“Are you injured?” The question came without preamble.
“No,” she replied, though her voice wavered slightly. “I am quite well. You need not?—”
He reached for her before she could finish.
It was not the careful, measured touch he might have used before. It was firm. His hands settled at her shoulders as though to anchor her in place. He did not pull her into him at once. “You are certain,” he asked, but it was not a question.
Arabella met his gaze, searching it in a way she cannot quite help. “Yes.”
Something shifted in him then, subtle but unmistakable, the tension breaking just enough to allow something else through. He pulled her toward him, the movement sudden in its certainty.
The embrace was firm and certain. It was relief, unguarded and immediate, the breath leaving him in a way that spoke more clearly than any words he might have chosen.
Arabella stilled against him, the last of her resistance dissolving under the weight of it. She had expected many things from this moment—anger, urgency, even the pull of vengeance—but not this.
“You should go,” she said again, though the words were softer now, less certain. “He cannot have gone far.”
Maxwell did not release her.
“No,” he said.
The answer was quiet, but it did not waver.
Arabella pulled back just enough to look at him. “Maxwell?—”
“I will not leave you.”
There was no elaboration, and no attempt to justify it.
She studied him for a moment longer, something shifted behind her expression as the weight of it took hold. Then, slowly, she nodded. “Then we must return,” she says. “Eleanor?—”
Maxwell released her at last, though his hand did not fully fall away, remaining at her arm as he stepped back from the carriage. He offered her his hand, the gesture steady despite everything that had just passed.
She took it without hesitation.
The return to the promenade was quicker than it had been before, though the distance felt altered now, the quiet of the path replaced by the distant murmur of the gathering they hadleft behind. As they approached, the cluster of people remained, though it had shifted slightly; the urgency softened into concern.
Eleanor stood now.
James’s earlier absence had left her supported by others, though she no longer leaned on them. The mark on her cheek remained, stark against her skin, but her posture had regained its usual composure.
“Arabella.”
She moved forward at once, the relief in her voice unguarded as she reached her.
Arabella did not hesitate.
The embrace was immediate, her arms wrapping around her sister with a force that spoke of everything she had not allowed herself to consider in the carriage. Eleanor returned it just as firmly, her hand coming up to rest at the back of Arabella’s head.
“You are safe,” Eleanor said, the words half reassurance, half confirmation.
“Yes,” Arabella replied, her voice muffled slightly. “I am.”
When they drew apart, Eleanor’s gaze flickered briefly to Maxwell, something like gratitude passing through it before it settled again into something more measured.
Around them, the murmurs began to rise once more, the presence of witnesses reasserting itself now that the immediate crisis had passed.
But for a moment longer, Arabella remained where she was, her hand still resting against her sister’s arm, the world narrowing to something far smaller than it had been only moments before.
