“What pretenses?” she asked through gritted teeth, her back still toward him.
And for reasons he refused to name, the anger in her voice made something in him tighten with something that was not anger at all.
Eleanor stood frozen at the door.
Her skin felt tight with the echo of James’s voice, his sharp restraint, the way he had spoken as though she were both precious and inconvenient in the same breath.
She stood there, hand still curled around the handle, and murmured without quite meaning to, “Perhaps I only know how to be useful when I am… small.”
Her own words startled her.
They slipped out, thin and unguarded, like a thought that had never been invited into daylight.
“What was that?” James said from behind her.
Eleanor flinched, then drew her hand back slowly, turning to face him again. “Nothing.”
He did not move closer. “I dislike when people mumble.”
She swallowed. “I was only… thinking.”
“Then speak,” he said quietly.
Her mouth opened, but no sound came. The realization she had stumbled upon seemed too large to name, as if it would break something simply by being spoken aloud. Her father’s voice flickered through her memory. Orders. Dismissals. The quiet understanding that her worth was measured in compliance.
She whispered, “I am not certain I know what a lady of her own house is meant to be.”
James’s brows drew together. “You are a duchess.”
“That does not tell me how to exist,” Eleanor replied faintly.
She was still half-turned from him, her gaze drifting down the long corridor as if the answer might be waiting somewhere between the portraits and the shadowed doors. “Perhaps my sense of duty has been trained incorrectly.”
James stepped closer.
“Incorrectly how?”
Her voice trembled. “I was taught that usefulness is obedience. That worth is measured by how quietly one can make oneself disappear.”
Silence gathered between them, thick and watchful.
James’s voice softened. “Look at me.”
She did not, at first.
Then his hands were on her face, warm and steady, his palms bracketing her cheeks as he tilted her gently toward him. His eyes searched hers, sharp concern cutting through the anger that had sparked moments before.
“You are not disappearing,” he said quietly.
Eleanor blinked. Her lashes fluttered, but her gaze drifted unfocused, as though she were still somewhere else entirely.
“I should not have raised my voice,” James added. “That was not–”
His words broke off when he leaned forward and kissed her.
It was not sudden. Not forceful.
It was careful, as though he were trying to reach her without startling her further. His lips brushed hers, tentative and searching, as if he were uncertain how much of her he was allowed to touch.
