Page 31

The porcelain cup shattered against the hearth.

Nathaniel hadn’t meant to throw it. His hand had simply moved, unthinking, a jolt of fury too sudden to catch. Fragments of blue china skittered across the floor, followed by silence so sharp it rang in his ears.

He stood motionless in the study, with one hand still clenched around the folded scandal sheet.

It had arrived with the morning post, tucked innocently between estate accounts and parliamentary notes, as if it belonged there. He hadn’t even noticed it at first, not until his fingers slid past the bold headline, the ink still crisp, fresh off the press.

A New Marchioness, and a Familiar Flame?

His eyes devoured the piece in seconds. Each word hit harder than the last. Eleanor’s name appeared too often. Arthur’s even more. The tone was coy and measured, but it was also unmistakable.

“… seen frequently in the company of Mr Arthur Pembroke, a family acquaintance known for his charm and longstanding ties to the marchioness prior to her marriage.”

“… the newlywed Lady Loxley dazzled in Loxley green, though one could not help noticing the conspicuous absence of her husband during several key moments of the evening …”

“… while no one would dare suggest impropriety of a future duchess, the optics of a lingering friendship, particularly one so visible, invite questions the family might do well to address …”

No accusation. Only insinuation. The kind that clings like oil to silk.

Nathaniel dropped the paper on his desk and stared at it, barely aware of the tension coiling in his neck and shoulders. This wasn’t just gossip. It was a threat. A public one. And far worse, it wasn’t unfounded.

He had seen them.

Dancing. Laughing. Her head tilted back in a way that once had been reserved for him. And he hadn’t been at her side. He’d left her to it, hadn’t he?

His chest ached not just from anger, but from shame. Because he knew Eleanor. He knew her better than that. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. Not knowingly. Not with cruelty.

And still, he had allowed the idea to take root. He had looked at her dancing with Arthur and let the past twist into the present. He had believed the glances and the laughter meant something more. Now the rest of the world had joined him in that assumption.

He had to see her … now.

The parlour door slammed open. He could see her flinch as she stood by the window. She turned just as he strode in, with the scandal sheet crumpled in his fist. His eyes burned with cold fury and something even more volatile.

“You’ve seen it, then,” she said quietly.

He tossed the paper onto the nearest table, the pages spreading like an accusation.

“A familiar flame,” he said through clenched teeth. “They could hardly be more blatant.”

Eleanor set her letter aside and faced him fully. “It’s a smear. You know that. There’s no truth in it.”

He didn’t sit. Didn’t move closer. He stood stiff like something coiled and barely restrained. “No truth? And yet I watched you dance with him. Laugh with him. While I—”

“While you were where, Nathaniel?” she interrupted, her voice calm but sharp. “In the parlour with the gentlemen? Or maybe out in the gardens? I looked for you. I waited.”

His jaw tightened. “You could have refused the dance.”

“And caused a scene? With your mother’s eyes on me?” Eleanor took a step forward. “You know what this place is like. You know what she’s like. And you left me to navigate it all.”

“I didn’t leave you,” he said tightly. “I was where I was told to be. Where my duty demanded I stand.”

Eleanor let out a bitter laugh. “Of course. Your duty. It always comes first.”

“That’s not fair—”

“No,” she snapped. “What’s not fair is being paraded around like an ornament while your mother gives me rules and restrictions and your approval comes in silence, if at all.”

He blinked at that. It landed.

“I did nothing wrong,” she said again, quieter now. “You think I don’t see the way you look at me? Like you’re not sure if I belong? You weren’t hurt because I danced with Arthur. You were hurt because he reached me and because you wouldn’t.”

That silenced him.

Her voice dropped further, heavy with truth. “Do you know what it feels like to want your own husband’s attention and have to earn it through another man’s gaze? I didn’t seek it. I didn’t want it. I wanted you.”

Nathaniel stared at her, stricken. The accusation was gone from his face now. What replaced it was worse. It was uncertainty and regret.

“I never meant …” he began, but the words withered.

