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Eloise finds herself overcome with the strange longing to apologize to Cressida. Perhaps now that she’s done it once, she has developed an inconvenient taste for it. It’s only that she cannot shake off the memory of Cressida’s sincere joy at seeing her come to call, nor her awareness that Eloise was not made to rhapsodize over pink rooms. It leaves a niggling discomfort, the knowledge that she used Cressida for her family’s benefit and Cressida saw only friendship.
She would like to tell Cressida the truth — that the visit was instrumental in Benedict and Sophie’s happily ever after — but all the business with the will must be kept secret. She feels certain, perhaps irrationally so, that Cressida would be pleased to hear it, that she would not betray Eloise’s confidence or let her down a second time. But it is not Eloise’s secret to keep or give away.
So instead, she brings the new Lady Penwood a book.
“I thought we might discuss it,” says Eloise, settling down on the settee beside Cressida in her very pink room. “Assuming married women have time to read.”
“I have time to do whatever I like,” Cressida announces with a smugness that is oddly charming. She would toss her hair, Eloise suspects, if such a feat were possible with the architectural wonder atop her head. Upon examining the cover, Cressida adds, “I have already read this one.”
“You have?”
“The days were very long in Wales. But I would be delighted to read it again. Oh, poor Fanny Price. It isn’t her fault that she is so dull. And after all, she is right about most things. That is such a fascinating way for a person to be — dull and right.” She eyes Eloise pointedly.
Eloise decides to take the dubious compliment. “I thought perhaps you might sympathize with it. What it is like to be forced from all sides to marry a man you do not want. Fortunately, you got your happy escape, just like Fanny.”
“Indeed. Though I think I am more a Miss Crawford, don’t you? And you my dear Miss Price.”
“I don’t know,” says Eloise. “Sometimes I fear I possess Miss Crawford’s sharp tongue.”
“But she is the better-dressed of the two, and so you must agree I have dibs.”
“I concede.” Eloise can’t help smiling. “I hope our friendship proves more successful than theirs did.”
“So do I.” Cressida smiles back. “I think it shall. Ought I to get a pug like Lady Bertram, now that I too am a lady of leisure?”
“Oh, no. A pug would never do. You need something much more stylish. A poodle?”
“A white one,” envisions Cressida, her eyes glazing over, “dyed pink.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“You have all the best ideas, Eloise. Speaking of: how goes your search for marriage?”
“Oh—“ Eloise wonders whether to lie. She decides against it. “It doesn’t.”
“Doesn’t it? What a shame. Your mania did not last, I see.”
“It did not,” she says wryly. “I can admit that I’m glad for others who find love. My brother and his new bride, for instance — theirs was a hard-won happiness, and I’m rather thrilled they found it. But I cannot see myself as they are. As any of my married siblings are. All—all adoring kisses, and embracing under the moonlight, and endless swooning, and what have you. I think I might stomp on the toes of any man who tried it.” Eloise bites her lip. “Whatever it is that makes one swoon, I’m afraid I was built without.”
Cressida contemplates Eloise for a moment, her nose wrinkling adorably. She seems to reach a decision.
“Just between you and me,” she says in a low voice, leaning closer, “there is not any of that in my marriage.”
Eloise blinks. “There is not?”
“Of course, there was a wedding night, and we shall resume our marital duty when the time for children is right. But just now, we are perfectly happy without all that mess.”
Eloise tries to fathom the news. She had not expected it. There seems to be no one on earth immune to the wonders of the marriage bed. “So when you spoke of love, what did you mean?”
Cressida glows. “He is so kind to me, Eloise. And I to him, if you can believe it. He understands me exactly. We can talk of fashion and pretty rooms for hours, and he is utterly pleased by it. We had such fun designing this house. I never had such a true friend before. Well. Perhaps for a time I thought I did.” For a second, she fades, but only to glow even brighter. “But now it is forever. Is that not wonderful?”
“Incredible,” Eloise says faintly.
“I did not ever suppose I might have a husband who would like me. My mother did not mention that possibility. But he does. He is never cross with me. Truly, never. He never asks anything of me that I don’t want to give. There are never any raised voices, any disappointed silences. He was not even upset with me after Penelope’s Lady Whistledown stunt at my ball.”
“I am glad. You deserve it.” Eloise tries to swallow the sudden lump in her throat. “Truly – it is not lost on me how much.”
“Thank you.” Cressida allows herself one small, dignified sniffle, but no more time is given to her cold upbringing. “So you see, you can have the most perfect romance without any of the bother. I, for one, never saw the appeal in all that business. It’s no small feat to get my hair this way, you know. The last thing I want is some unruly beast of a man messing it up.”
Eloise does not mean to do it. She has never been at risk for wild displays of affection. But she finds herself throwing her arms around Cressida in pure relief.
Finally, someone talking sense.
“What is that for?” Cressida asks, laughing.
“I don’t know,” Eloise says into her poofy pink shoulder. Cressida even smells pink, but in a nice way – the way cakes and flowers do. For a moment, she feels the absurd urge to weep. She pulls back and looks Cressida in the face. Cressida’s eyes are positively sparkling. “I am glad that you are you. That is all. If I have ever made you think otherwise—“
“Oh, Eloise, there’s no need to be so gallant.” Cressida taps Eloise’s nose with a fond fingertip. The gesture would be unbearable from anyone else, but just now, Eloise can only find it perfectly Cressida. “I know that you have opened your mind to marriage, even if only a little, and I am glad of it. I think it would suit you perfectly to have a dear, understanding husband like I do, and be queen over your own domain. Just think of all the books you could own – absolute libraries of them – and all the rooms you could paint that particular shade of blue. I wouldn’t, of course, but it becomes you. Only – do keep an eye out for passionate wooers. They would not suit you. We are just the same in that way, you and I.”
It is Eloise’s turn to sniffle, though it blends itself with a laugh. “I suspect you’re right.”
“Maybe that is why we were drawn to each other – why we became friends in the first place. No one would have ever suspected it of us.”
“Certainly not.”
Cressida’s eyes have a sudden shyness. “But maybe we could both tell we were alike, underneath.”
Eloise lowers her voice without meaning to. It turns to something like a whisper. “I think that is just right.”
For a moment, they consider each other. Eloise wonders what is to be found underneath. Surely not anything that anyone has ever put a name to. Yet.
But if she is not the only one – if Cressida feels the same way – well, that opens up the whole world.
Who knows what possibilities might follow?
“Perhaps,” Cressida says, her tone returning to its prior bright cheer, “if my poor, sweet husband ever meets his unfortunate end, and your husband does as well – for husbands do that before wives, you know, as long as the wives survive childbirth – well, we might set up house together, when we are little old ladies.”
Eloise chuckles. “Perhaps.” Though such a possibility has been quite near to her lately, she cannot imagine anything more different from her sister and Michaela Sterling’s peaceable cohabitation in the time after poor John’s death. She will never have any of Fran’s ladylike sweetness. “I think I shall be a very grumpy old lady.”
“Good. So shall I. The ton will live in fear of us, and our many pugs and poodles.” Eloise laughs louder. Cressida sighs, contented. “It is so nice to have a plan in place for the future, isn’t it?”
“Cressida,” Eloise says, “it is splendid.”
“But until then … I hope you intend to keep bringing me books?” Cressida’s voice lifts sweetly with the question.
It is, Eloise finds, an easy answer. “I do.”