I waited.
He was being deliberately obtuse. I could see it in the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth. The slight gleam in his eye that suggested he was enjoying this little dance.
"Ellsworth," I said flatly. "Whatotherthings? Operational?"
His grin broke through then—slow, deliberate, utterly unrepentant. His eyes lit up with the kind of enthusiasm you'd expect from a much younger man. Someone who'd just been handed the keys to something dangerous and fun and long-awaited.
It transformed his face entirely. Made him look less like a dignified butler and more like what he probably actually was—a man who'd spent decades doing extremely illegal things in extremely dangerous places and had loved every second of it.
"Ah," he said again, this time with relish. "You mean theinterestingbits."
"Yeah. The interesting bits."
He straightened slightly, his posture still impeccable, but there was something looser about him now. Like he'd just been given permission to drop a mask he'd been wearing since I met him. Like I'd just said the magic words that unlocked the real man underneath.
"I have free rein, sir," he said, and there was genuine satisfaction in his voice. "Within reason, of course. The Danes were quite clear when they extended the offer to join The Sanctuary initiative."
"Which was?"
"Accept at your own risk." His grin widened, showing teeth. "And I accepted before they'd finished explaining the parameters."
I huffed a short laugh despite myself. "Sounds about right."
Ellsworth's expression softened into something more genuine. More human. "I admire James Bond, sir. Always have. Since I was a boy watching Connery on the screen at the local cinema. The discipline. The resourcefulness. The unflappable composure under pressure. The sense of mission."
He paused, his gaze drifting briefly toward the window where Paris sprawled out below us, indifferent and beautiful.
"Not the womanizing, mind you," he continued. "That's rather distasteful in practice. And the drinking—good Lord, the man's liver must be made of titanium. But the rest? The ability to adapt to any situation. To improvise with whatever's at hand. To serve something larger than oneself with unwavering commitment."
His voice took on a quieter quality, something almost wistful.
"A man needs purpose, sir," he said. "Without it, we're just marking time until the clock runs out. And that's no way to live."
I understood that more than he knew.
More than I'd ever admitted to anyone except maybe Mila.
"I'd been bored to death in retirement," he admitted, and the words carried weight. Real weight. The kind that comes from lived experience rather than casual complaint. "Puttering about a flat in Chelsea. Same four walls every day. Reading the same newspapers cover to cover even when there was nothing new to read. Drinking the same tea at the same time every morning because what else was there to do? Taking walks in the same park. Nodding at the same people."
He shook his head slightly, as if still bewildered by how he'd ended up there.
"My wife passed seven years ago," he said quietly. "Breast cancer. Eighteen months from diagnosis to ... the end. We fought it every step of the way, but some battles aren't meant to be won."
I stayed silent, letting him talk.
"No children—we tried for years, but it wasn't in the cards. No grandchildren to spoil or embarrass with terrible jokes. No family dinners to organize. No reason to keep the flat tidy except habit."
His voice didn't waver, but I caught the weight beneath it. The quiet grief of a man who'd built a life around someone and then had to learn how to live without them. Who'd discovered that all the rituals and routines that had once meant something were suddenly just empty gestures performed for an audience that no longer existed.
"So, this," he said, gesturing vaguely around the room with one hand, "when Mr. Dane approached me, I hoped it might become my life. A second act, if you will. Something that matters. Something that requires the parts of me I thought I'd retired along with the uniform."
He met my eyes directly.
"Something worth getting out of bed for."
I nodded slowly, understanding settling into place like pieces of a puzzle I hadn't realized I was solving.
Ellsworth wasn't just a butler. He was a soldier without a war. An operator without a mission. A man with skills most people couldn't imagine and no outlet for them. And Micah—brilliant, calculating Micah—had recognized that and given him both a purpose and the freedom to pursue it.
