13th of May, 1808
Henry,
I wanted to start this letter with “My dearest Henry,” but I realize I lost that right when I walked away from you in Brussels. I am sorry I walked away from you, you will never know how profoundly. I am sorry I hurt you, and most of all, I am sorry I did not put my trust in you. You were and are far more deserving of it than my husband ever was, and I should have known that.
I know I hurt you with what you saw as my betrayal, and I cannot, will never be able to, take that hurt away. All I can hope is that one day you will read this letter and perhaps understand why I did what I did, even if it was the wrong thing for us all in the end.
I thought at the time it would be best for both of us if I went back with Ostley. I know you think I went back to him because of the comfortable life he could provide me with and your lack of money and prospects at the time. I admit that was part of my motivation to return to my dull rural existence, but it was your father who convinced me our elopement had the potential to ruin your entire future. You were not meant to be a lowly clerk in Brussels, and I did not want to be the one who held you back. You were so young, and you would have resented me for it sooner or later, just like I resented you for our lack of money.
Your father promised to reenroll you in university so you could finish your degree, and that in turn would gain you the freedom from his influence you so desperately wanted. He also promised, if I went back to my husband, he would help you weather the scandal our elopement had created.
Ostley, for his part, promised me all would be forgiven if only I came home with him. He even offered to give the child I was carrying legitimacy under his name.
I was naïve and more than a little scared to give birth in a foreign country, far from the comfort of my mother’s arms, but I was stupid to believe him. I was stupid, and I should have known better. I had been his wife for four years before we eloped, and I did know better than to believe he would take me back without repercussions, even if he had not been able to get me with child in all that time and needed an heir.
He behaved like the perfect gentleman on the journey home, reinforcing the fiction of his forgiveness, but as soon as the doors closed behind us at Ostley Manor, he gave orders I was not to leave the house and certainly not the estate. Then he dragged me to his study and proceeded to do his very best to beat our child out of me. Every day, he summoned me to the study and beat me until he tired. But my precious baby girl held fast, and since she would not give up, neither could I.
He kept that up for almost a month before the housekeeper noticed my morning sickness and the absence of my menses and took Ostley aside. She told him she believed me to be in an interesting condition and, although I clearly deserved the beatings, it wasn’t Christian to punish the innocent babe. The housekeeper had been with his family for decades and held a prominent position in the parish, so he did not dare go against her, and I was left alone from then on.
It was several months later and I had just started to hope Ostley would accept the child as his own after all, when Lord Astor arrived. When I had flirted with him in Oxford, I had not known he was acquainted with Ostley, so I first assumed his visit was on my behalf. But instead of gallantly fawning over me, he took one look at my pregnant belly and sneered at me in disgust. And when I attempted to host dinner for him like any woman would in her home, he told Ostley to send me to my rooms so they could talk business, since he wasn’t going to take a pregnant bitch in payment. I was shocked and confused at his language, but the way he looked at me whilst saying it left no doubt as to whom he was speaking of, and so, after my husband sent me from the room, I went to the room above the dining room and opened the chimney flue so I could hear what they talked about.
What I discovered, kneeling in front of the cold fireplace and trying my best not to make any noise, made my blood run cold. Apparently, Astor is a prominent member of a secret organization, the purpose of which seems, at least partly, sexual in nature. Ostley had been introduced into it, but in order to gain full membership, he had to offer something another member wanted. Money does not seem to be an option with these people, it has to be something secret or personal, so he had offered me. That was apparently why Astor had paid attention to me in Oxford. He sought my acquaintance to decide whether he wanted to accept me as Ostley’s offering. It turns out he had wanted me and had accepted the bargain the very night you and I eloped. However, I was now heavy with your child, and he no longer wanted me.
I realized right there on the cold stone floor why Ostley had come after us, why he had wanted me back, and why he had tried to rid me of my pregnancy.
Astor was furious that Ostley had not succeeded on that last count, and they argued for hours before Astor offered him a new deal. If the child was a girl, she was to be given to Astor twenty-four hours after I delivered. She then was to be brought up to become his personal slave. Astor would accept her as offering, and he would consider it adequate revenge on me as well as you.
