“I woke early,” she said. “It seemed foolish to remain abed.”
This was technically true. She had woken early—had, in fact, scarcely slept at all, her mind circling endlessly around the memory of a thumb brushing her cheek and a voice speaking her name with quiet reverence. But the true reason she had come down to breakfast at this hour, a full half-hour before her customary time, was something she was not prepared to examine too closely.
She was hoping to see him.
It was foolish. It was transparent. It was precisely the sort of conduct she had spent her entire adult life training herself to avoid—the obvious wanting, the visible hope, the vulnerability of caring whether someone appeared.
And yet here she sat, her heart quickening every time footsteps sounded in the corridor.
“His Grace has already taken his coffee,” Mrs Harding continued, apparently oblivious to Eleanor’s internal disquiet.“He mentioned he would be reviewing the northern farm accounts this morning. Something about discrepancies requiring attention.”
The northern farm accounts. The very documents they had been examining last night, before—
Eleanor took a careful sip of tea to conceal the colour she could feel rising in her cheeks.
“I see,” she said. “Thank you, Mrs Harding.”
The housekeeper inclined her head and withdrew, leaving Eleanor alone with her breakfast and the uncomfortable awareness that she had become, without intending to, the sort of woman who arrived early to meals in hopes of catching sight of her husband.
This is ridiculous, she told herself firmly.You are a practical woman. You do not pine.
But when footsteps sounded in the corridor a few minutes later—uneven, familiar, unmistakable—her heart leapt like a startled bird.
***
Benjamin paused in the doorway of the breakfast room.
He had not expected to find her there. Had, in truth, deliberately timed his return from the study to avoid the breakfast hour altogether, convinced she would prefer not to see him after the events of the previous night.
But there she sat, her teacup cradled between her hands, morning light catching the auburn glints in her hair, looking up at him with an expression he could not quite interpret.
“Good morning,” she said.
Her voice was careful. Neutral. Offering nothing away.
“Good morning,” he replied.
He should leave. Should murmur something about pressing business and retreat to his study, where he might spend another hour pretending he had not nearly kissed his wife in the library and then lain awake half the night thinking of it.
Instead, he crossed to the sideboard, filled a plate with food he did not particularly desire, and took the chair opposite her as though it were the most ordinary habit in the world.
“You slept well?” he asked.
Idiot, he thought immediately.Of course she did not sleep well. You touched her face and then abandoned the moment like a coward. She probably spent the night wondering what poor specimen of a husband she has acquired.
“Well enough,” Eleanor said. Her gaze met his above the rim of her teacup. “And you?”
“Well enough.”
They were both lying. They both knew it.
Yet the falsehoods felt necessary somehow—a fragile bridge spanning the awkwardness of the morning, a means of preserving normalcy when nothing felt normal at all.
“The northern farm accounts,” Eleanor said after a silence that lingered a moment too long. “Mrs Harding mentioned you were reviewing them.”
“Yes. Your observations last night were… most helpful.” He paused. “I believe you were correct regarding the systematic underreporting. The discrepancy does indeed go back at least a decade.”
“I can continue the analysis this afternoon, if you wish. There remain several years of records requiring examination.”
