His voice began shaking.
“Then I met you.”
Eleanor felt tears gather.
“You should have told me before we married.”
Caleb nodded immediately.
“I know.”
“No, Caleb. I need you to understand. Henry kept things from me because he thought he had the right to make every decision.”
Caleb looked toward her.
She continued.
“I won't live like that again.”
He swallowed.
“Neither would I ask you to.”
“Yet you did.”
For a moment, he seemed hurt.
Then he nodded.
“Yes.”
Eleanor looked down.
The room was quiet.
She had found the boy who saved her life.
But that didn't erase the fact that the man he'd become had withheld something important before asking her to marry him.
She cared about him already.
Perhaps more than she was ready to admit.
But she had spent too many years pretending that affection made secrecy acceptable.
Caleb slowly moved away from the table.
He stopped beside the fireplace.
Then spoke quietly.
“If you decide you want to leave, I won't stand in your way.”
Eleanor looked up.
He continued.
“I'll help you return safely when the roads open. I'll provide what I can toward independent advice about the marriage and your property. I won't use our vows to keep you here.”
She stared.
For a moment, she couldn't speak.
Then asked, “Even after everything we've discovered?”
“Yes.”
“Even if I leave with the evidence?”
He hesitated only a moment.
“Those papers concern your family's land. You have a right to examine them.”
Eleanor's eyes filled.
She remembered Henry locking documents inside his study.
Remembered Solomon speaking to her attorney as though she weren't in the room.
Remembered people treating her choices as inconveniences.
Now Caleb stood beside the fire, terrified that she would leave, and offered to help her do it.
The contrast hurt.
She took a breath.
“I haven't decided to leave.”
He looked toward her.
Hope flashed across his face.
Then he tried to hide it.
Eleanor continued.
“But I need honesty from you. Even when the truth is frightening.”
Caleb nodded.
“You have it.”
She studied him.
“Promise me.”
He looked directly at her.
“I promise.”
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Eleanor held out her hand.
“Come here.”
Caleb hesitated.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
He approached slowly.
Eleanor took his enormous hand between hers.
His skin was rough.
Warm.