"Fine," she said finally, her voice brittle. "Interview whomever you like. Learn whatever you want. It won't change anything."
She swept past Steven and Mr Davies and disappeared down the corridor, her footsteps quick and uneven.
The silence that followed was profound.
Steven Kedleston stood in the doorway, watching Eleanor's departure with an expression of deep concern. Then he turned to Aubrey, his pleasant face harder than Aubrey had ever seen it.
"Well," Steven said quietly. "You've certainly made a mess of things, haven't you?"
"Yes," Aubrey agreed. "I have. Which is why I asked you here. I need your help."
Steven moved into the room slowly, studying Aubrey with the careful assessment of a man deciding whether to help or hinder. Finally, he sat in the chair beside the bed, the same chair Liz had occupied less than an hour ago.
"Why should I help you?" Steven asked. "I care about Eleanor. Deeply. I have for years. And I've watched you hurt her over and over again. Why would I assist you in worming your way back into her good graces?"
"Because she still loves me," Aubrey said. The words felt like both a gift and a burden. "Liz told me. Which means there's a chance, however small, that I might earn her forgiveness."
"And if you can't?" Steven's voice was cool. "What then?"
"Then she leaves. Lives her life at the orphanage. And perhaps, eventually, finds someone worthy of her affection." Aubrey met Steven's eyes directly. "Someone like you,perhaps."
Steven's expression flickered with something. Surprise, perhaps, or pain. "Is that what you think? That I'm waiting in the wings to sweep her away the moment you fail?"
"Aren't you?"
A long silence stretched between them. Finally, Steven sighed.
"I would have been married to Eleanor by now," he said quietly, "if she hadn't loved you for so long. I've known her since we were children. I've loved her almost as long. And I've asked her to marry me. Twice. Once on the day of her debut, and once after your wedding when it became clear you had no intention of being a real husband."
Possessiveness and regret knotted painfully in his chest. "What did she say?"
"That she cared for me deeply, that I was one of her dearest friends, but that her heart belonged to you." Steven's smile was sad. "Even after you abandoned her, even after you made her life a misery, she still loved you. It's the tragedy of Eleanor, really. She loves with her whole heart. And once she's given that heart, she can't seem to take it back, no matter how much pain it causes her."
The words settled over Aubrey like a physical weight. "I know I don't deserve that kind of love."
"No," Steven agreed. "You don't, but she gave it to you anyway. The question is what you intend to do with it now."
Aubrey leaned back against his pillows, exhaustion and emotion warring in his chest. "I want to court her properly. The way I should have from the beginning. The way she deserved. But I don't know how. I don't know what she wants or needs or dreams of."
Steven was quiet for a long moment, clearly wrestling with whether to help the man who had hurt the woman he loved.
"She wants to be chosen," he said finally. "Truly chosen, not obligated or forced. She's spent her entire life being overlooked—by her father, by Society, by you. She wants someone to look at her and see her. All of her. And choose her anyway."
Aubrey nodded slowly. "What else?"
"She wants to be courted," Steven continued, his voice softer now. "Properly courted. With romance and thoughtfulness and genuine effort. Eleanor is practical by necessity, but in her heart, she's a romantic. She's read every novel in your library with a love story. She dreams of grand gestures and thoughtful tokens and someone pursuing her the way heroines in books are pursued."
"She never got that," Aubrey said quietly. "From me."
"No. You gave her obligation and resentment. You made her feel like a burden rather than a prize." Steven leaned forward slightly. "But here's what you need to understand about Eleanor. She shows love through service. Through care. Through the thousand small ways she makes life better for the people around her. And she deserves to receive love the same way."
Aubrey thought of the past two weeks. Eleanor's competent hands tending his wounds. The books she'd brought him. The way she'd adjusted his pillows without being asked. The tea prepared exactly as he liked it, remembered from their wedding breakfast.
Acts of service. Acts of love.
"She's been showing me love all along," he whispered. "And I neversaw it."
"No." Steven's voice hardened slightly. He then stood, preparing to leave.
