Only a short week later, I found myself in the midst of a hub of activity as my mother swarmed the grounds, checking and double checking everything to ensure it was perfect. Elijah had arrived with news that half of our hometown had already settled into inns and boarding houses in the city in preparation for the occasion which only served to heighten my mother's anxiety as she ran from room to room trying very hard not to shout at servants who were not hers.

Colin and Emily were both adorably nervous but I could see their excitement as well. Father had arrived before Elijah and had begun to attempt to calm my mother but, once he realized the lost cause that was, he had resorted to enjoying the Duke's imported cigars on the veranda for hours at a time.

"Well?" I asked from the threshold of Elijah's room as I peered over my brother unpacking again for the second time in two weeks. He turned to me and smiled. "Did you make up with your girl?"

"I did," he told me with a grin. "Thanks to some surprisingly insightful advice from my youngest sister."

"Is she coming to the wedding?"

His smile faltered here.

"No," he replied. "She is not."

I frowned and pushed off from the doorjamb, stepping into the room.

"I'll tell you a secret if you tell me yours," I offered, referencing this game we used to play when we were younger and one of us clearly had something that was eating at them. The other would offer to disclose a secret of their own to allow the first to get whatever it was off of their chest. Typically, it left us both feeling much better. Perhaps that would work this time. Besides, it was killing me not to tell my brother about Victor.

Elijah looked up at me now, watching me with a strange interest. Had he been able to tell already that I was hiding something? Did he want to know what it was?

"Madame Francis," he said suddenly. "That's who I've been seeing."

My jaw dropped. I stared at him for a moment, dumbstruck, unable to speak. He waited, swallowing nervously as he allowed me time to process.

"I- that's wonderful," I told him finally. He raised a brow.

"Is it?" he questioned and I could tell he truly wanted to know.

"Of course," I exclaimed. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"What do you suppose mother would say to the news?"

I stopped, biting my lip in thought. At first, she'd be thrilled to learn that Elijah was finally seriously courting someone. But once she would out that it was Madame Francis... a local woman who valued her independence and stooped so low as to commit herself to manual labor...

"It doesn't matter," I told him abruptly, shaking my head fervently to show him that I meant it. "You're happy?"

He started to smile but made an effort to stop to no avail.

"I am," he proclaimed.

"Then mother will learn to accept this," I declared. "Or she will face me."

He chuckled at that.

"I wouldn't wish such a fate upon my worst enemy," he said. "Now, it's your turn."

So it was. I took a deep breath. I'd thought about this dozens of times in the past few weeks, how I would tell everyone once I was finally able. But Elijah had simply spat it out and that seemed to me to be the best course of action. So that's what I did.

"I've been seeing the Duke," I told him.

I expected the same reaction I'd given him. Shock at first, relaxing into acceptance and then finally a congratulations and a firm promise to uphold my happiness. But I realized at the set of his jaw that his reaction was about to be something else entirely. I couldn't stop him as he stormed past me from the room.

All I could do was rush after him.

"Elijah," I called out, hoping to at least slow him in his pursuit. "Elijah, please, just wait."

But he didn't. He stormed through the halls of the Duke's expansive manse until we emerged, to my own mortification, in the foyer where everyone was gathered. Before I could open my mouth to speak a word of warning, Elijah stomped up to the Duke, pulled back his fist, and punched him right in the face. Mother screamed, falling into the arms of the open mouthed Lady Winterbourne who held her upright as she gazed wide eyed at the scene unfolding at the entrance of her home. Emily gasped and turned into Colin, horrified. The Duke, to his credit, remained on his feet, though he was forced back a few steps as he raised his hand to the side of his face.

Madison and I scrambled forward to help him right himself. Madison pulled his hand away and examined the injury as I stared in shock at my raging brother who was red faced and furious as Benthem stood in front of him, pushing him back by his chest and muttering warnings to him in a low voice.

"How dare you," Elijah spat.

