Page 36

Warmth.

That was the first thing Eleanor registered. Not the dull ache that pulsed in her wrist, nor the angry throb in her ankle, but a quiet, enveloping warmth, the kind that settled in her bones and held her still.

Somewhere nearby, a fire crackled softly, casting a golden light that flickered over the walls and ceiling like a quiet benediction. The weight of blankets lay heavy over her body.

She did not feel cold. She did not feel alone.

The air smelled faintly of lavender and liniment, old ash, and something sharp. Laudanum, perhaps?

She blinked, but that was more of an effort than she anticipated. Her lashes stuck together. The light in the room was low and tender. There was no pain in her head, only a kind of woollen haze, and behind that, the echo of rain.

Her vision cleared in degrees, and her gaze drifted.

Percival. The sweet, overfed pug, curled like a watchful sentinel at the crook of her shoulder, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. His paws twitched in some dream. She felt the warmth of his body beside her and took strength from it.

But it was the figure at her side that made her breath catch in her throat.

Nathaniel.

He was slouched in the chair beside the bed, all of his elegance lost to exhaustion. His head had fallen forward, his brow resting near her arm as if he’d refused to part with her hand even in sleep.

And indeed, his fingers were wrapped gently around hers, his grip neither tight nor possessive, but constant and steady.

His cravat was loose, one corner of his coat damp and crumpled. He looked … different somehow. He was not the polished man of Town, not the cold duke whose silence could fill a room, but something else. A man who was unguarded, who was … real.

Her eyes welled without warning. She had never seen him like this. He, who measured every word, every look. He, who had stood in drawing rooms like a statue carved from marble: chiselled, unmoved, untouchable.

And here he was, asleep at her side, his hair mussed, with shadows beneath his eyes, his whole posture bowed as if he had been holding the weight of her pain in his own body.

Something in her chest pulled taut. She did not move. She did not dare.

The last thing she remembered was the sky, and how grey it had turned. How her fingers had gone numb around the reins. The storm gathering behind her ribs. Her fury. Her fear. The loneliness that had crept in like cold under a door.

How she had ridden … foolishly, recklessly. But he had come for her. And he had stayed by her side.

Eleanor closed her eyes again, just for a moment, afraid of what would happen if she let that feeling settle, afraid of what it meant to be seen, truly seen, in the quiet wreckage of her pride.

She breathed in. The weight of his hand around hers did not shift. She breathed out. When she opened them again, her eyes met his. For a moment, neither moved.

He sat motionless, as if uncertain she was real, as though one blink might dissolve her into smoke and silence. Then, swiftly, he straightened. The chair scraped faintly against the floor.

“Eleanor,” he said, her name a whisper, ragged at the edges. He hovered, not quite reaching for her, as if she were some holy relic he did not know how to touch.

She tried to speak, but her throat caught on dryness. Her lips parted, but she felt as if someone was scraping at her insides. He moved at once.

“There, wait.” His voice was low and gentle, but taut beneath its surface.

He reached for the glass on the side table, with his unsteady hands and poured water with care. He cradled her head, the callused tips of his fingers brushing the damp curls at her temple and held the glass to her mouth.

“Slowly,” he murmured. “Just a little.”

The water touched her tongue like a balm. She drank in sips, never breaking his gaze. His other hand had come to rest against her back, supporting her as she sat up just a little. His touch was feather-light, as though even the weight of his palm might be too much.

She swallowed and let her head fall back against the pillow, exhausted by the small effort. He set the glass down, exhaled softly, and then sat again, but closer now.

“You’ve been unconscious,” he said, his voice barely above breath. “Three days.”

She blinked heavily, frowning at the thought.

His jaw tensed. “You don’t … remember?”

“I remember … the hill,” she said, her voice a rasp. “The rain. And … falling.”

He nodded, once. “Your mare returned without you. The stablehand found me. I rode out.”

She did not reply. Her gaze searched his face, this new face, this unguarded one. There were lines at the corners of his eyes that had not been there before. His cravat was still loose, his shirt slightly rumpled, and he looked stripped of armour, with every inch of him frayed.

“You stayed,” she whispered, not quite a question.

He closed his eyes for a moment as if steadying himself.

