She didn't sleep that night. At dawn, she dressed quietly and slipped out of the house before the servants had finished laying the fires.
The bookshop below Julian's flat was still closed, but she knew the side entrance—he had pointed it out once, casually, perhaps hoping she would use it someday.
She climbed the narrow stairs, her heart pounding. At the top, she knocked.
Silence. Then footsteps. The door opened.
Julian stood there in shirtsleeves, his hair disheveled, a pen still in his hand. His eyes widened when he saw her.
"Eleanor—Miss Hawthorne—you shouldn't be here—"
"I know." She stepped inside before he could stop her. The room was small but neat, lined with books, a desk by the window covered in papers. The morning light slanted through the glass, illuminating dust motes in the air. "We need to talk."
He closed the door, looking torn between propriety and practicality. "Your reputation—if anyone saw you—"
"I don't care." She turned to face him. "Tell me. Tell me everything they're saying about you. I want to hear it from you."
His face went pale. "You heard."
"At my father's party last night. The ladies were quite thorough in their character assassination."
He closed his eyes, and she saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. When he opened them again, they were full of the resignation she'd seen before. "Then you know. I'm nobody's son. A bastard, in the crudest terms. My mother was a housemaid who…" He turned away, his voice dropping. "She was seduced, or perhaps she fell in love—I'll never know which. She never told me his name. When her condition became obvious, she was dismissed without references. She died when I was fifteen, still cleaning floors to keep us fed."
Eleanor's throat tightened, but she didn't speak. She needed him to continue.
"I taught myself to read with books I found discarded or borrowed. Eventually, a vicar took pity on me and helped me secure a position as a teacher." His voice hardened. "I was good at it, Eleanor. I loved those boys, wanted to give them the education I'd had to fight for. But when the school's board learned of my background, they decided I was unsuitable. They couldn't outright dismiss me without cause, so they manufactured one."
"What did they say?"
He was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible. "There was a student—sixteen, wealthy family. He struggled with his studies, and I spent extra time helping him. His mother became… friendly. Too friendly. She would visit the school, insist on speaking with me privately. I tried to maintain distance, but..." He laughed bitterly. "She told her husband I had made advances toward her. The boy, trying to protect his mother's honor, said I had shown him inappropriate attention. It wasn't true—none of it—but who would believe me? The bastard son of a housemaid, against a respected family?"
Eleanor felt tears prick her eyes, but not from disappointment—from fury. "So they ruined you."
"They protected themselves. In their minds, I'm sure they believe they did the right thing." He finally turned to look at her, and his eyes were raw. "I write now, but only under pseudonyms. No respectable publication would take my work under my own name. I live here—" he gestured at the small room, "—above a bookshop owned by a man kind enough not to care about my past. And I watch you at your window and wish..." He stopped, his voice breaking. "I wish I were someone you could know without shame."
The silence stretched between them. Rain began to fall outside, soft against the glass.
Then Eleanor spoke, her voice steady despite the tears on her cheeks:
"You never asked what I wanted, Julian."
He looked at her, confused.
"You decided," she continued, stepping closer, "that I couldn't handle the truth. That I would judge you as they did. That I would choose society's opinion over my own judgment." She stopped in front of him, close enough to see the gold flecks in his grey eyes. "But I'm not them. I'm not the woman they want me to be—the obedient daughter who marries well and asks no questions. I'm the woman who climbs out at dawn to demand honesty from the one person who's ever really seen her."
"Eleanor—"
"I don't care about your birth. I don't care what cruel, small-minded people say about you." Her voice strengthened. "I care that you're kind. That you see beauty in poetry and fight for justice in your writing. That you looked at me, a stranger at a window, and recognized another lonely soul. That's who you are. Not some label society has pinned on you."
He stared at her as if she were something impossible, a miracle he was afraid to touch for fear It would disappear.
"You don't understand what you're saying," he whispered. "If your father knew you were here, if anyone saw us together—you would lose everything."
"Perhaps." She took a shaky breath. "Or perhaps I would finally be free."
8
But freedom, Eleanor discovered, came at a price she hadn't fully calculated.
She returned home just as the house was waking. She managed to slip in through the servants' entrance, but her lady's maid, Betty, was waiting in her room.
"Miss Eleanor!" Betty's eyes were wide with fear and something else—pity. "Your father's been asking for you. He knows you went out."
Eleanor's stomach dropped. "How—"
"The footman saw you leaving at dawn. Miss, he's In a terrible rage."
Sir Charles Hawthorne was indeed in a rage. Eleanor found him in his study, pacing like a caged beast.
"Where were you?" His voice was cold, controlled—more frightening than if he'd shouted.
Eleanor lifted her chin. "Walking. I needed air."
"At dawn? Unchaperoned?" He turned to face her fully. "Don't lie to me, Eleanor. I know you've been meeting someone. That Moore fellow."
Her blood went cold. "how—"
"Did you think I wouldn't find out? That boy who works at the bookshop, he's been spreading tales. 'Miss Hawthorne and Mr. Moore, always whispering in the library.' 'Walking in the park together.'" His face was flushed now. "Have you completely lost your senses? The man is nobody! Worse than nobody—he's a disgrace! An illegitimate wastrel with a scandal attached to his name!"
"He's a good man who was wrongly accused—"
"He's nothing!" Her father's fist came down on the desk. "And you will have nothing more to do with him. I've arranged for you to spend the season with your aunt in Bath. You'll leave tomorrow. And when you return, you will accept Lord Pemberton's suit."
Eleanor felt the room tilt. Lord Pemberton was sixty if he was a day, a widower looking for a young wife to manage his household and bear him an heir. "I won't marry him."
"You will. Or I'll cut you off entirely. No dowry, no allowance, no home. Do you understand? You'll have nothing."
"Then I'll have nothing." The words came out before she could stop them, and once said, she couldn't take them back. "I'd rather have nothing and be honest than have everything and be a lie."
Her father stared at her as if she'd struck him. Then his expression hardened. "Very well. You have until the end of the month to come to your senses. After that, if you persist in this madness, you're no daughter of mine."