James had retreated to the library with the familiar, brittle sense of having just survived a siege.
The silence inside Blackmere Park after Eleanor’s family departed felt sharper than the noise of their visit had been. He stood at the window for a long moment, watching the gravel settle where their carriage wheels had passed, his jaw tight, his thoughts tightly reined.
Then the door opened.
He did not turn at once.
“I am sorry to interrupt,” Eleanor said softly.
James closed his eyes for half a breath, then turned.
She stood just inside the threshold, her hands clasped in front of her, her posture tentative, as though she were prepared to retreat at the first sign of dismissal.
“We were to discuss travel to Ashbourne Hall now that Aunt Frances has gone.”
James indicated the chair opposite his desk without looking at it, then immediately regretted the instinct. It was the chair his father had favored, positioned so that the person seated there was forced to look up. Eleanor had endured enough of that posture today.
“Forgive me,” he said, and moved instead to the small seating arrangement near the fire. “There.”
She crossed the room with measured steps and sat, folding her hands in her lap. The gesture was neat, habitual. James had begun to notice how often she arranged herself as though she might be examined for faults.
He remained standing.
“The original plan,” he began, because beginning with anything else would invite softness, “was to travel north within the fortnight. Ashbourne Hall is sufficiently removed from London to quiet speculation. It would allow the marriage to settle into… acceptability.”
Her gaze remained steady. “And then?”
“And then,” he continued, “I would return south.”
She tilted her head slightly. Not in challenge. In calculation.
“To Langford House?” she said. “Or to your clubs?”
“Yes.”
“And I would remain at Ashbourne?”
“For a time.”
She did not immediately respond. That alone unsettled him. Most people rushed to fill silence when confronted with plans made for them.
“At Ashbourne,” she said carefully, “with a staff who does not know me. On an estate that is not accustomed to a duchess. While you pursue life in London alone?”
James nodded once. “That was the intention. Do not say as much as though it would be an odd occurrence.”
Her fingers tightened briefly against one another, then relaxed. “May I ask a question?”
He had learned, already, that when Eleanor asked permission, she had already decided the answer did not matter. “Of course.”
“What would that accomplish,” she asked, “beyond removing me from sight?”
He frowned. “It would give the appearance of afullbridal tour.”
She considered that. “People would not see a tour,” she said. “If they might notice fidgeting at church, then they would certainly notice this as a clear absence.”
He opened his mouth to counter her, then paused. She was not wrong, and she knew it. He could hear it in the way she did not soften the statement for his comfort.
“You would be seen returning to London alone,” she continued. “Frequently. You would be seen at Blackmere’s gates only when business demanded it. I would be a name attached to an estate no one visits.”
