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Then she felt it.
A cool hand settled carefully against her waist, broad fingers spreading lightly across her stomach.
She startled, her step faltering.
"Don't stop." Arthur's voice was little more than a tired murmur.
Before she could turn, he had taken her other hand in his, guiding it gently outwards as he stepped in behind her. His chest rested lightly against her back, solid and reassuring despite the weariness she could feel in every measured breath he drew.
He did not lead.
He simply followed the slow rhythm she had already begun, swaying with her beneath the deepening purple sky, saying nothing at all. The familiar scent of polished wax, leather and the faint sweetness of berries that usually clung to him had almost disappeared, replaced instead by damp earth, horse, rain and the unmistakable musk of eleven days spent upon the road. His shirt carried the scent of exhaustion as much as anything else.
She did not mind.
If anything, it made him feel more real.
There were a hundred questions pressing against her lips. She wanted to turn around, wrap her arms around him, and ask all of them.
Instead, she did as he had quietly asked.
She did not stop.
Her humming continued softly, the melody little more than a whisper as she guided them in a slow dance across the drawing room floor, the room growing darker with every passing turn.
She tipped her head back ever so slightly, resting it beneath the line of his jaw.
Only four weeks ago she had scarcely spoken to a gentleman beyond the Vicar or the occasional visitor to Windleham. Now she found herself dancing in her husband's arms. She had met over a dozen men since her wedding, from noblemen to landowners. Not one of them had unsettled her heart the way Arthur did.
Not one of them possessed the same quiet strength.
The same unwavering loyalty.
The same infuriating reserve that somehow made every fleeting moment of tenderness feel infinitely more cherished.
He made her stomach flutter with nothing more than a glance. He made her cheeks warm merely by standing close enough that she could hear the steady rhythm of his breathing.
She felt his breath stir the loose curls at the side of her face.
Then his lips brushed the curve of her neck. The kiss was impossibly soft. Not demanding. Not swift.
Merely a quiet expression of gratitude from a man who had finally come home.
Her humming faltered for the briefest of moments before returning, softer than before.
Neither of them spoke.
They simply continued to sway together in the gathering darkness, as though neither wished to be the first to break the fragile peace they had finally found.
Chapter 23
It had been two days since Arthur's return to Winworth House. The second night under his own roof, beneath familiar linen, should have brought relief. Instead, despite every comfort Winworth could provide, Arthur found sleep no easier to claim. Each time he closed his eyes, Belgium returned.
It had been a harrowing campaign. He had promised Eliza he would return, but it was not an easy promise to keep. The journey to Waterloo had been relentless. He had stopped only to exchange horses and drivers, scarcely pausing long enough to swallow food, let alone sleep, and every hour lost felt like another hour stolen from Radnor's life.
The battlefield itself was something he suspected would haunt him until his dying day. The wounded cried out from every direction, some begging for water, others for surgeons, others for mothers who would never hear them again. Wagons creaked beneath impossible burdens of broken men while the dead lay where they had fallen, waiting to be recognised, buried, or simply counted.
It dragged him back to his own years of service. He had seen battle before. He had smelled powder and blood before. He knew the peculiar silence that settled over men once the fighting stopped.
