“I would not know. I have avoided polite society for several years.”
“So I have heard.” Her chin lifted slightly—not quite defiance, but something near to it. “Your Grace.”
Ah. She knew who he was. Naturally she did. Everyone knew who he was.
“You possess the advantage,” he said. “You know my name, yet I do not know yours.”
“Miss Eleanor Finch.” She did not curtsy. The omission felt deliberate. “I serve as companion to Miss Honoria Cheswick.”
“Companion.” He allowed the word to settle between them. “And translator. And performer ofparlour tricks.”
Something flickered in her expression—there and gone, too fast to name. “You heard that.”
“I did. I also heard your reply.” He paused. “‘Usefulness has its comforts.’ Do you believe that, Miss Finch?”
The question was too direct. He knew it. Yet he found, somewhat to his own surprise, that he sincerely wished to hear her answer.
She remained silent for several moments, her grey eyes searching his face as though seeking the snare concealed within his words. He permitted her scrutiny. He had nothing to hide—or rather, he had everything to hide, but none of it visible upon the surface.
“I believe,” she said at last, “that usefulness is preferable to uselessness. And that comfort is… relative.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the answer I have.”
“Fair enough.” He inclined his head slightly. “I shall leave you to your solitude, Miss Finch. My apologies for the interruption.”
He turned to depart, and her voice halted him.
“Your Grace.”
He looked back.
She watched him with an expression he could not quite interpret—curiosity, perhaps, or calculation, or something deeper still.
“The straight path,” she said quietly. “In Dante. It was lost because the pilgrim strayed from it gradually, not because it was taken from him. The error was his own. The dark wood was a consequence, not a punishment.”
Benjamin felt something shift within his chest—an uneasy recognition, as though she had reached through his ribs and touched something he had believed safely buried.
“I know,” he said.
And then, because no other response presented itself, he turned and walked away.
***
Eleanor watched him go.
Her heart beat faster than it ought—faster than it had any justification for doing—and her hands trembled once more, though now for reasons wholly unrelated to humiliation.
He understood.
The thought arrived unbidden, perilous in its simplicity. The Duke of Thornwood had listened as she quoted Dante and understood why she had selected those particular lines. He had heard cruelty disguised as kindness and recognised it for what it was. He had asked her a genuine question—not a polite triviality—and had accepted her evasion without pressing for more.
He had looked at her, and for one profoundly disorienting moment, she had felt seen.
Do not,she told herself firmly.Do not make this into something it is not. He is a duke in search of a wife. You are a spinster companion with neither dowry nor prospects. He was being courteous. Nothing more.
Yet courtesy did not account for the intensity in his eyes. Courtesy did not explain why he had crossed a crowded room to address her in particular when a dozen far more suitable candidates competed for his attention. Courtesy did not explain the manner in which he had spoken the wordhonest—as thoughhonesty were rare and valuable, something to be cherished rather than politely discouraged.
