I hear rumours that Lydia and her husband are in some financial difficulty. Their creditors have become quite persistent, apparently. I suppose this is what comes of marrying for beauty rather than substance. One does hope they will recover, though I confess I find it difficult to summon much sympathy.
Eleanor read the paragraph twice, waiting for the familiar surge of bitter satisfaction.
It did not come.
A year ago—indeed, far more recently than that—she would have savoured this news. Would have turned it over in her mind like a precious stone, examining every facet of Edmund Hale’s comeuppance. The man who had dismissed her was now struggling to maintain the household he had chosen over her. There was a certain poetic justice in that.
But now, sitting in the morning room of a house that had become her home, married to a man who told her he loved her every single day, Eleanor found she did not care about Edmund Hale’s fortunes.
He was part of her past. A wound that had shaped her, certainly, but no longer a wound that defined her. She had been so afraid, for so long, that his judgment of her was the truth.
But Benjamin had shown her otherwise.
Not with grand gestures or dramatic declarations, but with the steady, patient attention of a man who noticed things. Who saw her. Who loved her not despite her armour but because of what the armour protected—the tender, hopeful heart she had learnt to hide from a world that had given her no reason to trust.
Eleanor set the letter aside and returned to her work, Edmund Hale already forgotten.
***
That evening, something was different.
Eleanor noticed it as soon as she entered the library for their usual evening together. Benjamin was already there, standing by the window instead of seated at his desk, his posture suggesting a tension she had not seen in days.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, pausing in the doorway.
He turned to face her, and the expression on his face was difficult to read. Not distress, exactly—but something complicated. Something that looked almost like nervousness.
“Nothing is wrong,” he said. “I was merely... thinking.”
“About what?”
He did not answer immediately. Instead, he crossed to the sideboard and poured two glasses of wine, handing one to her before taking a seat in the chair opposite hers.
“I have been considering something,” he said finally. “For several days now. Something I want to do, but I am not certain how to begin.”
Eleanor settled into her own chair, her curiosity piqued. “That sounds ominous.”
“It is not ominous.” A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “At least, I hope it is not. It is simply... I am not skilled at this sort of thing. At finding the right words. At expressing what I feel in ways that do justice to the feeling.”
“You have been doing quite well lately.”
“I have been saying ‘I love you’ every day, as I promised. But saying the words and truly conveying what they mean—” He shook his head. “Those are not the same thing.”
Eleanor studied him, her heart beginning to beat faster. There was something in his manner—a formality, a gravity—that suggested this was not ordinary conversation.
“Benjamin,” she said gently. “What are you trying to tell me?”
He set down his wine glass. Rose from his chair. And then, to her complete astonishment, crossed to where she sat and lowered himself to his knees before her.
Eleanor’s breath caught in her throat.
He was kneeling. The Duke of Thornwood—her husband, the scarred and silent man who had spent years building wallsagainst the world—was kneeling at her feet like a supplicant before a queen.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“I have been thinking,” he said again, his voice low and rough, “about what you deserve.”
“Benjamin—”
