Chapter Two "The Road to Braemar"

The house was too quiet.

Eleanor stood in the doorway of her father's study, staring at the low fire burning in the grate. It hissed softly, as if complaining that no one had come to tend it. There were no voices, no footsteps, only the soft ticking of the grandfather clock marking the seconds she could never get back.

She clenched her gloved hand around the diary beneath her cloak. Her mother's words were ink on paper, but they felt like thunder in her heart.

"I was never meant to be tamed."

Neither was she. Not anymore.

She turned from the cold, hollow room and stepped back into the hallway, where Martha was waiting. The maid looked tired—her eyes a little swollen, as though she'd been crying quietly, the way people do when they don't want to make a fuss.

They stood there for a moment, neither sure what to say.

Then Martha handed Eleanor the small travel bag they'd packed together in secret two nights ago. "You have enough to last you through Glenmore," Martha said in a low voice, her fingers lingering on the strap. "Once you reach the crossing, there's a farmer's inn where you can sleep. Ask for Mrs. Dunne. She'll help you."

Eleanor's throat tightened. She hadn't expected to feel anything other than relief in this moment. But now that she was here, standing at the edge of everything she knew, it felt a little like leaving behind a life she'd tried so hard to make fit.

And it never did.

"Thank you," Eleanor whispered. She touched Martha's hand—just for a second—before dropping it again, afraid she might lose her nerve.

Martha's lips trembled into a smile. "You're just like your mother," she said. "Brave. Stubborn."Eleanor smiled back, though it wobbled. "Let's hope it's enough."

The side door creaked open with the weight of years. The night air met her like a splash of cold water on her face—clean, sharp, and wild. She pulled her cloak tighter and stepped outside. Her boots sank a little into the damp ground, but she kept walking.

She didn't look back.

The first few miles passed in a blur. Her heart was beating too fast, as if it didn't know whether to panic or to sing. She tried to focus on the simple things: the crunch of gravel underfoot, the hush of wind sliding through the hedges, the faint scent of something green and growing in the darkness.

Her feet hurt before long, but it didn't matter. She walked until the black sky softened into grey, and she found herself staring at a line of hills that had always seemed like distant painting from her window at Whitmore Manor.

They were real now. And they were hers to cross.

By late morning, she reached the first village. It wasn't much—just a few stone cottages and an inn with smoke curling from the chimney. She slipped inside, her hands shaking a little as she counted out the coins Martha had given her for tea.

The warmth of the room was a balm, but the stares weren't. She kept her head low as she sat at a table by the window, watching the world move on without her.

That's when she saw him.

A man by the well, his shoulders broad beneath a rough coat, his hands steady as he filled his water skin. He wasn't polished like the men her father called friends. His dark hair was too long, his face shadowed by days without a shave. But he didn't seem dangerous. Just… watchful.

And he was watching her.

For a moment, she froze. Fear prickled along her spine, cold and sharp. Had someone been sent after her? Had her father already discovered she was gone?

But then the man tipped his head slightly, as if to say I see you, and turned back to his horse without another glance.

Eleanor let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She finished her tea and slipped out the back door, her pulse still racing.

She kept to the smaller roads after that, careful to stay hidden whenever she heard hoofbeats or wagon wheels. Her world narrowed to the mud beneath her feet and the ache in her legs. She thought of her mother then—of the woman who had left behind a life of silks and dances for something wilder.

Maybe this was how it had started for Arabella, too. One step after another, into the unknown.

The rain came on the second day, hard and cold. It soaked through Eleanor's cloak and numbed her fingers. She found shelter beneath a cluster of birch trees, her teeth chattering as she tried to light a fire with the matches Martha had packed.

She only had three.

The first wouldn't catch. The second flared and died in the wind. She stared at the last one for a long time, her fingers shaking too hard to strike it. She closed her eyes, breathing slowly, remembering how her mother used to say Patience, Ellie. The wind always changes.

The match flared to life. And this time, the fire caught.

She huddled close, rubbing her hands together, staring into the flames until they blurred. She thought of the Whitmore parlor with its polished silver and velvet cushions. And she realized she didn't miss it at all.

Later, under the shelter of the trees, she opened the diary again. She traced her mother's handwriting, soft and familiar now. The words no longer made her ache. They made her feel strong.

On the third morning, just as the sun was climbing over the hills, she found the stone.

It jutted from the earth at the bend in the road, worn smooth with time. Her gloved fingers brushed away moss to reveal the Whitmore crest—her family's crest—etched deep into the rock. Beneath it, someone had carved a single word.

"Welcome."

Her chest tightened. She ran her hand over the letters again and again, like she could make sense of them by touch alone.

She looked up at the path ahead.

Braemar was close.

Eleanor stood and took a deep breath. The air tasted of rain and heather. It filled her lungs with something she hadn't felt in years.

Hope.

And she walked toward it.