And then the butler returned.
"His Grace will see you, Miss Whitcombe. If you will follow me."
She followed him through corridors she now knew well, past rooms where she had taken tea with Rosanne, past the library where she had read Daniel's books, past the green sitting room where they had stood so close and spoken so openly just days before.
The study door stood open.
Daniel was behind his desk, papers spread before him, a quill pen in his hand that he did not seem to be using. He looked up as she entered, and Lillian saw something flash across his face; surprise, hope, fear, all tangled together in an expression that was gone before she could fully register it.
"Miss Whitcombe." He rose, setting down the pen with careful precision. "I did not expect to see you so soon. How is your father?"
"Improving." Lillian remained in the doorway, suddenly uncertain of how to begin. "Thanks to the physician you sent."
Daniel's expression did not change, but she saw his shoulders stiffen almost imperceptibly.
"I do not know what you mean."
"Mr. Harrington. The specialist from London who appeared at our door, claiming to be'in the area,'offering his services free of charge." Lillian took a step into the room. "He refused to name his patron, but I am not a fool, Your Grace."
"I never suggested you were."
"The roof is being repaired as we speak. Workmen arrived this morning; an entire crew, with timber and tools and instructions to make the house watertight by week's end. Payment, I am told, was arranged through a solicitor in London."
Daniel said nothing.
"And this morning, my mother received a letter informing her that the debt we have been struggling with for the past year has been settled. Paid in full by an anonymous benefactor." Lillian drew the letters from her pocket, the physician's card, the foreman's receipt, the creditor's letter, and set them on his desk. "Would you like to tell me that is all coincidence?"
The silence stretched between them, thick with everything unspoken.
"No," Daniel said finally. "I would not insult your intelligence by claiming coincidence."
"Then you admit it. You did all of this."
"I did."
"Why?"
He looked at her and Lillian saw the struggle in his expression. The war between the walls he had built and the feelings that threatened to breach them.
"Because I could not sit and do nothing." His voice was rough, stripped of its usual careful control. "Because your father was injured and your family was in distress, and the thought of you suffering when I had the power to help was... It was intolerable."
"You could have told me. You could have offered openly."
"You would have refused."
"Yes. I would have."
"That is why I did not tell you." He moved around the desk, closing the distance between them with slow, deliberate steps. "I know you, Lillian. I know your pride, your practicality, your determination to manage everything yourself. If I had offered openly, you would have sent me away—as you did, in fact, when I tried."
"So instead you went behind my back. You arranged everything in secret, so I could not refuse."
"Yes."
"That is manipulation."
"Perhaps." He stopped before her, close enough to touch but not touching. "Or perhaps it is simply the only way I know how to love."
The word hung in the air between them,love,spoken aloud for the first time, undeniable and irreversible.
