She checked his forehead for fever, her hand cool and gentle, then moved to pour him water. The silence stretched between them, but it was different somehow from the tense quiet of previous days. Less fraught. Almost... comfortable.
"My lord," Eleanor said hesitantly, still holding the water glass. "I have been thinking, would you like me to bring you some books?"
Aubrey blinked, surprised by the offer. "I would be grateful. Yes."
"What sort of books do you prefer?" Eleanor set down the glass and clasped her hands at her waist. "I know you enjoy military history, and you have a fondness for Greek philosophy. You also read poetry, Byron, mostly. And the occasional novel, gothic, I believe?"
Aubrey stared at her, completely stunned. "How... how do you know all that?"
A faint blush coloured Eleanor's cheeks. "I... when our betrothal was announced, my parents took me to visit your family estate. You were not in residence at the time. But your mother gave us a tour of the house, and I..." She looked down at her hands. "I spent quite a long time in the library, looking at the books and trying to understand what kind of man I was going tomarry."
Something twisted in Aubrey's chest. He could picture it suddenly: Eleanor, younger, nervous, wandering through his family's library; running her fingers along book spines, pulling volumes from shelves, trying to piece together an image of her future husband from his reading habits.
A girl preparing to marry a stranger, desperate to find some connection, some common ground, before they were bound together for life.
"I made notes," Eleanor continued, her voice quiet. "About which books showed the most wear. Which had marks in the margins. I thought... if I knew what you liked to read, we might have something to talk about when we..."
When we were married, Aubrey finished silently. When we were supposed to build a life together.
"I see," he managed.
Eleanor looked up at him then, and for just a moment, he saw it—a glimpse of the hopeful bride she must have been. The girl who had tried to prepare herself for marriage to a man who did not want her. Who had walked through his library and studied his books and made careful notes, all in the desperate hope that perhaps they might find some happiness together. Guilt crashed over him like a wave, so powerful it nearly choked the air out of him.
"Eleanor—" he started, not knowing what he wanted to say. An apology? An explanation? Some way to acknowledge the terrible wrong he had done her?
But she was already turning away, her body rigid but her voice unnaturally bright. "What are you in the mood for, my lord? Something light to pass the time? Or something more substantial?"
The moment was broken. The glimpse of vulnerability was gone, replaced by her usual self-assurance.
"I..." Aubrey swallowed hard. "Military history, I think. I would appreciate any accounts of Wellington's campaigns."
"Of course. I shall bring them up directly." Eleanor moved toward the door.
"Eleanor, wait—"
She paused, her hand on the door handle, turned towards him slightly without looking at him.
Aubrey wanted to say something. He needed to acknowledge what she had just revealed and apologise.
But the words would not come. They lodged in his throat, tangled with guilt and confusion and the disturbing realisation that he had just thought his wife beautiful.
"Thank you," he said finally, inadequately. "For everything."
Eleanor nodded, still not looking at him. "Of course, my lord. I shall return shortly."
She slipped out the door, closing it softly behind her.
Aubrey lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, his mind reeling.
She studied his books, made notes, tried to know him, while he had been in London, raging about being forced into marriage, pining for Rose who’d described her as a witch. He’d refused to even consider that Eleanor might be a person worth knowing.
"I have not slept soundly for two years."
The guilt was overwhelming now, crushing. Aubrey tried to push it away, to remind himself that Eleanor had still destroyed his relationship withRose.
But the conviction felt weaker now because the woman who had just stood beside his bed with candlelight in her hair and vulnerability in her voice did not seem capable of the calculated cruelty Rose had described.
She seemed... real. Human. Wounded.
