Free For Elise by Sarah M. Eden Page A

couldn’t simply ask her. The Elise he’d grown up with wouldn’t have required asking. She would have bared her soul the moment she’d seen him. He’d known all her secrets up until the day she’d disappeared from Epsworth.
    “Miles?”
    He nearly jumped out of his seat. Elise used to bound into rooms, her exuberance announcing her presence. Now she sneaked about, appearing suddenly, without warning.
    “Do you have any other picture books?”
    Miles watched for some indication of her feelings, but her guard was firmly in place. “Anne enjoyed Robin Hood , did she?”
    Elise nodded. “She is mesmerized. Anne stares at those pictures. I would love for her to have more books to look at.”
    “Are there not any in the nursery?”
    “I’m not sure,” Elise said. “I haven’t . . . Anne is still in my room. We haven’t ventured to the nursery.”
    “Why ever not?”
    She seemed to flinch at the exasperation in his tone. “This is your home, Miles. Not mine. I did not wish to presume upon your kindness.” Elise stepped back as if to leave.
    “When has my home ever not been yours?”
    She stopped. Their eyes met, and for the briefest moment, a rush of emotion swept through Elise’s eyes. She clamped it down so quickly, so fiercely Miles wondered if he’d imagined it.
    “Where is Anne?” Miles asked, careful to keep his tone light and gentle.
    “In my room with one of the chambermaids.”
    “Let’s take her to the nursery. That is to be her domain, after all.”
    “You don’t have to—”
    “After more or less commandeering your nursery when we were children, I believe I owe you a nursery,” Miles insisted. “And it isn’t as though anyone is being evicted. It is a marvelous nursery, almost like a fairy tale, Elise. And it is waiting for a child. It needs a child.”
    “A fairy tale?”
    He’d piqued her curiosity. Miles felt a grin spread across his face. “You have to see it to believe it. I have seen it, and I almost don’t.”
    She seemed to debate for a moment. Her eyes darted to Miles’s face. He could see the interest there, though she obviously tried to hide it.
    Please, Elise. Please give me a little hope.
    “It isn’t as though she’d be pushing another child out,” Elise said tentatively.
    That was enough for him. “Let’s go get Anne.”
    “Let’s,” she answered. There was no mistaking the eagerness in her tone, as miniscule as it was.
    He kept himself from shouting in triumph. If there wasn’t a picture book in the nursery, he would buy every one he could get his hands on.
    * * *
    “Oh, Miles.” Elise hadn’t intended to sound so breathless, but the nursery was absolutely marvelous. She turned around one more time, amazed. “If I’d had a nursery like this one, I don’t think I would have ever wanted to grow up.”
    “It’s rather ingenious, isn’t it? The trees painted on the walls are so lifelike. I half expect a breeze to blow through and rustle the leaves.”
    Anne was, at that moment, touching her fingers to the painted branches of a bush in the full-room mural of a forest. She looked up at Elise, making the motion with her hands she used to indicate a tree.
    Elise nodded. “A painting,” she further explained, matching her own hand motions to the words.
    Anne pressed her palm flat against the tree bark, rubbing her fingers back and forth.
    “Anne likes to draw,” Elise told Miles. “And for so young a child, her drawings are actually rather good. She’ll not be invited to display at the Royal Academy or any such thing, but one can easily tell what she’s drawn, which is a feat for a three-year-old.”
    “A talent she clearly inherited from her mother,” Miles said. “You were forever sketching and painting. Your mother was a talented artist. I don’t know if you remember that.”
    She hadn’t, actually. Mother had died when she was not much older than Anne. Elise had very few memories of her.
    Anne rushed to the child-sized table, clearly in awe