Beforeher. Eleanor. Lady Madeley. His wife.
She had not changed much from their wedding day, save that the nervous, wide-eyed girl had been replaced by a woman with a spine of steel and eyes that held no warmth whatsoever. She had been pale then, pale still—that chestnut brown hair escaping its pins, her small frame nearly drowning in a grey dress.
But there had been a self-possession about her now that had not existed on their wedding day. A quiet confidence that had allowed her to stand before his parents without flinching.
It made her more dangerous, somehow.
The door opened without ceremony.
Aubrey's head turned sharply then felt his entire body sag with relief.
Eleanor entered carrying a tray. Upon it sat a brown bottle—laudanum, blessed laudanum—and a tea service.
She moved with brisk efficiency, setting the tray on the bedside table without looking at him. Without speaking. Her face was expressionless in the candlelight as she measured out the laudanum with steady hands, mixed it with water, and held the glass toward him.
He tried to push himself up. Failed. A sound escaped him—half gasp, half groan—before he could prevent it.
Eleanor's expression did not change. She simply leaned forward, slipped one small hand behind his shoulders, and lifted him with surprising strength while bringing the glass to his lips with the other.
He drank. The bitter liquid slid down his throat, and he collapsed back against the pillows, breathing hard from even that small exertion.
She said nothing. Did not gloat. She simply reached for the pillows piled at the foot of the bed and, with the same matter-of-fact efficiency, tucked another beneath his knees.
The relief was instantaneous. The pressure on his lower back eased, and Aubrey felt something in his chest unclench slightly.
How had she known?
But Eleanor was already moving to the head of the bed, adding pillows behind him with quick, competent movements until he was propped at an angle that somehow made breathing easier and the pain more bearable.
She produced a biscuit from the tray—plain, dry, the sort given to invalids—and placed it in his hand without comment.
Then she turned to the tea service.
Aubrey watched, unable to help himself, as her hands moved over the china. One sugar. No milk. A precise forty-five seconds of steeping before she removed the leaves. She poured the tea into a cup, wrapped the saucer beneath it, and held it toward him with the handle positioned for easy grasping.
Exactly as he took it. Exactly as he preferred.
He stared at the cup, then at her face. Her expression revealed nothing.
"I..." His voice came out as a rasp. He swallowed, tried again. "How did you…"
"I remember from our wedding breakfast," Eleanor said quietly. Her grey eyes met his for just a moment—cool, steady, unreadable. "Just before you ran away."
She turned and walked from the room, closing the door behind her with barely a sound.
Aubrey sat propped against the pillows, the teacup warm in his hands, staring at the door.
She had remembered. After he had left their wedding breakfast within twenty minutes of sitting down. After he had ignored her letters, declined all invitations requiring her presence, treated her as though she did not exist.
She had remembered how he took his tea.
Something twisted in his gut—a sensation that might have been guilt, might have been gratitude, might have been more due to the drug than anything else.
Eleanor was dangerous precisely because she did not look dangerous. Because she played the role of a lady so perfectly that even now, evenknowing what she had done, some foolish part of him wanted to believe the gentle care she had just administered was genuine.
It was not. It could not be.
She hated him. He had seen it in her eyes downstairs when his parents had left. And she had every reason to hate him, just as he had every reason to despise her.
