And once again, it had been taken from him.
“Sir.”
The voice came from the side of the house, low and uncertain, and Julien turned at once, his attention sharpening. A young maid stood half concealed by the kitchen entrance, her expression wary but determined, as though she had debated whether to speak and only just resolved to do so.
“Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” she said, stepping forward slightly. “I thought you might wish to know.”
He regarded her steadily. “Know what?”
She glanced once over her shoulder before continuing, lowering her voice into something almost conspiratorial. “They’ve gone to the country, sir. Left this morning, they did. In a hurry.”
The unease that had lingered sharpened at once.
“Why?”
The girl shifted, her gaze flicking briefly toward the street before returning to him. “Mr. Sutton, sir. He came back. There was talk last night, and this morning the orders came down quick as anything. Trunks packed. Carriages called. Gone before luncheon.”
William Sutton.
For a moment, Julien said nothing at all. The name settled into place with an immediacy that rendered everything else unnecessary. The stillness of the house. The uncertainty of the servants. The sudden departure. It aligned too precisely to be coincidence.
He dismissed the girl with a brief inclination of his head, though he scarcely registered her retreat. His thoughts had already moved beyond the exchange, assembling themselves into something sharper, more defined. Anger came first, swift and unambiguous, not merely at the man himself—though there was ample reason for that—but at what his presence represented. Disruption. Interference. The careless dismantling of a moment that had only just begun to take shape.
He had intended to speak to her.
Had intended, at last, to act.
And once again, he had been prevented.
The anger did not linger long. It rarely did. What followed it was far less easily dismissed. Disappointment settled in its wake, quieter but more enduring, carrying with it the weight of recognition that this was not, in truth, a new circumstance. He had been here before, though never with quite so much at stake, and the familiarity of it did nothing to make it more tolerable.
He turned from the house and descended the steps, his movements composed, his expression giving nothing away to those who might have observed him. There was nothing to be done now. No action that would not invite precisely the sort of attention he had sought to avoid. She had gone. The opportunity, once more, had passed.
As he mounted his horse and turned it toward home, the realization settled fully into place.
He was, once again, where he had started.
Waiting.
Chapter
Five
The weeks that followed Caroline’s departure did not pass as Julien Harcourt might once have expected them to. Time, in his experience, was a thing to be managed—ordered, directed, and put toward some discernible purpose. It was not something he endured idly, nor something he allowed to stretch without structure or intent. And yet, in the months since Ashworth House had stood empty before him, time had done precisely that, offering him neither distraction nor resolution, only the steady, unrelenting awareness of what had been left unfinished.
He resumed his usual routines because habit demanded it, not because they held any particular satisfaction. The club, his estates, the obligations attendant to his position—all were attended to with the same efficiency that had long defined him, and nothing that required his attention was neglected. Outwardly, there was little to remark upon. Those who observed him casually would have seen nothing amiss, nothing beyond the composed, deliberate man they had always known. But those who knew him well enough to notice the subtleties—who understood the distinction between composure and restraint—were not inclined to speak of what they saw, though they felt it nonetheless.
He was not pleasant company. The realization did not trouble him in the abstract. He had never valued charm for its own sake, nor sought to ingratiate himself where there was no reason to do so. But this was not mere indifference. It was something sharper, something less easily dismissed. His patience, once seemingly inexhaustible, wore thin in ways that would have surprised even himself had he taken the time to examine it. Conversations that served no purpose beyond polite exchange became intolerable. Invitations were declined without apology. Engagements shortened, obligations fulfilled with efficiency but without any effort to extend them beyond necessity. It was not anger, precisely, but neither was it calm. It was restlessness.
He had thought himself long accustomed to waiting. Indeed, he had built much of his adult life upon it, upon the careful restraint that allowed others to move first, upon the discipline of withholding action until the moment was precisely right. It had served him well in nearly every respect. It did not serve him now, and the distinction, once recognized, could not be ignored.
He had just begun to turn toward his study, intent upon removing himself from a conversation that had long since ceased to require his presence, when Eleanor’s voice reached him from across the hall. She spoke his name without raising her voice, but there was something in the quiet certainty of her tone that ensured he stopped at once and turned to face her.
She stood near the far doorway, composed as ever, her expression intent in a way that left no doubt she had not come upon him by chance. There was no surprise in her manner, no hesitation, and that alone was enough to tell him she had already considered whatever it was she meant to say. She regarded him for a moment, her gaze steady and searching, before observingthat he had been avoiding her. Julien did not deny it outright, though he offered that he had been occupied, which was not untrue even if it did not account for the entirety of his behavior.
Eleanor accepted the answer only in part, noting that he had been occupied for several weeks and had, in that time, managed to become remarkably disagreeable. There was no censure in her tone, only observation, but the weight of it was not diminished by its calm delivery. Julien exhaled slowly, acknowledging without protest that if he had given offense, it had not been intentional, though he did not offer further defense.
She did not press the point, but neither did she abandon it. Instead, she shifted the conversation with a quiet directness that left little room for evasion, asking whether he had heard from the Ashworths. When he answered that he had not, and that he had made no effort to do so, Eleanor merely inclined her head, noting that such restraint was appropriate even as it did nothing to lessen its difficulty.
