she had forgotten something, and neatly deposited the drinks in front of our mother, who was chatting with Olly’s father.
“It wasn’t an insult, you know, when I called this wedding ordinary. There hasn’t been anything ordinary about my life since the day my grandmother called me in and told me my uncle couldn’t have children. You cannot make the same mistakes as everyone else. You’re special now.” She chuckled roughly. “It is a brutal thing, knowing that what makes you special to your family is your birth order. Georgina especially didn’t care for it, because it meant I was more and she was less, and that was unacceptable to her.”
Eleanor took a deep swig of her drink. “I’m sure you remember the story I told you about Georgina, falling in love with an unsuitable young man,” she said. “That story was not, in fact, about Georgina.”
“Oh,” I breathed.
“It was foolishness. I should have known better. If I’d kept to my place, and kept him to his, Robert wouldn’t have been mine, but…” Her gaze drifted out the front windows and onto the darkening street. Whatever she was seeing, it wasn’t the people out there. “At least he might have been alive,” she finished. “He died shortly thereafter, in a car accident. Henry was very kind to me then, at a time when kindness was in short supply. We would sit outside for hours. Sometimes, he would read to me. Sometimes we said nothing at all. But mostly, he made sure I wasn’t alone, and eventually I felt like I couldn’t ever be hurt again with him by my side. I needed him.” Her face hardened. “Then Georgina decided she did, too, and it ruined everything. As it may for you.”
I reached out and covered her hand with my own, and for a second, she let me.
“Heartbreak doesn’t heal without scar tissue. If it happens enough, you harden. To everything,” she said, signaling Hazel and pointing to her empty glass. “I don’t want that for those boys.”
“I think they’re both tougher than Georgina was,” I said. “Look at how Freddie—”
“I’m not talking about Georgina.” Eleanor sat back against the wall, eyes unusually bright. “What you couldn’t read in that letter, Rebecca, is that it worked. She made Henry love her back. And I had to live with it. I’m not only the Nicholas in this story. I’m also the Frederick.”
I didn’t know what to say. My stomach churned. “I’m so sorry, Eleanor.”
She blocked her mouth with her hand as if she were rubbing her cheek. “I have trusted you,” she said, “with my greatest pain. I trust again that you will lay it to rest now, where it belongs, along with Henry and Georgina themselves. Nobody but you and my mother knows, and it will stay that way.”
“I can’t keep this from Nick,” I told her. “It’s not possible.”
“It is, and it’s easy,” Eleanor said. “You simply don’t mention it. This is not your secret to tell. What good will it do for him to know how history has repeated itself?”
I hated promising to lie to my husband, even if it was only a lie of omission. But I didn’t know how to push back, and I decided that I could figure out whether to keep that promise later.
“All right,” I said. “You win.”
“Enough,” Eleanor said. “I came here to enjoy myself. I am the Queen. I don’t sulk in corners.”
She rose, and made her way toward the crowd—to what end, I did not know, because I still felt woozy and sick from our conversation in a way that was becoming increasingly urgent. Trusting that Nick had a handle on things, I scurried as casually as I could to the bathroom, and barely made it in the stall before depositing fragments of appetizers and my entire glass of Champagne into the toilet bowl. I sat back on my heels and breathed deeply, glad to be done with that.
Wait, no, I wasn’t done with that.
“Bex?” I heard Lacey say. She pushed open the stall door, then wheeled around and locked the bathroom itself. “Oh no, sweetie,” she said, coming to brush my hair off my face.
“I’m okay,” I told her. “I’ve been tired lately, and—”
Ugh. I still wasn’t done.
“Blargh,” I said as I got up to rinse out my mouth. “I hope it’s not the passed apps. Eleanor went to town on those.” I frowned. “I should check on her.”
Lacey folded her arms and followed me out of the bathroom and back