She glanced back toward Arabella, her features conveying her disappointment, but her sister only nodded and smiled genuinely before turning away.
They rode back to Blackmere Park in silence.
At first.
The carriage had barely cleared the churchyard when James turned to her. “What,” he said pinching the bridge of his nose, “were you doing in church?”
Her gaze snapped to his. “I was sitting.”
He did not smile. “Do not insult us both.”
Her hands clenched in her lap. “I told you, I do not know what is happening to me.”
His brows drew together. “That does not excuse, Eleanor.”
“Then explain it!” she burst out, the words tumbling over one another. “Help me! Be on my side! Do not leave me in the dark, James. You clearly know what is happening!” Shestopped, breath catching, pride warring with something far more vulnerable. “I was composed.”
His voice dropped, low and controlled. “You were not… as composed as you believe.”
Her breath stuttered.
He leaned slightly closer, his gaze drifting to the pale curve of her neck, then to the line of her collarbone, then lower still before she could stop watching him.
Her knees pressed together instinctively. “I am used to pretending that all is well. No one could even tell I was –”
His eyes lifted to her face.
“Your lack of education will be remedied,” he murmured.
The words struck her like a spark to dry tinder, and her mind went oddly blank.
Her spine stiffened. She yanked her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “By whom? You?”
“Perhaps,” he said.
The carriage rolled to a stop.
James opened the door and stepped out without another word.
Eleanor remained seated for a moment, her heart racing, her thoughts in disarray, acutely aware of the strange, unsteady fire curling low in her chest.
And just as aware that whatever James Montague intended to teach her, whenever that might happen, he was very certain she would not forget it.
CHAPTER 11
By the second morning at Blackmere Park, Eleanor had learned the house did not wait for her feelings to settle.
It moved whether she was ready or not.
The day began before the sun had fully climbed, with soft footsteps in the corridor and the faint sound of a maid’s brush against linen. It began with the smell of toast drifting up from below and the quiet, ceaseless rhythm of servants doing what they had always done, long before Eleanor arrived to change their titles on paper.
She stood at her window and watched the grounds wake. Frost still clung to the edges of the lawn. A groom crossed the stable yard with a bucket at his side. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once, then fell silent.
A duchess, she reminded herself.
If her new life was going to be nothing but scheduled appearances and controlled politeness, she could at least claim usefulness between them.
Her first attempt was the kitchens. “Hello,” she said with a melodic, cheerful lilt in her tone.
