She pulled her wrist back, tucking it against her body. "Nothing. It is nothing."
"Eleanor—"
"Try to rest, my lord." Her voice was more distant now.
She collected her candle and moved toward the door with quick, precise steps. She paused at the threshold, her back to him. For a moment, he thought she might say something. But she simply shook her head and left, pulling the door closed behind her, leaving Aubrey alone in the darkness, wondering what he had done wrong.
Or perhaps, more terrifyingly, if he’d done something right.
The pattern repeated itself with merciless regularity.
Four o'clock in the morning. Eleanor appeared like clockwork, moving through the darkness with familiarity. Turn, adjust, check for fever. Gone again before he could speak.
Eight o'clock. Another turning. Another moment of her hands on his skin, her breath warm against his shoulder. The lavender scent that was becoming unbearablyseductive.
Noon. The full bathing routine. Aubrey gritted his teeth through the humiliation of it.
She had developed a method now. Worked with swift, impersonal efficiency. Kept up a steady stream of neutral observations about the healing process, the weather, anything to fill the awful silence.
"The bruising is beginning to yellow at the edges," she noted on the third day, her voice studiedly calm as she cleaned one of the abrasions on his thigh. "Dr Fielding said that is a sign of healing."
Aubrey said nothing, his lips pressed firmly, staring at the ceiling.
"And your temperature remains normal. No sign of infection." Her hands moved higher, and he felt his entire body go rigid. "This will only take a moment."
It was the closest she came to acknowledging the profound awkwardness of what she was doing—washing his groin, areas that no wife should have to touch under such circumstances.
When she was finished, Eleanor pulled the sheet back up and turned away quickly. "There. It’s getting faster and easier."
"Wait."
She paused, not looking at him.
"You need rest," Aubrey said. "Real rest. Not these brief intervals between turnings. You are going to make yourself ill."
"I am perfectly well, my lord."
"You are not." He could see it in the increasing pallor of her face, the darkness under her eyes, the way her hands trembled when she thought he was not looking. "You cannot maintain this pace. Send for one of the maids to help with the night turnings at least. You need sleep."
“Thank you for your concern, my lord,” she replied, her voice strangely cool, “but I have not slept soundly for two years.”
She turned and left before he could respond, the door clicking shut with terrible finality.
Aubrey lay in the darkness, her statement echoing in his mind.
I have not sleptsoundlyfor two years.
Two years. The length of their marriage. The length of time he had spent in London, determinedly not thinking about the woman he had left behind in Hertfordshire.
Had she truly been suffering all this time? Lying awake in this house, alone, while he convinced himself she deserved his neglect? That she had a lover to keep her company?
No. She could not have been suffering. She had got what she wanted—a title, a home, comfort. What did it matter if her husband was absent? Surely that was preferable to having him here, a constant reminder of the lack of love between them?
Except... the hollowness in her voice when she spoke those words. The way she had looked when his parents dumped him on her doorstep—not triumphant, not satisfied, but weary. So desperately weary.
Guilt twisted in his chest, sharp and unwelcome.
Aubrey crushed it ruthlessly.
