Healing Miss Millworth by Isabella Thorne
CHAPTER1
Miss Ellen Millworth paused for a single moment in the dim foyer of her home, as she returned from Lady Arabella Sedgewick’s home. She took the extra time to fix a careful smile on her face. Her parents, she knew, would immediately and unconsciously search her expression the moment they set eyes upon her, and she would not for the world, cause them distress by showing anything but a pleasant smile. She could not recall a time in her life before where she had needed to school her expression into a smile. Indeed, according to family lore, she had been smiling almost since the moment of her birth.
But these last few months had brought a great many new and unpleasant experiences to her door, and having to order herself to smile was hardly the worst of her trials, she supposed.
“Oh, there you are darling, back from your visit with Arabella already?” Her mother, Mrs. Millworth, exclaimed, rising hastily the moment that Ellen stepped into the cozy parlor. “I had thought that you meant to spend the entire afternoon with the Sedgewicks.” She poked her needle into her embroidery and put it aside to talk to her daughter.
How many times she did that, Ellen thought idly, put things aside for her. Moreso, lately, she realized. Ellen pulled off her gloves and sat down with her mother.
The room smelled like rosewood and the honeysuckle candles that were burning on the mantelpiece. The fire added an earthy, smoky smell.
“Arabella and I had a lovely visit, Mama,” she said, “but we had to cut it short because the earl was called away unexpectedly and needed Arabella to entertain some visitors of his,” Ellen explained, taking a seat near her mother. “Marianne offered to keep them occupied, but you know, Arabella is far too generous to allow her to suffer all afternoon, knowing how Marianne despises small talk.” Ellen gave a small shiver and her mother noticed right away.
“I’ll ring for some tea,” she said. “You are no doubt chilled to the bone. It won’t do for you to come down with an ague after all your trials.”
Ellen did not want to speak of her trials. She nodded, anxious to hold a teacup, which would give her something to do with her hands.
Tea had become a daily ritual with her mother since Ellen was able to sit without randomly bursting into tears when thinking about her ordeal. She tried to put the matter and the man from her mind, but she could not suppress the shiver that accompanied the thought.
“It is cold outside,” Ellen agreed. Tea would certainly warm her, but it was not cold that made her shiver. She didn’t want to talk about her encounter with Sir James Randall, as her mother was wont to call it. The euphemism did not sit well with her. It wasn’t an encounter or an incident. It was a kidnapping, although she had been somewhat complicit, she supposed. How could she ever have imagined herself in love with the villain? She felt soiled, just thinking of him. She shoved the thought away, changing the subject before her mother could go on about her victimhood. She couldn’t bear it. She would concentrate on her friend and her friend’s wedding, which was approaching with some speed.
“Marianne may as well start becoming accustomed to entertaining Lord Sedgewick’s visitors now. The task will fall to her as soon as Arabella and Lord Willingham are married,” Ellen said, keeping the conversation firmly on her best friend’s events and not her own.
“Yes. I suppose that is true,” Mrs. Millworth observed, in the indulgent tone in which she always spoke of the Sedgewick sisters. “Although, I daresay Arabella thinks to spare her as long as she can. I know she has resolved to stop shielding everyone from unpleasantness, but it’s quite the long-standing habit with her, isn’t it, to coddle her younger sisters?”
Ellen smiled. It was interesting her mother recognized the tendency in another and yet saw none of the coddling she herself did.
“I rather think it is more than a habit, for it seems to me to be a part of her very character,” Ellen agreed, smiling genuinely at her mother now, and at the thought of her cousin and dearest friend, who had a tendency to shoulder the weight of the world as a matter of course. “Fortunately, I believe that Lord Willingham will help her find a sort of balance in that sort of thing. He adores her so. It is difficult for him to stand by idly and watch her put herself last.”
“I must say, I am happy that your cousin Arabella found such a dear boy,” Mother said as she poured the tea.
“Hardly a boy, Mama.” Ellen stirred some cream and an inordinate amount of sugar into her cup.
“He is a dear boy, if I may be allowed to refer to a grown, to say nothing of titled, gentleman in such a manner. I am constantly delighted those two have found one another, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Ellen agreed, taking a sip of the hot tea which warmed her. She kept her fingers wrapped around the cup.
“How are preparations coming along for…” Mrs. Millworth suddenly trailed off, looking stricken. Ellen knew it was due to the fact that she had been about to mention the upcoming wedding between Lady Arabella Sedgewick and Lord Christopher Willingham.
“Mama, really, I hope I am not so delicate that I cannot bear to hear the word ‘wedding’,” Ellen said with a small amount of asperity. “You know how happy I am for Arabella, and so does she.”
“Of course, my darling, of course I know that. I only hate to say anything that might cause you any distress. You know that Doctor Larkin cautioned your father and I against reminding you of…of recent events, at least until your unpleasant dreams cease to have such strength and frequency.”
Ellen stared into her teacup, willing away the thoughts of her bad dreams, reflecting that she should not inflict the worry of those dreams upon her mother. She winced at the need to lie to Mama. She had never done so before in her entire life and did not want to do so now, but felt she must.
