Not the way the girl she'd once been had dreamed of romance. It was something sturdier than that. Something built, not fallen into. "We'll fight it," he said. "Together."
And whatever that judge decides, you're not disposable, Eleanor. Not to those children, not to me. Charles Whitaker can arrange all the truth he wants. He can't arrange that. But Charles Whitaker had been arranging things far longer than either of them realized, and 2 days before the hearing, the ground shifted again.
Clara came running into the kitchen midmorning, breathless, her boots caked with snow. "There's a woman here," she said. A lady. She came in a fine carriage and she's asking for you. Eleanor by your old name.
She called you Mrs. Whitmore. Eleanor's blood went cold. She set down the bread she'd been kneading, wiped her hands slow, and made herself walk to the door instead of run, because whatever was coming, she would meet it standing tall. The woman on the porch was perhaps 50, expensively dressed, her face powdered against the cold and set in an expression Eleanor recognized instantly because she had seen it worn by her own mother-in-law the day they'd put her on the train.
The particular expression of a woman who had come to deliver bad news and intended to enjoy it. "Mrs. Whitmore," the woman said, "or is it Carter now?" I confess I've lost track. "It's Carter," Eleanor said.
And you have me at a disadvantage. I don't know you. No, but I know a great deal about you." The woman smiled thin and cold. My name is Prudence Whitaker.
Charles is my brother. I've come all the way from Cheyenne to attend your little hearing, and I thought it only fair to warn you what you're walking into, one woman to another. "How kind." "I do try." Prudence's eyes traveled over Eleanor over the flour on her apron and the calluses on her hands cataloging, appraising, finding her wanting.
I made some inquiries in Boston. Your late husband's family were most forthcoming. It seems you have a history, Mrs. Carter, of attaching yourself to men of means and being cast off when you prove, how did they put it, barren and burdensome. They were quite eager to share their opinion of you.