She selected a passage from Dante—not the romantic verses Mrs Thornbury undoubtedly desired, but something possessing sufficient drama to satisfy without requiring Eleanor to perform a longing she did not feel.
“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita,” she began, her voice clear and steady despite the audience,
“mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.”
“Midway upon the journey of our life,” someone murmured—a translation for those who did not recognise the text.
Eleanor continued, letting the familiar words carry her through the discomfort:
“Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!”
She concluded. Silence lingered for a brief moment, then polite applause rippled through the room.
“How clever,” Mrs Thornbury said, beaming. “Like a little parlour trick! Lord Thornbury, did you hear? Three languages!”
Parlour trick.
Eleanor’s smile did not waver. “Thank you, Mrs Thornbury. You are very kind.”
“Such a useful accomplishment,” another guest added—Lady Vance, if Eleanor recalled correctly, a woman who had married advantageously and never permitted anyone to forget it. “Nine-and-twenty and still so useful to everyone. It must be a comfort.”
The words were not cruel, precisely. They were simply… accurate.Nine-and-twenty. Useful.
This is what you are, the room seemed to say.This is all you shall ever be.
Eleanor felt something stir beneath her ribs—not quite pain, not quite anger, but something adjacent to both. She extinguished it with practised efficiency.
“Usefulness has its comforts,” she said mildly. “If you will excuse me.”
She did not flee. Fleeing would imply the words had struck their mark, that the casual dismissal had found its target. Instead, she simply withdrew. Quietly. Calmly. The way water recedes from a shoreline, leaving no trace of disturbance.
She found a secluded place near the windows and stood with her back to the room, gazing out into the darkening garden and breathing slowly until the tightness in her chest subsided.
Usefulness has its comforts.
She had intended it as deflection—a smooth phrase to conclude an uncomfortable exchange. But standing there, alone in a crowded room, she found herself wondering whether it was, in fact, true.
What comfort could usefulness provide, if useful was all one was permitted to be?
***
Benjamin had been watching her.
He had not intended to. He had attended this wretched house party with the sole purpose of surveying the available candidates, selecting the least objectionable option, and escaping back to Thornwood with all possible haste. He had not intended to notice anyone in particular.
Yet the woman in grey had drawn his attention from the moment he entered the room—not because she was beautiful (though she was, in a quiet manner most would overlook), but because she was so evidently attempting to be invisible.
He recognised the strategy. He had employed it himself, in the years before his injuries rendered invisibility impossible. The careful placement near walls and windows. The neutral expression that invited no conversation. The way she held her book like a shield—not reading it, merely using it as a barrier between herself and the room.
She is hiding, he had thought.In plain sight, surrounded by people, she is hiding.
And then he had watched her be summoned, displayed, made to perform like a trained animal, and he had seen the moment when the light behind her eyes flickered—not extinguished, but deliberately dampened, as though she had learnt to smother her own reactions before they could betray her.
