James crossed to the desk. His fingertips hovered over the blotter, then the papers. He could feel the difference in their placement without even touching them. He knew precisely how things were meant to sit because he had arranged them that way, day after day, year after year, until order became a kind of armor.
“You moved my things.”
“I organized them,” she corrected.
“You touched my correspondence.”
“I did not read it,” Eleanor said quickly. “I only stacked it. I did not open anything.”
James’s gaze lifted to her face. “You should not have been in here.”
Her chin rose. “This is my house as well.”
His jaw flexed. “That does not make it your study.”
“It isyourstudy,” she agreed, her tone sharpening, “and you have spent the last two days taking every meal in here as if it is the only room in the house that does not contain me.”
James felt his temper flash, bright and hot. “Do not mistake my habits for avoidance.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. “Then what is it, if not avoidance?”
He did not answer, because the truth was too close to something he refused to examine.
James turned back to the desk, scanning for the small things only he would notice. The letter opener was not where it belonged. The ledger had been placed on top of a pile instead of beneath it. A sealed packet, one that should have been hidden, sat at an angle that suggested it had been handled.
His stomach tightened.
Eleanor followed his gaze and stiffened slightly. “I told you, I did not read anything.”
“You do not need to read to do damage,” James replied.
Her face flushed. “Damage?”
“Yes,” he said coldly. “Do you have any idea what I keep in this room?”
Eleanor’s lips pressed thin. “I assume papers. Ink. A man’s tendency to work himself into the grave.”
James’s eyes narrowed.
She continued, refusing to yield. “You told me to find ways to fill my time. You told me to learn Blackmere Park. You told me –”
“I did not tell you to clean my study!”
“No,” Eleanor said, voice firm. “You did not. But you did not forbid it either.”
James stared at her.
“That was not part of your rules,” she added, as though she were presenting an argument in court. “You said: do not ask where you are going, do not interrupt you when you are working, and do not enter the attic. This is not the attic.”
James took a slow breath through his nose. “Do you enjoy provoking me?”
“I enjoy being useful,” Eleanor shot back.
“You are not a servant, Eleanor!” James said sharply. Sharp enough that the words snapped in the air.
Eleanor’s eyes flashed. “I never said I was.”
“And yet you behave like one.”
