“For whatever value my opinion holds,” he said, not quite meeting her gaze, “when I look at you, I do not see your mother. I see you. Only you.”
Then he was gone, leaving Eleanor alone with a faded sketch and the echo of words that had slipped, impossibly, past every defence she had ever constructed.
Chapter Fifteen
“Would you walk with me?”
The question came at the close of breakfast, delivered with the careful neutrality Eleanor had come to recognise as Benjamin’s customary manner when uncertain of his reception. He stood near the doorway of the morning room, his posture that of a man prepared for refusal.
Eleanor set down her teacup.
In the weeks since her arrival at Thornwood, they had walked together only when necessity required it—tours of the household, inspections of the tenant farms, the practical duties of managing an estate. Never simply… to walk. Never for its own sake.
“Of course,” she said. “Allow me to fetch my shawl.”
Something shifted in his expression—relief, perhaps, or surprise at her ready agreement. He inclined his head once and stepped aside to wait.
Eleanor rose from the table, her heart beating faster than the moment warranted.
It is only a walk,she told herself.Do not make it into more than it is.
Yet as she climbed the stairs to retrieve her shawl, she could not entirely still the faint stirring of something that felt perilously like anticipation.
The gardens of Thornwood Park were beginning to recover.
Eleanor had observed the transformation gradually over the past weeks—the roses carefully pruned, the pathways cleared, the slow retreat of wild growth from spaces designed for order. The gardener had been working with quiet diligence, encouraged by her interest and, she suspected, by unobtrusive instructions from the Duke himself.
Yet much remained to be done. The structure of the formal garden had re-emerged, but the fullness that ought to have clothed it remained fragile and incomplete. It would require years, perhaps, to restore what neglect had allowed to fade.
They walked in silence at first.
It was not an uncomfortable silence—not the charged stillness of their early days. This was something gentler. The silence of two people who had grown accustomed to one another’s company, who did not feel compelled to fill each interval with words.
Eleanor found herself relaxing into it. The day was mild, the sky a pale wash of blue scattered with clouds, the air carrying the scent of growing things and damp earth. She had not realised how much she missed gardens until she walked through one that was being tended again.
“The roses are recovering,” she said, pausing beside a bed where fresh green shoots pushed through carefully pruned canes. “Another month, and they should bloom properly.”
Benjamin halted beside her, his gaze following hers toward the renewing plants.
“Jenkins—the head gardener—says this variety is particularly resilient. His grandmother planted the original stock, apparently. It has endured worse than my neglect.”
“It is not neglect to grieve.”
The words escaped before Eleanor could weigh them. Benjamin remained silent for a moment, his scarred profile turned toward the roses.
“My mother loved these gardens,” he said at last. “She spent hours here each day, tending things. She said it helped her think.”
“Mrs Harding mentioned she walked them every evening.”
“Did she?” Something ghostlike crossed his expression—not quite a smile, not quite pain. “Yes. She would walk the paths before dinner, whatever the weather. She said the gardens spoke to her.”
Eleanor waited, sensing more lay beneath.
“I allowed them to fall into disrepair after she passed.” His voice remained quiet, factual. “The staff offered to maintainthem, but I refused. I told them it was an unnecessary expense—that no one would notice.”
“But that was not the true reason.”
“No.” He turned toward her, and something unguarded flickered in his dark eyes. “It felt… dishonest to tend them when I could not tend to her. To keep beautiful what I had failed to protect.”
