She glanced at her cousins’ faces, noticed both were wiping their eyes.
“Be happy for me, please.”
Eugenia clucked her tongue. “How can we be? You were the one we both wanted to marry the most, because you deserved it after all the pain.”
Sylvia caught her arm again. “You’ll take a footman with you. If you will not allow us to visit, Mr. Bloom can be trusted to carry messages between us. I’d feel better knowing someone we trust was there with you. He can protect you, too, if needed, or fetch one of us to do so.”
Aurora shook her head. Bloom was her favorite footman at Wharton House, but she knew he had ambitions. “I couldn’t take Bloom. He belongs here in this grand house, where he can take care of you. Sullivan is sure to have already arranged all the household staff I could ever need.”
“No. Bloom is devoted to you, and I’m sure he’ll prefer going.” Sylvia hurried from the room, calling for the butler to find Mr. Bloom immediately before Aurora could stop her.
Left alone with her oldest cousin in the Wharton House drawing room, the silence was near deafening. Aurora looked up slowly at her cousin, tongue-tied. She wasn’t sure what was left to say, and it was too hard to smile right now.
Eugenia was silent, too, for several minutes. “We will not become strangers. I absolutely forbid it.”
Aurora laughed softly at her tone. “When has any of your threats ever changed my mind?”
“One can hope, still.” Eugenia took up Aurora’s hands. “Promise me you’ll write and keep us informed of how you fare. I’ve no concerns that Sullivan will treat you poorly, but it’s a vastly different life you’ve chosen for yourself than we planned together. If you need anything, anything at all, you may always depend on both of us to arrive at your side to support you in any way we can.”
Aurora was relieved to hear her cousin still wished her well. She would have hated to lose this precious connection with her only family she had left. They’d been through so much together this last year. She was glad to know this wasn’t really the end.
Mr. Bloom arrived, wide-eyed and panting, as if he’d come running. “I’ll have a carriage outside in a moment, Miss Hillcrest.”
She turned to him. “No, my good sir. I can’t ask you to follow where I go tonight,” she told him, full of regret. “You have a good position here and are certain to advance.”
But he shook his head stubbornly. “I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, Miss Hillcrest.”
Aurora’s eyes filled with tears again. The footman was prone to exaggeration but had been fiercely loyal to her and her cousins. She had depended on him, more than any other servant living at Wharton House. He could be discreet. “All right, but should you change your mind, I’m sure my cousin will reinstate you to her household in your current position.”
“I won’t change my mind,” he insisted. “Have you much luggage to go with you?”
“Yes, it’s all packed, upstairs in my bedchamber.”
Bloom disappeared immediately.
Aurora wasn’t taking very much with her, really. A few gowns and trinkets, gifts from her cousins, since they’d started to have some money to spend. She had kept nothing at all from her childhood. Nothing to remind her of her parents. That was for the best, too.
Sullivan had promised her a new wardrobe, and she’d have plenty of gowns befitting her new status in short order, when she found a new modiste to patronize. Someone who wouldn’t spread tales to society gossips. She wanted to separate herself from her cousins’ proper lives as much as possible to spare them any awkwardness.
She retrieved her reticule from where she’d hidden it under a frilly pillow earlier, before her cousins had arrived.
Sylvia was shaking her head when Aurora looked her way. Her eyes were sad as she said, “No matter what we said to try to stop you going, you were always running away today.”
“I thought it best to be prepared before too many knew of my decision.”
“Wharton will not accept this.”
She knew that. The marquess would be furious, no doubt. “I’ll leave you to explain it was my choice, should he seek to blame Lord Sullivan.” She fiddled with her reticule, lingering a moment longer, and heard the approach of a man’s steps. Hopefully Mr. Bloom with her trunk so she could go. “Well then…”
“Don’t go,” Eugenia asked one last time. “Stay and let’s talk about this further.”
“My mind is made up,” Aurora whispered. She curtsied deeply to her cousins, and finally turned away. “Goodbye.”
Chin high, she headed for the front door and heard no response from either cousin.
They did not call her back, but as she closed the door she heard the unmistakable sound of Eugenia, the most reserved of the pair, begin to sob. The sound tore at her heart.
She forced herself to keep going, past Mr. Bloom and out the front door of Wharton House, and into the waiting carriage.
She tugged down the carriage curtains as soon as she was inside, and she shivered as Mr. Bloom arranged for her trunks to be loaded and then joined her inside.
Her eyes stung again as the carriage lurched forward, taking her away from her family.
Tears spilled by the time she left the square behind.
Bloom changed seats to sit beside her. “If I may be so bold, Miss Hillcrest?” He took up her hand and squeezed it tightly.
Aurora had no idea what he thought of her, but Bloom was familiar, and when a sob tore from her throat, she turned her face into his bony shoulder and wept as she had as a young girl, stumbling after her old neighbor into the dark, all because he’d promised to take her in.
But protecting her had been the last thing on his mind.