He bowed. “Then I shall call again as propriety permits.”
At the threshold he paused.
“I am gratified, Miss Harcourt, that we proceed with mutual understanding.”
“As am I.”
He took his leave with the calm assurance that accompanies matters resolved by reason rather than sentiment.
Whatever familiarity existed between Miss Harcourt and Mr. Grant did not alter the practical realities before them. Grant possessed ease and long acquaintance, advantages not without value. Yet ease was not permanence, and familiarity did not secure a household, protect a future, or confer position.
Miss Harcourt was a woman of intelligence and maturity. She had managed a household, understood responsibility, and conducted herself with dignity in circumstances that would have unbalanced many. Such a woman would not entrust her future to uncertainty when stability lay plainly within reach.
He did not consider this vanity. It was merely the natural order of things.
Rank, estate, and consequence were not ornaments; they were assurances. They represented continuity, protection, and the structure upon which families—indeed, their entire society—endured. A sensible woman recognized the distinction between sentiment and security.
Miss Harcourt had been given the opportunity to alter their terms if she wished. And, as expected, she had declined to do so.
He stepped out into the afternoon air with the quiet conviction that the matter, in all meaningful respects, was settled.
Chapter
Ten
Adrian knew the precise moment Eleanor had withdrawn from him the day prior.
It had not been dramatic. She had not recoiled, nor spoken a word of censure. Yet when she had seen Marklynne standing upon the steps, something within her had closed as surely as a door locked and barred. He had felt it in the way she stepped away after he helped her down, in the careful composure that had settled over her features, and in the quiet finality with which she had placed her hand upon the other man’s sleeve.
When she’d walked up those steps with him, into the interior of Harcourt House, she had not looked back. A telling gesture.
The memory lingered with uncomfortable persistence as he made his way along Piccadilly that morning, the brisk air doing little to cool the unease that had settled beneath his ribs. He had known from the outset that his sudden declaration would not be met with ready warmth. Eleanor was not a woman to be swept away by impulse. She valued steadiness, reason, propriety — all the qualities Marklynne appeared to embody with effortless precision. His lack of action over the past years marked himas unreliable to her mind, suggesting that his affections were changeable.
And yet, beneath the trees, she had kissed him back. Tentative but far from unwilling, it had been a moment of perfection. He had felt the tremor in her breath, the hesitation that was not refusal but wonder, and the fragile stillness that followed when he forced himself to draw away before temptation urged him further. It had not been conquest. It had been something far more dangerous. It had been a moment or recognition for them both. A moment where the entire trajectory of their friendship had altered into something… more.
Now, where he felt hope before, it felt perilously like ground slipping beneath his feet. And that he could not allow.
He paused before the windows of Hatchard’s, the familiar bookshop offering the comfort of polished wood, orderly shelves, and the quiet promise of ideas preserved in leather and gilt. The bell sounded softly as he entered, and the scent of paper and binding glue greeted him like an old acquaintance.
He did not require assistance. He knew precisely what he sought.
He had given Eleanor books before — sensible volumes, essays, histories, practical treatises he thought she might find useful or diverting. Gifts appropriate to friendship. Gifts that required nothing of the heart. Today required something different.
He found it displayed among a small selection of finely bound editions:Pride and Prejudice, its spine a deep, restrained blue, the title stamped in gold that caught the light without ostentation. He lifted it carefully. The leather was supple beneath his fingers, the craftsmanship exacting. When he opened it, the endpapers revealed a delicate floral pattern traced in gold — understated, intricate, and unmistakably feminine without being fragile.
It was exquisite without being showy. It spoke to their long acquaintance, to his deep understanding of her even when she thought he’d been inattentive. It was an effort to show that, despite what she might have believed, he had seen her all along. It was also precisely the sort of thing Eleanor would treasure.
He could picture it already: not displayed to impress visitors, but kept within reach, its pages marked and revisited. She admired wit, discernment, and the triumph of understanding over pride. She believed herself governed by reason, immune to romantic folly — and yet she returned, again and again, to stories in which first impressions proved false and guarded hearts were revealed to be the most steadfast of all. Despite all of her claims to the contrary, at her heart, Eleanor was a romantic. She believed in the power of love even if she felt it was something that had been denied her.
Decisively, he closed the volume. There was no second guessing or dithering. He chose it with certainty. With confidence. And perhaps with foolish optimism.
In the broader scheme of things, such confidence was perhaps the height of foolishness. Marklynne would bring stability. Rank. The unassailable order of a life arranged with precision. While his own fortune had changed dramatically, Eleanor would only ever be Mrs. Grant at his side. Not Lady anything. And while he knew such things were not of consequence to her, society would forever question her choice should she forgo title for sentiment.
He tapped the book against his palm.Marklynne would never think to give her this.He would bring her flowers and chocolates and all the socially acceptable accoutrements of courtship. But he would bring her nothing that was exclusively Eleanor. Because he did not know her. He did not understand her. He saw only the surface of Eleanor, the sensible andpractical steward of her brother’s home. He saw her roles, but Marklynne did not see her.
Adrian carried the book to the counter and arranged for it to be delivered, declining the shopkeeper’s offer of elaborate wrapping. Eleanor would care more for what lay within than for ribbons and display.
He paused before sealing the note.
