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Three days after Hampshire, Adam walked into White’s at two in the afternoon and found Daniel already at the back of the reading room in the chair he always occupied when he was anticipating a specific conversation, with a glass of claret and the expression of a man prepared to wait indefinitely.

“Three days,” Daniel said. “I was starting to think I’d have to come to you.”

Adam sat. He said nothing for long enough that Daniel raised his eyebrows.

“How was Hampshire?” Daniel said.

Adam shrugged. “Great. Great. Eloise swam.”

He didn’t know why he'd decided to sum up everything that had happened so far with that, but he found he didn’t entirely disagree.

What could he tell Daniel anyway? Was he going to be able to tell him anything?

“That is very good news and entirely not what I asked.”

Adam picked up the glass a footman had already set at his elbow and did not drink from it. He set it back down. He looked at the bookshelves, the long windows, and the rain, which had been falling on London for four days without any apparent intention of stopping.

“Say whatever you’re going to say,” Adam said.

Daniel spread his arms out. “I was waiting for you to volunteer something.”

Now, Adam rolled his eyes. “You’re waiting for me to put my foot in my mouth; that's what you’re waiting for.”

Daniel chuckled and leaned forward. “You came here,” he said, a little too pleasantly. “That was a voluntary action.” Then he settled back. “How long?”

Adam narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Daniel mirrored the gesture, his lips curving. “How long have you been in love with your wife?”

Adam’s eyes widened, and he sputtered, “I—I’m not⁠—”

“Adam,” Daniel sighed. “Do not even try to argue with me. I have known you since we were fifteen, and I have watched you in the company of this woman across a full Season and been told about your behavior at a lake in Hampshire from a very reliable second-hand account.” He angled his head. “I am not asking whether you are. I am asking since when.”

Adam’s hand closed on the arm of the chair. Then he said, very evenly, “There is a difference between feeling something and acting on it.”

Daniel hummed. “Mm, and is the distinction serving you?”

Adam’s body deflated, and he sighed again. “Yes. It is keeping things from going wrong.”

Daniel gave him a deadpan stare. “Tell me what going wrong looks like. Give it to me in terms.”

Adam rubbed the bridge of his nose, his brows furrowed with the torture he was trying to bear.

“She came to my door because she needed protection from a man who wanted to own her,” he said. “And I gave her protection. We…we have an arrangement, and that arrangement has produced a household in which Eloise is happier than she has been in six years. Juliet has managed the London Season and the estate correspondence and half the situation with Penhurst with more composure than most men I’ve worked with professionally.”

He paused, pressing his eyes closed. “This works because she knows what it is. If I change what it is, I change the terms she agreed to. And if I change the terms, I’ll just…”

“Just what?”

“Close a door without knowing I’ve closed it…or, or give a cold answer when I mean to give an honest one.” He chanced a peek at his friend. “She deserves better than having to recover from me…she has already recovered from one man who managed her like an asset. I do not want to be the second.”

Daniel was quiet. “You know,” he finally said, “Charlotte’s verdict on your marriage was delivered by a woman who was grieving someone else and had been for years. You accepted it as a character assassination.” He turned his glass. “You have been building a case against yourself ever since. The evidence is almost entirely selected.”

“The evidence is what happened.”

“The evidence is one marriage entered into by two people who did not choose each other; one was a man who did not know how to reach someone who did not want to be reached.” Daniel leaned forward. “That is not a verdict on your capacity to love a woman who is actually there. Juliet is here. She has been there since December, and she is still here, and the threat that brought her to your door is gone. And she has not left.” He looked at Adam directly. “At some point you have to allow for the possibility that she is staying because she wants to.”

Adam pressed his lips together, unable to say anything in rebuttal.