"Elijah!" my mother screamed, horrified.

"In here, now," Benthem ordered, grabbing my brother by the collar and shoving him into the Duke's office before turning back to Victor, Madison, and I. "Both of you."

Madison and I helped the Duke into his office though he most likely didn't need the assistance. We were more frightened about leaving Benthem alone with the two of them, given my brother's fury, than anything else.

"My sister?" Elijah screamed the moment the five of us were inside the office and the door was closed behind us. "All this time and you never told me it was my sister? After all that Benthem's told me about you, I should kill you now."

Benthem still held him by the shirt but Elijah wrenched free from his grasp and paced, running a hand through his hair as he did.

"Elijah, stop it!" I shouted, letting go of Victor to stomp toward my brother. "You're causing a scene."

"Oh, am I?" he inquired sarcastically. "Well, I'm very sorry, Ella, for risking your perfect deception here but have you any idea what sort of man you've become involved with?"

"Yes!" I threw my hands in the air in exasperation. "Yes, Elijah. I know exactly what sort of man I'm involved with because he told me. He told me everything, Elijah. And I don't care."

"That's because you're young," he snapped, marching forward so that his face was only inches from my own. Benthem made no move to stop him, having learned over the years not to get in the middle of our sibling spats. "You don't know what men like that-"

"I'm not a child! And I know far more about the proclivities of men than you, Elijah."

He hesitated, relaxing his shoulders a bit as he understood what I was saying.

"What do you mean, Ella?" he asked, voice softer now. "Who-"

"Plenty," I spat, becoming aware all of a sudden that we were not the only two in the room. Benthem, at least, had the decency to look away. I felt tears welling up in my eyes as I turned to see Victor watching me, mouth agape at my admission. "I told you before. There are things that you don't know about me."

"Oh, Ella," Madison said, voice full of pity and clearly close to tears of her own.

"Emily hates me because I've always been pretty," I spoke, my own voice almost a whisper. "You all thought she was the only one who noticed?"

They just stared at me, each of them afraid to move, uncertain of what to do. That had been the reaction I'd expected. It's why I'd never told anyone any of this before. There was nothing they could do, I knew that. There was no way to erase what had already been.

"But they aren't all like that," I turned back to Elijah, tears falling freely down my cheeks now. "That's what I kept telling myself. Because if I believed anything otherwise, I would have shattered to pieces years ago. And I've found one, Elijah, a good one. He isn't like that. He's better. He's more. And I love him."

Victor pulled away from Madison and, for a moment, I thought he was going after Elijah, but then he rushed forward to me, crashing against me as he wrapped his arms around me in a warm embrace and that was all it took. I collapsed into him, both of us falling to our knees, my sobs shaking my whole body as I turned into him. He was holding me so tight as if he could suck the pain straight out of me and into him instead.

I wasn't aware of anything for a while except for my own sobbing and Victor's arms around me, his face buried in my hair. But then other arms began to encircle us as well. First Madison and then Elijah and finally Benthem and we all sat in a huddled mess on the floor, all of us broken and all of us finding comfort and healing in each other. Years later, I would reflect on that moment and finally be able to fully appreciate it. Most of us had known each other for years, some our whole lives, but we'd never known each other's pain, not truly. And that was the day that I really began to heal. The years I'd spend hiding my pain, I'd believed that was healing, but avoidance was not healing. It never could be.

I'd needed this. I'd needed this more than I'd known and for longer than I'd realized. I sobbed until my pain lessened enough for me to realize whose shirt I was dampening. I straightened up and the others moved away to give me the space I may have needed. I looked up into the Duke's eyes, my own all red and puffy I was sure, and I took a shaky breath.

"I'm sorry," I breathed, raising a hand to touch his cheek where Elijah had hit him. He didn't even wince. He raised his own hand to cup mine, staring into my eyes with more love and adoration than I'd ever seen from anyone before.

"I'd go through far more than that for you, Ella."

Somehow, I believed him.