“La pazienza è la virtù dei forti,” Eleanor said evenly. “E la vendetta si gusta meglio quando è fredda.”
“Capital! And what does it mean?”
“Patience is the virtue of the strong. And revenge is best savoured when it is cold.”
The baronet’s smile faltered, if only slightly. “That is… not precisely what I anticipated.”
“Italian can be unexpectedly expressive,” Eleanor said, and returned her attention to her fish.
Across the table, Honoria caught her eye and looked away with suspicious haste, her lips pressed together as though suppressing laughter. It was, Eleanor reflected, the nearest approximation of genuine connection she was likely to enjoy that evening.
She would accept it.
***
Later, alone in her small chamber at the rear of the house, Eleanor sat at her writing desk and stared into nothingness.
The evening had wearied her in ways that bore no relation to physical exertion. It was the performance that exhausted her—the constant calculation of how much to speak, how warmly to smile, how much of herself to conceal. The unceasing awareness that she was present only because her absence would have been ill-regarded, that her purpose was to occupy a chair rather than contribute to the conversation.
Useful, she thought.Invisible. Safe.
The words felt unusually heavy tonight. Heavier than they ought.
She thought of her mother, fading in a drawing room that had never truly been home. She thought of Edmund Hale, smiling over her translations while quietly arranging his courtship of Lydia. She thought of the baronet requesting something romantic as though her languages were tricks to be performed upon command.
She thought of Aunt Georgiana:Such a shame that accomplishments rarely help a woman in your position.
And for a single moment—treacherous and unguarded—she allowed herself to wonder what it might feel like to be seen. Not useful. Not invisible. Not the spinster cousin who translated correspondence and filled empty chairs at dinner parties.
Simply… seen.
The thought was dangerous, and she knew it. Hope was a luxury she had relinquished long ago, and to desire what could not be attained was to invite disappointment of the most ruinous sort.
Yet the wondering lingered, soft and sharp as a splinter beneath the skin.
What would it feel like, she wondered,to be chosen?
She did not have an answer. She was not certain she ever would.
Eleanor extinguished her candle and lay in the darkness, listening to the muted sounds of a house she would never quite belong to, and tried very diligently not to wish for anything at all.
Chapter Three
“The Duke of Thornwood,” Lady Rutledge announced, in tones usually reserved for natural disasters, “has arrived.”
The drawing room fell silent. Eleanor looked up from her place near the window—the seat she had chosen deliberately, as it was far from the fire, far from the most desirable chairs, and far from anyone likely to engage her in conversation—and watched as two dozen heads turned toward the door with the synchronised precision of startled birds.
“I thought he never left his estate,” someone whispered.
“I heard he killed a man in a duel,” another murmured.
“I heard it wasthreemen.”
“I heard his face was terribly burned in the war. They say he looks like something from a nightmare.”
Eleanor returned her attention to the book in her lap. She had heard of the Duke of Thornwood, of course—one could scarcely exist in polite society without hearing of him, if only because polite society so relished discussing those who declined to participate in it. He was reclusive. He was scarred. He was, depending upon the storyteller, either a tragic hero, a dangerous recluse, or a cautionary tale about the cost of war.
None of which concerned Eleanor, who was present at Lady Rutledge’s house party solely because Honoria required a companion, and Mrs Cheswick required Eleanor to be useful.