She laid this new outcome squarely on the lap of that blackguard. She would not name him. She would not even think of him. She cut him from her life and her thoughts.“I slept quite well last night, Mama,” lied Ellen stubbornly. “Like a baby, in fact.”
“You never cried in your sleep as a baby, as you have done recently,” Mrs. Millworth pointed out quietly, looking at her daughter over her teacup. She knew Ellen too well and her steady gaze was piercing, despite its gentleness.
“I do not want you to have to be so constantly concerned over my state of mind, Mama,” Ellen said, standing up from the tea table and moving closer to her mother. She wrapped her arms around the woman’s thin shoulders. Mrs. Millworth had never been inclined to frailty, and Ellen realized that worry over her daughter’s troubles had been affecting the woman even more than she had realized.
“Of all the foolish things to say,” Mrs. Millworth exclaimed fondly, exhaling a shaky laugh. “Whatever else in the world would I concern myself with, my darling? Your happiness and well-being mean everything to your father and I, which is hardly a new development. You have always been the center of our lives.”
Ellen winced. “I am blessed to have the most wonderful, doting parents in existence, I do believe,” Ellen said, kissing her mother’s cheek fondly. “You need not worry about me,” Ellen asserted. “Truly.”
“That is justwhat Doctor Larkin was saying to me only this morning. He called, you know, to bring by a sleeping tincture for you. We are terribly fortunate to have such a doctor nearby. I can’t think of any other physician who had such a perfect combination of knowledge and compassion. His father would have gladly secured an officer’s commission or an excellent living with a prosperous vicarage, you know, his family is quite established and well-off, but I recent learned that Roger fairly insisted upon studying medicine — it really is a passion for him.”
“Doctor Larkin is a very good physician,” Ellen agreed quickly, finding herself rather reluctant to continue on in the man’s praises any further. Roger Larkin, with his handsome, but careworn face and gentle manner, had always seemed quite appealing to her, but as he had been attending her so closely of late, she felt a little embarrassed by the thought. No one, she thought, could blame her for wishing that he did not know just how foolish she had been. “I confess I am a little tired out from my visit, though, Mama. As you say, I didn’t sleep well last night and think I ought to go lay down for just a little bit.”
“Of course you ought to, dearest girl,” Mrs. Millworth said, giving her one more squeeze before releasing her. “Rest as long as you are able. I will call you in plenty of time to dress for dinner.”
Ellen stood.
“You know we must lie all of your woe at the feet of that blackguard,” she said softly. “You mustn’t blame yourself.
Ellen stiffened. Then she nodded as she left the sitting room and made her way to her own bedchamber. Of course, it was her fault, she thought. She was the one who encouraged him. If she had been a true lady, she never would have given the man the time of day once he started to pressure her for more intimacy. She had hoped to air her troubles to Arabella, but she could not cast a shadow on her friend’s wedding, and her mother simply would not believe her child was anything but a victim in the assault.
Heaving a great sigh of relief once the bedroom door was closed behind her, Ellen allowed her false smile to fade. The room was still a bit unfamiliar. She had moved to a guest bedroom after her ordeal because she had been utterly incapable of sleeping in her childhood bedchamber. It was too great a reminder of the hours she had spent happily daydreaming over her erstwhile fiancé and his false, saccharine words. She had thought he loved her. Surely, she had loved him. How could she have been so taken in by his utter insincerity? How had she fallen prey to him, she wondered? She shoved the thought aside. It did not matter. It was in the past now. She must live in the present, and for the future.
* * *
This room,she thought rather drearily, bore none of those foolishly hopeful associations, only the strangely cold sense of despair that had enveloped her all autumn long. Sir James, or rather James Tyner, as his very name had been a lie, but she could never manage to think of him as anything besides Sir James was gone, and good riddance to him. Ellen could think fervently of his exile, but every bit as fervently did she mourn the loss of the man he had claimed and pretended to be, a gallant, sensitive gentleman with the soul of a poet and a heart filled with devotion and adoration for her and her alone. That loss was terrible indeed, although she realized now that she could not have lost that love, when it was never hers in the first place.
In the beginning, when their love was just a dear secret, and she had to content herself with his letters, she had easily idled away many afternoons just reading his beautiful words over and over again until they were imprinted upon her memory. It was a curse now, when she would have given anything to be rid of the nagging memories of his words. She wanted to forget, but it seemed she could not.
“My raven-haired goddess, I am fain to accomplish anything today as I cannot cease thinking of the perfection of your eyes, your laugh, your very essence. What a quandary I am in. It is the thorough resolution of my business affairs that keeps me wretchedly, miserably apart from your light, and yet I cannot give even the smallest portion of my mind to those matters for the idea of you reigns supremely over my mind. I have spent an hour or more already this morning attempting to wrench my attention to trivial, earthly responsibilities, but in vain. I have no responsibility greater than my duty to pay tribute to the queen of my heart with every breath, and I cannot persuade myself that to do otherwise is anything short of blasphemy. Heaven has seen fit to bless an undeserving wretch such as I with that most priceless of treasures, your regard, and surely, I must spend every moment paying tribute, my angel…”
