The cat did not move. It merely watched; its tail wrapped neatly about its paws.
Eleanor pressed herself against the wall.
She could not breathe. Could not think. Could do nothing but stand there, paralysed by a fear she knew to be foolish, childish, utterly unworthy of a grown woman who managed estates, translated contracts, and refused to weep when the world proved cruel.
Move, she commanded herself.It is only a cat. Only a small, frightened cat.
Her body did not respond. The trembling had spread through her entire frame, and a sound gathered in her throat—a broken, humiliating whimper she could not quite suppress.
The cat’s ears flicked.
Then—footsteps. Uneven. Familiar. Approaching from behind her.
“Eleanor?”
Benjamin’s voice, roughened by concern. She heard him halt, heard the sharp intake of breath as he took in the scene—his wife flattened against the wall, trembling, while a grey cat sat unmoving in the corridor before her.
She could not turn toward him. Could not remove her gaze from the animal, as though looking away might somehow provoke it.
“I—” Her voice emerged strained and fragile, scarcely recognisable. “I cannot—”
He asked no questions. Demanded no explanation. Did nothing that would have forced her to articulate a fear she barely understood herself.
He simply moved.
She heard his steps pass her—felt the warmth of him as he positioned himself between her and the cat, obscuring it from her sight. She heard the soft rustle as he crouched, the low murmur of his voice as he addressed the animal in the same gentle tones she had once overheard in the hidden courtyard.
“Easy,” he said softly. “Easy now. You are quite safe.”
A moment of stillness. Then the faint sound of the cat being lifted—a small protest quickly soothed—and Benjamin’s footsteps receding down the corridor toward the servants’ entrance, the creature cradled securely in his arms.
Eleanor remained pressed against the wall, her heart pounding, her breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps.
He saw, she thought.He saw me like this. Weak. Foolish. Afraid of a creature scarcely heavier than a loaf of bread.
The shame was almost worse than the fear.
He returned a few minutes later.
Eleanor had not moved. She could not seem to command her limbs to obey her, even now that the cat was gone. She stood with her back pressed against the cold stone, her hands flattened against the wall behind her, her whole body still trembling in the wake of terror.
Benjamin halted several feet away. She could feel his gaze upon her—measured, attentive—but when she dared a glance at his face, she found none of the judgment she had braced herself to meet.
“It will not happen again,” he said quietly.
That was all. No questions as to why she had been so afraid. No gentle ridicule of her irrational dread. No reassurances that the animal was harmless, that she had nothing to fear, that she was being foolish.
Only five words, spoken with unqualified certainty:It will not happen again.
Eleanor’s throat tightened. She opened her mouth—to thank him, to apologise, to explain—but no sound emerged.
He seemed to understand. He gave a single, slight inclination of his head, then turned and walked away, leaving her alone in the corridor to gather herself.
***
She did not see the cat again that day.
In truth, she saw very little at all. The exhaustion from the previous night finally overtook her, and she withdrew to her chambers to sleep—not the restless, fractured sleep that had followed her since her arrival at Thornwood, but a deep, dreamless oblivion that lasted well beyond the dinner hour.