I knew I could not risk telling you any of this at the time; these people were much too powerful and dangerous for you to deal with. But I could send my child to you and trust you to keep her safe, perhaps even love her, so that is what I did. I managed to send word for you to wait at the crossroads and bribed my maid to bring you the infant, no matter whether I lived or died. I delivered her, held her for a precious few minutes, and then wrapped her in a blanket and the soiled birthing linens before she was smuggled out of the house. Ostley was told it was a stillbirth, and I was distraught enough for him to believe it, until word got out you were taking care of your illegitimate daughter several months later. But by then Ostley had already arranged for one of his cronies to lie with me, and I am once again pregnant with his potential heir, so he seems to be letting it go. Or maybe he just does not want to admit to what he had planned to do with my daughter. Either way, neither I nor my unborn child seem to be in any danger at present.
— Cecilia
5th of December 1809
My son, and Ostley’s heir, is now one year old, and although I am still a virtual prisoner on the estate, I find great solace in being the best mother I can be to the child I am allowed to keep. Thank God the boy is blond and green-eyed like Ostley, so it’s easy for him to feel as if he truly were his father. Charles is as yet too small to take hunting or parade around the neighborhood on a pony, so he is left mostly in my care.
I thank God every day that I was able to send our daughter to you. Thank you for taking her in. I know you did the best you could for her, and I hear through my mother—who is now allowed to visit me every month since I presented Ostley with his heir—that you named her Emily and that she is being educated with Avon’s children whilst you serve king and country on the Peninsula. I am glad she is at Avon; your cousin is not likely to take any chances with his children, and the fact that he and Astor’s ducal father are bitter enemies in the House of Lords will make it even less likely for Astor to gain access to her while she lives there. I have not heard from or seen Lord Astor since that night, and Ostley never mentions him to me. But I do not know what he does, or with whom, when he goes to town, so I do not know whether Astor is still a threat to Emily.
I do not know if or when I will be able to send you this letter. And if I manage to send it, will you read it? You have every reason to think me shallow, spoiled, and heartless. I can only hope that if you do read this, you might find it in your heart to forgive me, and perhaps you will tell our daughter that I do love her and did not abandon her without good reason.
Know that my feelings for you were true, even if they were not strong enough to withstand the pressures of the world around us. I wish I would have been stronger, wiser, but that is neither here nor there.
Forgive me, and perhaps if I am lucky, I will get a chance to ask Emily for forgiveness one day.
— Cecilia
The last lines of the letter had blurred, and Henry finally allowed himself to shed the tears he had stubbornly refused to let fall until now. There had been a reason, a very good reason, and he didn’t know why it still mattered after all these years, but it did. He felt like he’d been punched in his gut, and it took him a while to compose himself sufficiently to read the note accompanying the letter. There was a new lightness in his heart. Cecilia had not abandoned their daughter; she had done her best to keep her safe. And, of course, she had not been able to write a better explanation within minutes of giving birth.
Even when she had left him in Brussels, she had not been entirely selfish. All he had believed to be true for twelve years was, in fact, not.
His world felt as though it had shifted on its axis, but he was as yet unsure as to what the repercussions of that shift would be, so he wiped his fogged spectacles, pulled the note forward, his hands still shaking, and read what Cecilia had written the day before.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
And thank God you arrived when you did to save that girl and eliminate the evil that was Astor, and the other man you shot. I am relieved beyond all measure to have seen with my own eyes that Astor is dead and is, therefore, no longer able to harm Emily. Whether that means there is no longer any threat to her safety, I cannot say for sure, but I am sure Astor was the one who sought revenge through her.
I was brought through a tunnel from the Highgate side of the heath to that horrible cellar and forced to watch what they did to the poor girl through a window. It must have been some kind of mirror on the other side, because none of you could see us. There were three more men in that room besides Ostley. We were all told to wear masks, so I cannot tell you who they were, except one of them was very old and walked with a carved ivory cane. To my utter horror, they all enjoyed what they saw. And then they departed like ghosts the moment Astor was shot.
