She had reduced his laudanum two days ago. "The worst of the pain has passed," she had said, her voice matter of fact. "Dr Fielding said we should begin tapering the dose to prevent dependence."
Aubrey had wanted to argue. The laudanum blurred the edges of everything, made the hours pass more quickly, kept him from thinking too much, but she had been right. The pain was duller. Constant but bearable.
Which meant he was more alert, more aware. More conscious of the dark circles under Eleanor's eyes that seemed to deepen each day despite her best efforts to hide them. Of the way her hands sometimes trembled with exhaustion when she thought he was not watching. Of the pallor of her skin, the thinness of her frame that suggested she was not eating properly.
She was running herself into the ground caring for him.
Aubrey did not understand it, this dedication. This relentless, exhausting care that she provided without complaint, day after day.
It touched him. Despite Rose, despite their history, despite his own resentment, he found himself moved by Eleanor's quiet competence, her gentle hands, the way she anticipated his needs before he could voice them.
And then he would catch himself and wonder if he wasbeing a fool.
Perhaps she was simply biding her time. Perhaps the care was all a performance, designed to make him trust her before she slipped something into his tea. Poison, perhaps, or simply an overdose of laudanum that could be explained away as an accident. The devoted wife, driven to desperation by her husband's cruelty. Who could blame her?
But no. That was madness. Whatever else she might be, she was not mad.
Which left only one other possibility: that she was exactly what she appeared to be. An angel of mercy, tending to the worst husband in England with inexplicable grace.
Aubrey could not fathom it, could not reconcile the image of the manipulative woman Rose had described with the exhausted, determined creature who appeared at his bedside every four hours without fail.
"My lord?" Eleanor's voice pulled him from his thoughts. "I need to change your dressing. If you could just..."
Aubrey lifted the sheet without much thought. They had done this enough times now that modesty seemed pointless.
Eleanor set to work with her usual efficiency, cleaning the healing abrasions on his thigh. She no longer flinched away from the intimate nature of the task but simply treated it as she would any other wound.
Which should have been a relief.
Instead, Aubrey found himself almost... offended.
Here he was, a grown man in the prime of life, and his wife regarded his most private areas with the same clinical indifference one might show a particularly interesting fungus. Not even a flicker of awareness. Just professional detachment.
Though there was a hint of colour in her cheeks. A faint rosiness that betrayed some awareness of what she was doing, even if her hands remained steady.
Eleanor finished with the abrasion on his upper thigh and moved higher, adjusting the cloth covering his groin to access the worst of the bruising.
And then she chuckled.
It was quiet, barely more than a breath, but unmistakable. Eleanor's lips curved into a small smile as she peered at his groin, her hands gentle as she applied fresh salve.
Aubrey's entire body went rigid. "What," he said carefully, "is amusing?"
Eleanor startled slightly, her cheeks flushing darker. "Nothing, my lord. I apologise."
"You were laughing. While examining my..." He could not even finish the sentence. "You realise this is rather threatening to my male pride."
"I was not laughing at—" Eleanor stopped, pressing her lips together. "That is, it was nothing to do with..."
"With what?"
She was definitely blushing now. "With your anatomy, my lord. Which is perfectly... that is, the bruising is healing well and there is nothing whatsoever wrong..." She trailed off, clearly flustered. "I was simply remembering something Steven said at dinner."
The explanation landed like a stone in Aubrey's stomach.
"You were thinking about another man," he said slowly, "while touching my—"
"I was thinking about something funny he said!" Eleanor's voice rose slightly in defence. "It had nothing to do with... with this!"
