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"Was that a lie?” she questioned, staring into his eyes, almost begging him to correct her.

The words struck him with a cold realisation, and it dawned upon him, with dreadful clarity, the full extent of what she had seen. She had not witnessed desperation. She had not seen a frightened widow clinging to the last familiar face she could find.

She had seen another woman wrapped around his body, her hands buried in his hair with an intimacy that belonged only between lovers, and her legs clasped around his waist as he held her effortlessly in his arms.

Arthur’s chest tightened until it became almost painful to draw breath. He had broken his promise. Not in the manner she believed, but in the only way that truly mattered. He had allowed another woman to wound his wife. How much better was he than his father? The realisation settled upon him with a terrible familiarity, awakening a thought he had buried some time ago but had never truly escaped.

Perhaps this was simply who he was destined to be. He had failed Sophia. Now he had failed Eliza.

The women he cared for most seemed always to pay the price for loving him. Was Sophia not proof enough of that? The girl he had once sworn to protect had returned to him eleven years later, frightened, widowed and carrying a child, with nowhere else to turn.

And now Eliza.

Her only crime had been offering him kindness when he believed himself undeserving of it, and now she stood with tears streaming down her face because he had yielded to temptation. Because he had allowed himself to enjoy her affection, even encouraged it, when he should have known better.

The pattern was impossible to ignore.

The cruellest thing he could do now was to let Eliza continue believing that what she felt for him was love. If there was one lesson Arthur had learned with painful certainty, it was this:

To love him was, sooner or later, to suffer for it.

He would give her a good life. She would never want for anything. He would protect her and her heart from every danger within his power.

Even if the greatest danger proved to be himself, he drew in a slow, measured breath, though it did little to ease the ache tightening relentlessly within his chest.

"I never meant to hurt you, Eliza."

He let her name linger softly upon his lips. For so long he had denied her that simple intimacy, and now, just as he had finally found the courage to give it to her, he knew he might never again be afforded the privilege of speaking it.

"But you did all the same." The words struck their mark with devastating precision. There was no anger in her voice.

Arthur lowered his gaze for the briefest of moments. She was right.

Whether through intention or circumstance mattered little now. He had become the source of her pain, and the knowledge weighed him down with the crushing certainty that this, perhaps, had always been inevitable.

He lifted his eyes to hers once more, forcing himself to remain composed despite every instinct begging him to take her into his arms.

"The feelings you believe you have for me..." He paused, each word seeming to demand more of him than the last. "They are misplaced."

Her expression faltered.

"You are twenty, Eliza. You are still young and new to this world." His voice remained quiet, almost unbearably gentle. "You possess a heart that longs to see the good in everyone, even those who have done little to deserve it."

He swallowed.

"I believe you have mistaken my gratitude for love."

She stared at him in silence.

“Our marriage began as an agreement. Twenty thousand pounds to your family in exchange for an heir. You are determined to honour your side of that bargain, Eliza, and I think somewhere along the way you convinced yourself that wanting to be a good wife meant you must also love your husband.”

The lie tasted bitter.

"You think you love me..."

He forced himself to continue.

"...but had there been no orphanage to save, had there been no twenty thousand pounds on the table, I do not believe your heart would ever have chosen mine."