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"Goodbye, Sophia." Arthur bowed his head and, without waiting for a reply, or allowing himself the weakness of hearing one, he turned away from the woman who had once touched his heart in boyhood and began crossing the ballroom towards the woman who now held it entirely. The movement drew the room with him.

The crowd parted before him almost instinctively.

Conversations dissolved into silence as he passed, and every curious eye in Carlton House followed his progress, yet Arthur did not notice. His gaze never left Eliza.

As he drew closer, he saw uncertainty give way to confusion in her bright green eyes, as though Eliza could not yet comprehend what had just taken place.

He stopped before her and offered Miss Dawson a polite nod.

"Miss Dawson," he said warmly, "I hope you will forgive the interruption, but I find I must insist on borrowing my wife."

Before either sister could answer, Arthur extended his hand towards Eliza.

"I have come to claim my Duchess for a dance."

For the briefest of moments she simply looked at him. Then, without question or hesitation, she placed her gloved hand in his. Arthur's fingers closed gently around hers as he drew her towards him. The movement itself was unremarkable, yet before the eyes of half the aristocracy it carried a significance that could not possibly be misunderstood.

He was not merely leading his wife onto the dance floor.

He was choosing her. Publicly. Unequivocally.

As the crowd parted around them, Arthur guided Eliza onto the centre of the ballroom floor. The orchestra, sensing at last that the evening's spectacle had reached its conclusion, allowed the music to swell once more, violins rising above the lingering hush that still seemed reluctant to release the room.

Arthur turned towards her. His right hand settled carefully against the small of her back, the warmth of her waist discernible even through the layers of pale green silk, whilst his left held hers.

The uncertainty that had clouded her expression still lingered, and she searched his face as though trying to reconcile the man standing before her with the one who, only moments earlier, had closed the door upon his past and, for the first time, appeared ready to leave it there.

A smile, small but entirely genuine, found Arthur’s lips.

"Duchess," he murmured, his voice low enough that it belonged to her alone despite the hundreds surrounding them, "I believe it is time you showed the aristocracy precisely how remarkable you are."

"I fear I am not remarkable enough in the slightest," she whispered, and the solemn conviction with which she spoke those words wounded Arthur more deeply than any accusation could have done.

He had placed that doubt there himself. His expression softened as he looked at her, every trace of the commanding Duke of Buckingham disappearing until there remained only the man who had spent weeks convincing the woman he loved that she was somehow less than she was.

"My love," he murmured, his voice barely carrying beyond the space between them, "I know those thoughts did not find their way into your heart unaided."

His thumb brushed gently across the back of her gloved hand.

"I know I am responsible for far more of them than I care to admit, and I swear to you that I shall spend as many years as God grants me proving every one of them false."

His gaze lingered upon hers.

"There is much I owe you by way of explanation..."

The opening notes of the dance floated through the ballroom, drawing every guest's attention to the couples assembling on the floor.

Arthur offered the smallest inclination of his head, a smile touching the corner of his mouth.

"But first..."

He stepped forward, drawing her effortlessly into the dance.

"Come."

"Show the world the Duchess of Buckingham."

Chapter 44