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That morning, Nathaniel was sitting in his study with posture as precise as the neat stacks of correspondence before him, while Marsden, sprawled with the grace of a cat in the opposing armchair, expounded on the misfortunes of his cousin Algernon.

“I told him,” Marsden drawled, swirling the remainder of his brandy with idle contempt, “that no man ever improved his circumstances by wagering against a woman’s spite.

Still, there he stood, like a lamb awaiting instruction from the butcher’s cleaver, asking Lady Carrington whether she favoured violets or roses, as though it would undo his debts. ”

Nathaniel allowed the ghost of a smile to flit across his mouth. “And did she?”

“She preferred lilies. Funereal choice, though fitting, considering the fate of Algernon’s purse.”

Companionable silence followed. Nathaniel turned another letter over, this one penned in a lighter, more elegant hand.

It stood out to him at once. He noticed a different paper, finer than most, sealed with a modest but unfamiliar crest. His brow furrowed as he examined the superscription.

Strangely enough, it was not addressed to him.

To Lady Eleanor Henshaw, the Marchioness of Loxley, it read in a hand that possessed both firmness and sentiment. Something stirred beneath the surface of Nathaniel’s composure.

It was not suspicion, exactly, but the quiet prickling of something more elusive. He held it for a moment, too long.

Marsden’s gaze sharpened. “Well? What is it?”

“A letter,” Nathaniel said slowly, “for Eleanor.”

Marsden raised a brow, the brandy now forgotten. “Indeed? And will you be so good as to leave it unopened, like a man of honour?”

There was a pause. The fire crackled.

Nathaniel did not answer at once. His eyes remained fixed on the letter. He recognized the name on the seal—A. Pembroke—and with that recognition came a flicker of recollection: Eleanor, her eyes alight with rare animation, recounting a tale or two of a childhood companion, Arthur Pembroke.

He tapped the envelope once against the blotter.

“It is from a childhood friend of hers,” Nathaniel explained.

“A male friend,” Marsden grinned. “Well, now … that is a turn. Still, are you so overcome with the spirit of curiosity as to become, what shall we call it … an accidental reader of someone else’s correspondence?”

Nathaniel’s hand hesitated over the seal. He knew the injunctions of honour, knew them as a soldier knows his drills. He knew, too, the cost of trespassing upon another’s privacy, particularly a wife’s.

But Eleanor, who had come to this marriage with such quiet grace, who rarely asked and never demanded, was a mystery still. And Pembroke, this man from her past, bore the shape of a shadow Nathaniel had never thought to name.

He broke the seal.

Marsden made a noise between a sigh and a chuckle. “Well. Duty’s grip slackens when sentiment slips in through the window. Go on, then.”

But Nathaniel was already reading, his eyes moving quickly down the page, and as they did, something imperceptible shifted in his face. He did not speak, but the set of his jaw became just slightly more austere.

Marsden, watching with the patience of a seasoned provocateur, merely poured himself another inch of brandy.

Nathaniel read the note once, then again, his eyes narrowing by the smallest degree. The paper bore a faint scent. Lavender, perhaps, or some similar trace of refinement imported from abroad.

It was folded with care, with the handwriting upright, deliberate, and maddeningly unmarred by hesitation.

Dear Lady Loxley,

Permit me the liberty of writing to you upon my return home, after a prolonged sojourn upon the Continent.

I recall, with fondness, those days of our youth spent in conversation—our shared admiration for Dante, for the hills about Lichfield, and for the liberty of untroubled thought.

It would give me the greatest pleasure to renew that acquaintance.

Should it be agreeable to you, I would be honoured to wait upon you at a time of your convenience.

With every respectful sentiment,

Arthur Pembroke

Nathaniel folded the letter in deliberate silence and set it down on the desk. His expression betrayed nothing, but Marsden, who had made a study of him these fifteen years, lifted his brows and provided exactly the same words that had been swarming inside Nathaniel’s own mind.

“Polite. Civil. Unassuming. The most dangerous kind of letter.”

Nathaniel said nothing.

“Well?” Marsden prompted, rising to his feet and crossing to the desk with lazy curiosity. “No declarations. No florid poetry. Just a man proposing a visit.”

“A man Eleanor once spoke of with real affection,” Nathaniel said quietly. “Which is more than she has ever spoken of me.”

Marsden stilled, uncharacteristically sober. “She is your wife, not your confessor. You do not permit affection, Nathaniel. You endure it like a siege.”

Nathaniel’s fingers tapped once, absently, upon the desk. “I do not presume to know her thoughts.”

“Of course not. You’ve made a philosophy of it.”

He ignored the jibe. Instead, his gaze drifted again to the letter, lying like a dropped handkerchief between them. It was small, innocent, and yet, somehow, full of weight.

“He wishes to call,” Nathaniel said. “And she will say yes, I expect.”

“Why should she not? He is an old friend.”

