They might as well have been separated by oceans.
This is what marriage is,she told herself as she mounted the staircase to her elegant solitude.A roof. A title. A sanctioned place to exist without inconvenience to anyone.
You ought to be grateful.
She repeated it like a litany as she prepared for bed, as she slipped between sheets scented faintly of lavender and untouched years, as she stared at the canopy and listened to the breathing silence of a house that did not yet know her name.
You ought to be grateful.
Sleep came eventually, though not gently. She dreamed of grey shapes in shadowed gardens—and of a man who stepped silently between her and what frightened her.
In the dream, when he turned toward her, his eyes were not cold at all.
She woke to the sound of footsteps.
Not within her chamber—the door remained closed—but somewhere beyond. In the corridor, perhaps. Or in the sitting room that adjoined her apartments to his.
Eleanor lay still, listening.
The steps were uneven. Firm, then lighter. Firm, then lighter. The unmistakable rhythm of a man who bore an old injury, moving through his own house in the hours before dawn.
Benjamin.
She should not have recognised him so quickly. They barely knew one another at all. Had exchanged fewer words than acquaintances might in an afternoon.
Yet she recognised him.
The footsteps paused somewhere near—outside her door, perhaps, or in the adjoining room. Eleanor held her breath, uncertain what she anticipated. A knock? A word? Some acknowledgement that they were both wakeful in this unfamiliar life they had undertaken together?
The moment lingered.
Then the steps resumed, retreating into the deeper reaches of the house until silence reclaimed its dominion.
Eleanor exhaled slowly.
He was checking upon you, some foolish part of her mind whispered.Making sure you were settled. Making sure you were safe.
Or,her more rational self countered,he was merely traversing his own corridor, and your door lay in his path.
She did not know which explanation was true.
She was not certain she wished to know.
But she lay wakeful long after, listening to the stillness, and when sleep returned, her dreams were gentler than before.
Chapter Seven
“The library catalogue,” Mrs Harding said, with the air of someone confessing to a minor impropriety, “has not been updated since the old duke’s time.”
Eleanor paused in her examination of the household ledgers and looked up. They were seated in the housekeeper’s parlour—a small, efficient chamber near the kitchens that served as the administrative heart of Thornwood Park—and Mrs Harding had been conducting her through the estate’s operations with the careful precision of a woman who anticipated criticism.
“How long ago was that?” Eleanor asked.
“Fifteen years, Your Grace.”
Fifteen years. Fifteen years of books acquired, books lent, books mislaid, books damaged—unrecorded, uncatalogued, existing in a state of cheerful disorder that would have distressed any conscientious librarian.
“I see,” Eleanor said mildly.
