“Then I shall not offer you words that carry no weight.” She held his gaze, willing him to see that this, too, was a kind of respect. “You have borne this guilt for years. You may bear itfor years yet. Nothing I say can alter what occurred, nor lighten it by mere insistence. But—” She paused, selecting her words with care. “You are not the only one who has learnt to endure what ought to have undone them. And endurance, I think, is less punishing when it is not undertaken alone.”
Something shifted in his expression. Something gave way beneath the disciplined surface he maintained so carefully.
“Eleanor—”
“The clause,” she said gently. “Shall I redraft it?”
He was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, he inclined his head.
“Yes,” he said. “Redraft.”
They returned to their work. The storm continued its assault upon the house. And something long held taut between them—some final reserve, some quiet resistance—began, almost imperceptibly, to loosen.
***
Dawn arrived grey and spent, the storm reduced at last to a steady drizzle and low-hanging mist.
Eleanor leaned back in her chair, her eyes burning from hours of close scrutiny, her hand cramped from writing. The response to the French merchants lay complete before her—a measured refutation of their claims, supported bydocumentation and rendered in French she trusted would withstand scrutiny.
Benjamin had fallen asleep within the last hour, his head resting upon his folded arms at the desk, his breathing slow and even.
In sleep, his face lost some of its guarded severity. The lines of tension softened. The rigid set of his jaw eased.
He looked, she thought, almost at peace.
Eleanor watched him for a long moment, permitting herself to observe what she had thus far refused to notice. The fall of dark hair across his brow. The surprising length of his lashes against his scarred cheek. The steady rise and fall of his shoulders.
He told me,she thought.He entrusted me with the worst thing he carries. And I did not attempt to mend it. I simply stayed.
The realisation felt weighty. It felt as though something had passed between them—something neither had named, yet both had understood.
Almost without conscious thought, she reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead.
He stirred but did not wake. Eleanor withdrew her hand at once, heat rising to her cheeks at the intimacy of the gesture.
Do not,she admonished herself.Do not read into this what has not been spoken.
Yet as she gathered the completed documents and prepared them for the courier—the bridge having been temporarily reinforced, just enough to allow passage—she could not banish the memory of the way he had looked at her in the candlelight. The trust in his voice. The quiet vulnerability he had permitted.
The ache in her chest was not pity. It was something steadier. Something far more perilous.
Endurance is less punishing when it is not undertaken alone.
She had meant the words as a comfort for him.
She had not anticipated how deeply they would also apply to herself.
Chapter Thirteen
“The storm’s not done yet, Your Grace.”
Mrs Harding delivered this assessment with the grim satisfaction of one whose predictions had been vindicated. Beyond the windows, the sky had darkened once more, the brief morning reprieve surrendering to another assault of wind and rain.
Eleanor inclined her head, suppressing a yawn. She had not slept—had scarcely considered the possibility—after the night spent labouring over the merchant correspondence. The documents had been dispatched with the courier at first light, and now nothing remained but to await a reply and hope her translations and arguments proved sufficient to avert disaster.
“Has there been any word regarding the bridge repairs?” she asked.
“The temporary supports are holding, but another spell of rain such as last night’s may carry them away entirely.” Mrs Harding consulted her notes. “The groundskeeper advises that we prepare for the likelihood of being cut off from the north farms for several days.”
