Page 85 of Her Duke in Shining Armor
“No hat…” Eleanor noticed.
“And I don’t have a cap big enough for your hair even if you plaited it. The bulk would show,” Mr. Wilcox lips twisted into thoughtfulness.
“That is easily fixed,” Eleanor said. “Lady Darcy, do you have pair of scissors?”
Darcy’s eyes went wide, “You aren’t…”
“My hair has been getting overlong anyway,” Eleanor replied, “It grows back quickly.”
“But Eleanor,” Darcy was truly horrified. “It’s yourhair!”
“I am not overly fond of it and besides, it will grow back soon enough,” she finished.
“Are you sure?”
She just nodded and with a sigh, Lady Darcy went to find a pair of scissors and a mirror. Without a word, Eleanor lifted the shears and sliced through a chunk of her hair.
Wedged to their spots on floor, Lady Darcy and Mr. Wilcox watched as she—without a batting eye—repeated the cuts. Their eyes dipped as the red stands fluttered to the floor. When she was done, her hair was as short enough to flutter to her chin and brush back under the cap.
Raking a hand through her hair, Eleanor shook her head to clear any lingering strands, “That should do it.”
Taking Aaron’s clothes, she quickly went to her room and changed. The image of her in boys’ clothes was striking. It was fortunate that she was slim enough to pull the image off. Leaving the room, she came out to find a pair of boots ready for her.
“They’re mine,” Lady Darcy said. “From a lifetime ago.”
Thanking her, Eleanor put them on and tugged on her coat. From the corner of her eye, she spotted Lady Darcy turn worried eyes unto Mr. Wilcox and felt she was intruding.
To give her friend and Mr. Wilcox some privacy, Eleanor stepped out of the room and into the front walk. Her eyes ran over the thick ivy on the boundary walls and the careful mix of light-blue and deep-violet flowers inside dotting the front lawn.
This idyllic existence was one she wished she could have but could not see it in the near future. She was not even sure of the next few days much less the next years. If this fragile guess that she was working off was only foolish speculation and she failed to remove her father, her life would be misery after misery. Her father would see her betrayal as unforgivable and he would never trust her again.
He might marry me off to some foreigner…
The enormity of what she was risking almost made her call this venture off but she swallowed the fear. She had to avenge her mother. If she was proven wrong or she failed then she would deal with that. There was no time to debate possibilities and lose her one chance. She had to take it.
“Lady Eleanor?”
Eleanor realized that Mr. Wilcox had probably been calling her name for a while and her head swiveled over to Mr. Wilcox with an apologetic smile, “Excuse me, I have a bad habit of woolgathering too deeply.”
“I am not offended,” Mr. Wilcox said as a carriage came to the gate. “Oberton needs a lady like you. He absolutely despises the vapidity of ladies of the ton.”
“He took me by surprise,” Eleanor said as Mr. Wilcox helped her into the carriage, “with the plan to track down my mother’s physician. I had not thought of that.”
“That is Oberton for you,” Mr. Wilcox noted. “He thinks in unconventional ways…unless his temper gets ahead of him and he reaches for his pistols…or when he turns those massive Irish hellhounds of his on you.”
“You trust him with your life, don’t you?”
“And him with mine.” Mr. Wilcox replied while handing over the short-brimmed hat.
That was the extent of their conversation during the ride to her countryside home. Having not been that way in years, Eleanor, after they had left the outskirts of the city, tried to merge the new sights with the ones she faintly remembered.
They passed long stretches of forest that bled into farmland, the lonely drab roadside inn and then more trees. Old faded memories merged into new images and she found her lips curving at the corners. The roads were lonely and though the silence in the carriage lured her to sleep, she could not.
Her eyelids were lowered and under them, she saw how Mr. Wilcox eyes were trained out the window. There was no speck of placidity in him and his eyes were vigilant.
Darcy has found a good man.
She kept up the image of resting until the surroundings became too familiar.That signpost…that fork in the road…that guardhouse…