Nathaniel’s jaw tensed. “Old friends rarely return without some wish unspoken.”

Marsden gave a small, sardonic laugh. “You speak as though affection were a disease. Not everyone who once admired your wife seeks to carry her off in a carriage under cover of night.”

“You mistake me.”

“Do I?” Marsden leaned forward slightly, his voice gentler now. “I am merely finding it interesting that the first thought in your mind is one of jealousy.”

“It is not jealousy,” Nathaniel corrected. “It is a matter of … principle.”

“Of course.” Marsden nodded with a knowing smile.

A long silence followed, broken only by the crackle of coals and the faint ticking of the mantel clock.

At last, Nathaniel reached again for the letter, but this time only to place it in the smaller tray reserved for Eleanor’s private correspondence. He did not crumple it. He did not burn it.

“He may call,” he said finally. “If that is her wish.”

Marsden gave a small nod and returned to his chair, watching his friend with a trace of something like pity, though he would not name it aloud. Still, Nathaniel could see it in his eyes.

“And will you be here when he does?” Marsden asked.

Nathaniel, eyes once more on the tray of letters, did not answer. But the firelight flickered across his face, and in it, something flickered, too … an old fear, perhaps, or something perilously near to longing.

***

The afternoon light, soft as pressed lace, filtered through the tall windows of the west-facing parlour. It managed to catch upon the delicate embroidery in Eleanor’s lap and the gleam of her wedding ring as she held the letter up once more.

She had read it twice already, perhaps three times, and each time found herself smiling, not with any romantic thrill, but with a warmth that belonged to memory and the dear familiarity of childhood.

Arthur’s hand had not changed. It was still neat, still inclined slightly forward, with a flourish at the tail of each capital. He wrote as he had spoken once, quickly and with an air of perpetual amusement, always as though he might be laughing just out of sight.

She traced a line with her fingertip, almost absently. It would be so good to see another familiar face.

A sound at the door caught her attention. She looked up.

Nathaniel stood at the threshold. She had not heard him enter. That was simply how he was. He was dressed plainly but well, his dark cravat precisely tied, and there was a book still in one hand from whatever study he had been cloistered in.

His gaze flicked from her face to the letter in her hand.

“Good news?” he asked.

Eleanor’s smile lingered, light and genuine. “Yes. I believe so.”

Nathaniel stepped further into the room but did not sit. “From whom?”

She held the letter up. “Arthur Pembroke. I mentioned him once. Well, perhaps more than once. We were friends when we were very young. He’s returned from Italy.”

Nathaniel’s expression did not shift, but she sensed something attentive. It was not quite caution, but something just beside it.

“I remember,” he said.

She nodded, folding the letter neatly and setting it on the table beside her. “He writes that he is newly come to town and wishes to call. To visit.”

There was a small pause.

Nathaniel’s voice was quiet. “Is that what he said in the letter?”

Eleanor turned her head, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Did he offer to visit us,” Nathaniel said in a carefully even tone of voice, “or only you?”

She blinked. A moment of stillness passed between them, not uncomfortable, but not warm either.

“Oh,” she said, then gave a small, dismissive laugh. “Well … he addressed the letter to me, yes. But naturally, he means both of us. That is understood.”

Nathaniel inclined his head slightly. “Naturally.”

She studied him for a moment. There was nothing accusatory in his tone. Indeed, he rarely betrayed anything as untidy as accusation, but there was that stillness in him again, the way he could make silence feel like a statement.

She would not let it settle. Not today.

“You will like Arthur, I think,” she said brightly.

His eyes met hers, steady. “Why?”

The question was not sharp, but it was not idle either. She felt the small sting of it, the challenge, and then chose not to be stung.

She had come to understand, in her quiet way, that Nathaniel’s armour was not easily removed. He did not mean to wound. He simply did not know how not to.

She smiled instead.

“Because he is kind,” she said. “And thoughtful. He has a very dry humour, and you would appreciate that, I think. When we were children, he once told the vicar that the Book of Job ought to be burned because it was too sad to be of any moral value. I was horrified and delighted at once. My mother banned him from the house for a week.”

Nathaniel said nothing, but his lips twitched at the corner. A very small, very fleeting thing.

“He sounds,” he said, “formidable.”

She laughed. “He was only twelve. But yes, he had his opinions even then.”

Nathaniel gave a small nod. “I shall look forward to meeting him.”

It was not quite warm, but it was not cold either. It was something in between, an acknowledgement, perhaps, or a small offering in his own fashion.

Eleanor accepted it without pushing for more. She watched him a moment longer, then looked away, reaching for her needlework with the quiet grace she had always possessed.

But inwardly, something stirred. She had seen, however briefly, the man beneath the reserve, the one who listened, even when he did not speak, who held more in his silences than most men did in speeches.

That was the man she had married. And that was the man she was determined to draw forth, slowly, gently, without demand.

Even if it meant smiling when she longed to reach for his hand.