Ostley told me the girl is Avon’s illegitimate daughter, and that she was chosen to punish him for helping you take care of Emily, in order to send a message to you. I hope this information will help you keep our daughter safe.
You must have a hundred questions, and if you really need to contact me, you can try to do so through my mother, Mrs. Winters, 15 Emery Way, Oxford. But please read the letter I enclosed first. It may give you the answers you seek. I know I am asking a great favor, but please consider that any contact between you and me would give Ostley an excuse to take my son away from me.
Thank you again, and may God be with you.
— Cecilia
ELIZA ENTERED SOME TIME LATER to tell Henry dinner was ready to be served, and found him bent forward over his desk with his head in his hands. The picture he presented was so utterly desolate, she rushed to his side and enfolded him in her arms. Henry shifted in his seat so he could pull her into his lap, and once she was settled there, he buried his face in the curve of her neck and sobbed.
Eliza held him tight and massaged his scalp until his shoulders stopped shaking and his breathing calmed. And while she sat there and comforted him, she read the note that started with Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! and was signed by Cecilia, and wondered what was in the rest of the letter to upset him so much.
As if reading her mind, Henry reached around her and wordlessly handed her the letter.
Eliza read the whole of it, her heart aching for what the poor woman had endured, and what her suffering must mean to Henry. By the time she finished reading, he had finally calmed enough to speak.
“Oh God, Eliza, I loved her so much, and then she left me, and I was so hurt. That day she had her maid leave Emily in the crossroads, I hated her, and I realize now that that hate has kept me going.”
Henry lifted his head far enough out of the curve of Eliza’s neck to take a big breath and let it out slowly. “But I can’t hold on to it any longer, and I don’t know what to do with the love and betrayal that lie just beneath. I was too hurt to find out what happened to her. I abandoned her to her fate, and now it’s too late to save her, and I still don’t know how to move on.”
Eliza drew a handkerchief out of a pocket and dried his face, then kissed the lids of his eyes. “But now you can forgive her. And once you can forgive yourself, you can start to trust your heart again, because, after all, you hadn’t been wrong about her. She did love you, and she did try to do the best she could by you and Emily. She was a victim of circumstance as much as you were back then. The difference is, you rose above yours, and she chose to return to hers and now chooses to remain.”
Henry framed her face with his hands and looked at her with wonder. “How is it that you, with barely eighteen years of life experience, can see this whole situation so clearly, and I, who have lived a decade longer, been to war, faced untold dangers, and raised a daughter, can only see the tragedy of it all?”
Eliza stroked his cheeks and smiled sadly. “Perhaps because I, too, had to make an impossible choice. But I got lucky and I chose you. You restored my faith in humanity before I could completely lose it.”
Henry remembered the moment last November on the road into Hampstead, when she had chosen to leave all she knew behind and put her trust in him. “You chose the devil you didn’t know: me.”
She smiled again, and there was no sadness in it this time. “And I choose you again now. You asked me earlier today if I would stay with you.”
She saw hope there, and it warmed her heart. “I will stay with you, love, until the day you decide it is time for you to find a wife and mother for Emily.”
The smile suffusing his face was as radiant as the rising sun. He pulled her into a kiss full of hope and love and tenderness, and finally spoke against her lips. “Thank you, my sweet Eliza. Whatever is left of my heart is yours.”
LATER ON THAT NIGHT, AFTER Henry had departed for White’s to meet Avon, Eliza went up to Henry’s rooms to nap while she waited for him, and found a book lying in the center of the bed.
It was a thin volume, beautifully bound in dark blue leather with silver lettering and a light blue silk ribbon for a bookmark. It contained a collection of poems by John Keats.
Eliza paused, remembering Henry’s teasing when he had found her reading one of Keats’s poems at the bookshop the day they had gone shopping for Emily’s birthday presents.
Picking up the charming little volume, she opened the first page to find a dedication.
To my sweet Eliza,
You are my thing of beauty.
Yours always,
— Henry
THE END