Patience

Previously

…Eleanor nodded, her gaze still fixed on the deepening twilight. She could feel the weight of her mother’s expectations pressing down on her, the invisible chains of convention tightening around her heart. But beneath the surface of her compliant facade, a flicker of defiance, a whisper of rebellion, had begun to stir. She had met Mr. Cartwright, and she had seen the future he represented. And for the first time, with a clarity that was both terrifying and exhilarating, Eleanor Ainsworth knew that she did not want that future. The gilded cage, however comfortable, was still a cage. And she was beginning to dream of flight.