“No,” she said softly, “you never did. That’s the problem.”

Nathaniel’s pulse thundered in his ears.

Eleanor’s voice was steady, but her eyes were blazing. “The dinner was flawless, Nathaniel. Every single guest was fed, charmed, and sent away satisfied.”

He still said nothing.

“But of course,” she continued, stepping forward, “that’s never enough. Not for your mother. Not for you.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” she shot back. “Tell me, was anything I did last night acceptable to you? Or were you too busy keeping your distance, again, to even notice I was trying?”

“I did notice,” he said, voice rising. “I saw you, Eleanor. I saw you with him.”

Her lips parted in disbelief. “So that’s what we will always come back to.”

“Because this is about him!” Nathaniel snapped, the edge of jealousy slicing through his restraint. “It’s always him, somehow, always there, in the wrong place at the wrong time. You say he’s nothing, but the whole county now thinks he’s something, don’t they?”

“You care more about the county than you do about me?”

“I care about what people say when they see my wife smiling too brightly at a man who isn’t her husband.”

Her expression twisted. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare pretend this is about appearances. You left me to the wolves, Nathaniel. You let your mother dictate every step of that evening, and when I danced with someone, you made it about betrayal.”

“Again … you could have said no.”

“And you could have asked me yourself,” she threw back.

They were both breathing hard now like runners after a race.

Then she became quieter, almost hesitant, when she asked the following question. “Did you ever even want me here?”

His mouth opened. Nothing came out. The delay was fatal.

Eleanor’s eyes dimmed as if she’d heard the answer already.

She nodded slowly, as though it confirmed something long suspected. “You’re proud in public, dutiful in private, but you never once made me feel like this was home. Like I was wanted.”

“That’s not—” he tried, but the words fell flat.

“We are a marriage in title only, Nathaniel. If you cannot see the difference, I pity you.”

She turned sharply, skirts snapping as she crossed the room.

“Eleanor—”

But she didn’t look back.

The door shut behind her with a hollow finality, leaving Nathaniel in the parlour’s heavy silence, the crushed scandal sheet still bleeding ink across the table.

Alone, he pressed his hands to his face, torn between fury and guilt. He hated Arthur for being close to her. He hated himself more for pushing her into someone else’s orbit. And worst of all, he realized with quiet horror that he might be too late to pull her back.

In his mind, the argument played again. His sharp tone and hers, wounded, but unyielding. He saw the glint of anger in her eyes, but also the pain underneath it.

She had stood in that room not as a figurehead, not as the marchioness she’d been trained to be, but as a woman, laid bare by disappointment.

And he, the same man who could navigate a room full of lords, who could speak in measured tones about policy and property, had been struck mute when it mattered most.

Did you ever even want me here?

The question echoed still.

Nathaniel sank into the nearest chair, his elbows on his knees and his hands laced tightly before his mouth. He hadn’t answered.

Not because the answer was no, but because he hadn’t known how to say yes. Not after months of polite avoidance. Not after allowing his mother to shape the life Eleanor was expected to live.

Not after standing at the edges of every shared moment and watching, always watching, but never reaching.

He realized now he had been waiting. For what, he couldn’t even say. For comfort, perhaps. For safety. He thought distance would protect them both, that if they never fully reached for each other, then the pain of falling wouldn’t come.

But it had come all the same.

She thinks I don’t want her.

He pressed his palms to his eyes, breathing in through clenched teeth.

He didn’t yet understand the full extent of what had been broken, but he felt the crack spreading. Eleanor hadn’t raised her voice. She hadn’t begged. She had simply walked away. And that, somehow, was worse than anything else.

The scandal, the glances, the gossip, none of it seemed to matter now. Not compared to the knowledge that when she had needed him to choose her, to believe her, he had failed.

For, it wasn’t society that would remember this fracture. It was Eleanor.

And unless he found a way to fix it, that is, if such a way still existed, he would lose her. Not to Arthur Pembroke. Not to scandal. But to the quiet, withering certainty that she had loved a man who would not stand beside her.