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Even now, a fortnight later, Arthur could trace the latest unravelling of his life back to that single conversation around the dinner table. Strange, he thought, how a man's world could fracture not through cannon fire or bloodshed, but over the quiet correction of table etiquette.

Three women had sat beneath the roof of Winworth that evening. By the time dinner had ended, not one of them remained unchanged.

Eliza...

His wife had left believing he had fathered a child and violated the sanctity of their marriage. She had looked at him only once that evening, the first time their eyes had met in three long days, and he could still picture the expression that had greeted him.

Not fury. Not disgust. Those emotions he could have endured.

Resignation.

The quiet, heartbreaking resignation of a woman who had finally stopped hoping she might have been wrong. Every fear she had harboured since Sophia’s arrival, every doubt he had refused to put to rest, had settled into certainty.

And he had allowed it.

Eliza had not demanded an explanation. She had not shouted. She had simply left.

His mother had fared little better. The Dowager Duchess of Buckingham had always possessed an unwavering faith in her only son. She had defended him after the duel that scarred his face, stood beside him when others had thought the worst of him, and welcomed Eliza into Winworth with a kindness Arthur himself had struggled to show.

Yet one look across that dinner table had been enough to shake even her certainty in him.

His mother had departed for London the same morning as Laurence, leaving behind only a neatly folded note informing him that she required time before she could bear her son's company again.

It was, Arthur reflected bitterly, the shortest letter she had ever written to him. And then there was Sophia.

The architect of it all. Or perhaps another casualty. He no longer knew which. He remembered seeking Sophia out minutes after dinner ended.

Every instinct had urged him to follow his wife. To stop her. To explain. To say something. Instead, duty had again won the battle and found Sophia exactly where Ellis had installed her, in her chambers at the furthest corner of Winworth.

"It was an accident, Arty," she had insisted before he had a chance to say a single word. "I swear it. I never intended your mother to notice."

He had looked at her for what felt like an age. The woman who stood before him, whom he had once imagined spending eternity with, now seemed strangely unfamiliar, as though the years between them had quietly transformed them into strangers wearing the faces of old friends.

When he finally spoke, his voice had emerged far calmer than the fury surging beneath it.

"Allow me to be clear, Sophia."

She had fallen silent immediately.

"I have not accepted your proposal. I told you that you may remain here until I have reached a decision."

She opened her mouth, but he raised a hand before she could interrupt.

"I have never dreamed of having a mistress. You would do well to remember that."

The words hung heavily between them. For the briefest of moments, something flickered across her face. Disappointment. Desperation. Perhaps both. He had not stayed long enough to discover which.

He left her standing exactly where she was and returned to the sanctuary of his office, where the estate became his refuge and paperwork his preferred company. Aside from meals he scarcely tasted and the necessities that could not be avoided, he had remained in his study for the better part of two weeks.

The only exception had been Laurence's departure. Even now Arthur could picture the dawn stretching across the gravel drive, the horses stamping impatiently against the cool morning air whilst servants secured the final trunks in the carriage.

"If you do not have an opportunity to visit that address," Arthur had said, recalling Eliza's only request from the previous evening, "allow me. I can find business in London if required."

Laurence looked up whilst fastening his gloves.

"I did not jest when I made the Duchess that promise, Buck."

Laurence climbed onto the carriage step before turning back with the familiar smile Arthur had known since they were boys.