past two years. Endure the sly remarks about her cooking. Endure the anniversary gift*How to Keep a Husband Faithful*left conspicuously on the hall table. Endure the relentless campaign of disdain from Lady Catherine, who ruled the family with a velvet-gloved fist.
Yet something had fracturedperhaps that very morning, as Eleanor fastened the emerald gown and met her own gaze in the mirror. The cup of her patience had not merely overflowed; it had frozen into a blade.
“Very well, my dear,” she said softly. Edward exhaled in relief. “I shall be the picture of grace. I shall smile at your aunts, who think me wanton. I shall kiss your mothers cheek and wish her many happy returns.”
She stepped closer, adjusting his lapel with a touch that was almost tender. He moved to embrace her, but her body was taut as a drawn bowstring.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “I knew youd understand.”
Her eyes lifted to his, devoid of warmth. “I shall even propose a toastto family, to honesty, to loyalty. I imagine your mother will adore it.”
The ballroom of the Savoy was a gilded cage, stifling with perfume and false cheer. Edward beamed beside his mother, the dutiful son, while Eleanor played her partsilent, decorative, enduring the sidelong glances. Aunt Margaret whispered behind a gloved hand; Cousin Beatrice inched closer to her husband as though Eleanor might corrupt him by proximity.
Then came the toast. Lady Catherine rose, resplendent in champagne satin, her voice rich with practiced grandeur.
“Family,” she declared, “is our fortress. Its foundation is virtuehonour, fidelity, purity of heart.” Her gaze lingered on Eleanor. “I raise my glass to these unshakable pillars.”
The applause was thin. Edward squeezed Eleanors hand beneath the table, mistaking her stillness for compliance.
Then the toastmasters booming voice: “And now, a word from the bride!”
Every eye turned to Eleanor. She rose, her smile serene, her grip on the champagne flute steady as a duellists on a rapier.
“Dear Lady Catherine,” she began, her voice clear as cut glass, “I thank you for your devotion to our familys reputation. And to mine.” A ripple of unease. “You spoke so beautifully of honesty. Let us drink to itto the honesty you so cherish *in private*.”
The room stilled.
Then, with lethal calm: “Since you are so certain of my infidelity, do tell the companywho fathered *your* son? For you confessed it to me yourself, drunk on sherry, that Edward is not your husbands child.”
Time stopped. Lady Catherines face drained of colour. Edward froze, his world collapsing into silence.
Eleanor sipped her champagne. “Unlike you, I *have* been faithful.”
The eruption was immediate. Lady Catherine lunged across the table, shrieking, until restrained by her ashen-faced husband and a horrified cousin. Edward seized Eleanors wrist and hauled her from the room, past the ruins of the evening, past the wreckage of their life.
The carriage ride home was wordless. Edward gripped the reins, his jaw set. Eleanor watched Londons gaslights blur past. She felt no triumphonly the hollow relief of a burden shed.
At the townhouse, he finally spoke. “Are you satisfied?”
She turned to him. “That question is for your mother. And for yourself.”
His laugh was jagged. “Youve destroyed her. Destroyed *me*. For what? To prove a point?”
She met his gaze. “You never defended me. You asked me to endure. Tonight, you dragged me away not to spare mebut to spare *her* the truth.”
He stared at her as though she were a stranger. “She is my mother.”
“And I was your wife.”
The words hung between them. That night, he packed his belongings. A month later, the divorce papers arrived.
Spring came. On Westminster Bridge, they met by chance. He had aged; grief lined his face.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello.”
They stood in silence, watching the Thames below.
“Mother has gone to the country,” he offered at last.
Eleanor nodded. He had not asked her for the truth. That was his choice.
“I dont ask forgiveness,” she said softly.
“Nor I.”
They parted without looking back. The river carried the fragments of their past away. The wind tugged at Eleanors hair as she walked ontoward something uncertain, but no longer afraid.
