“She stood her ground,” he continued. “In conversation as well as in scrutiny. She did not look to me for rescue, either.”
“You sound proud of her for that.”
“Perhaps I am.”
“That is dangerous.”
“Why?”
“You prefer control.”
“I prefer competence. It is you that prefers to have control.”
“And yet I so rarely have it.”
The room felt smaller. He set his cup down. If she did not wish to say anything more, then he would speak enough for both of them. He had enough to say, at least.
“There was a moment,” he said, “when the rain forced some privacy between us.”
Eliza’s brow lifted slightly.
“Privacy?”
“We stood apart from the others.”
“And?”
“And we may or may not have remained there for longer than was necessary.”
Eliza did not look away.
“That is new,” she said. “You do not tend to be reckless in that way.”
“I am aware. I was as surprised by it as you are now.”
She studied him more closely now, as though measuring something that had shifted in his posture.
“You told me once,” she said, “that marriage would be functional, but nothing more.”
“It still is.”
“And yet you speak as though it is more.”
He did not rush his answer, and that was partly because he did not know quite what to say. He had always been so set in his ways, but then he had met Miss Fairleigh, Margaret, and she had changed his perception entirely.
Would Eliza understand that?
“It may be.”
“You seem to truly like her,” she sighed. “In which case, I must ask you. Does she know about me?”
“No.”
“Does she suspect that I exist?”
“She likely does, considering that she heard your name.”
Eliza looked at him with a rare curiosity, and he could not help but explain exactly what had happened. Again, there was an amusement that she rarely showed.
