She did not speak the last thought. She did not need to.
Benjamin was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, he reached out and touched her hand.
It was the lightest contact—no more than his fingertips brushing her knuckles, scarcely there at all. Yet Eleanor felt it like flame, like a brand, like something that might leave its mark long after the touch itself had passed.
“Then you must take the matter at your own pace,” he said simply. “Until you are ready to believe.”
And before she could respond—before she could examine or retreat behind her well-practised defences—he withdrew his hand, inclined his head, and left the library.
Eleanor remained standing among the dusty shelves and half-catalogued volumes, her hand still tingling where he had touched it, and wondered whether she would ever be able to predict her husband’s actions.
***
That night, she burned Lydia’s letter.
She did not read the remainder. Did not need to know the particulars of her cousin’s happiness, the milestones of a life constructed upon the ruins of Eleanor’s youthful hope. The letter had served its purpose—it had stirred memories she had long kept carefully contained—and now it could be reduced to ash.
She watched the paper curl and blacken in the hearth, watched Lydia’s looping handwriting vanish into smoke, and felt something loosen within her chest.
The man was a fool.
Benjamin’s words echoed in her mind, fierce and certain and wholly unlike the careful neutrality he usually maintained.
Any man who could look at you—truly look—and see only inadequacy was not worthy of your grief.
She had spent seven years believing Edmund Hale’s judgment. Seven years measuring herself against a standard she had never chosen, finding herself wanting by measures that were never hers to meet.
Perhaps it was time to stop.
Perhaps—perhaps—it was time to consider that the man who saw her now, who watched her with dark eyes and spoke her name as though it carried weight and worth, might perceive something Edmund Hale had been too blind to recognise.
Then you must take the matter at your own pace. Until you are ready to believe.
Eleanor pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the rapid beat of her heart beneath her palm.
She was not ready. Not yet. The armour was too familiar, the wounds too deep, the fear too ingrained.
But for the first time in seven years, she allowed herself to imagine that, someday—perhaps—she might be.
Chapter Nine
“You should walk the grounds more often, Your Grace.”
Mrs Harding delivered this pronouncement during the morning’s household review, her tone suggesting it was less a suggestion than a prescription. “You have been indoors too much. The fresh air would do you good.”
Eleanor looked up from the menu she had been examining—Cook had proposed an ambitious French dish for Thursday’s dinner, and Eleanor was attempting to determine whether the household budget might sustain the necessary ingredients. “I do take air from time to time.”
“Through the window; that is scarcely sufficient.” The housekeeper’s severe expression softened a fraction. “The grounds here are quite beautiful, when properly explored.”
“Perhaps I shall,” Eleanor said. “This afternoon, if the weather holds.”
Mrs Harding inclined her head, satisfied. “The east garden is particularly fine at this time of year. The roses are beginning to bloom.”
The weather did hold—a rare blessing in early spring, when the English countryside seemed to delight in sudden showers and unexpected chills. By late afternoon, the sky had cleared to a pale, tentative blue, and Eleanor found herself restless in a manner she could not quite define.
The library catalogue was progressing admirably. The tenant correspondence had been answered. The household functioned smoothly under her quiet direction. For the first time since her arrival, nothing required her immediate attention.
She did not know what to do with nothing.