“I never left,” he said simply.

Silence settled between them again, thick with things unsaid. His hand still rested beside hers on the coverlet, fingers curled but not quite touching. He made no move to take her hand again, not unless she reached first. His restraint was not coldness. It was reverence. It was fear.

And she felt it, that strain behind his quiet, that storm that still lived beneath the still surface of his eyes. He looked at her as though she had nearly been lost forever, and the knowledge of that loss had carved a hollow in him too deep to name.

Eleanor let her gaze fall to his hand, then, very slowly, she laid hers atop it. He stilled, and without a word, he turned his hand over, closing his fingers around hers.

He did not begin with apologies of practised reserve. He did not endeavour to justify or rearrange the past to soften it. He simply began, revealing only himself in his most raw, quiet, and vulnerable form.

“I was afraid,” he said finally, his voice low and rough, as though dragged from the depths of his chest. “Not of you. Not truly. But of what you made me feel.”

Eleanor didn’t move, save to tighten her fingers slightly around his. He looked down at their joined hands as if surprised by her gentleness.

“I told myself you were too bold,” he went on, halting after every few words, “too defiant. I told myself you wanted too much from me, when in truth, you asked only that I be honest. That I meet you as an equal. And I failed you.”

The fire crackled still. Percival stirred beside her, but Eleanor kept her eyes fixed on her husband, this man who had once seemed so distant, so unreachable. He sat bowed forward now, with his forearms braced on his knees.

“I was silent because I didn’t know how to speak without giving everything away. And I was proud, so proud, thinking that holding back made me strong. But it didn’t. It made me cruel.”

Her breath caught, and still she said nothing. His confession moved over her like a steady tide.

“My father’s hand was in it, of course,” he said, mouth curving bitterly.

“He trained me not to feel. And I obeyed. Even when you stood before me and saw through me, I obeyed. Even when you looked at me like I might be more than the title, more than the dutiful heir, I still …” He broke off. His voice wavered.

Eleanor could feel the tremor in his hand.

“I believed the worst,” he said softly, “because it was easier than believing I might care too much. That I might lose something I hadn’t the courage to claim properly.”

His gaze lifted then, meeting hers openly.

“I was a coward.”

The words hung in the air, naked and shattering. She listened in silence. Each word he spoke struck some hidden seam within her, splintering the fragile walls she had so carefully rebuilt. His voice slipped through those cracks, flooding the hollow places she had long ago resolved to seal shut.

She had wanted to hear him say this. She had longed for it, for his heart, unguarded towards her. His truth was spoken not in passing gestures or stilted pleasantries, but plainly, like a man stripped of artifice. And still, the ache remained.

When she spoke, her voice was soft, but it carried the edge of pain she simply couldn’t let go of.

“You made me feel … utterly alone.”

His eyes lifted, wide and wounded, but he didn’t speak. She pressed on slowly, each syllable weighted by all the nights spent in silence, all the hours spent wondering what she lacked.

“I stood before you, again and again, hoping for something, for anything, and every time you turned away or looked through me as though I were a stranger in my own home. And I told myself I was foolish to want more, to need more.” She stopped there, and her throat tightened.

“But you made me feel small, Nathaniel. Unworthy. As though I were asking too much for simply wanting to be … seen.”

He bowed his head. He said nothing.

“You spoke of fear,” she continued more quietly now. “But I was afraid too. Afraid of growing into someone bitter and brittle, like your mother, afraid that if I stayed and kept swallowing down my pride, I’d lose myself entirely.”

He raised his gaze again, and this time, it pierced her. It was so open, so full of regret.

“I’m sorry.” Those simple, yet heavy words came low, thick with meaning. “For the silence. For not reaching when you offered your hand. For letting you believe, even for a moment, that you were anything less than everything to me.”

She watched him. She watched the slow, visible descent of his pride as he lowered himself further not out of shame, but love. Real love, the kind that bent, that broke, that pleaded.

“I will be a better husband,” he vowed. “Not in word alone, but in deed. Please, just give me a chance …”

For a long moment, Eleanor said nothing. She only looked at this man who had once seemed unreachable in every way that mattered. And now, here he was, close enough to touch, made vulnerable not by circumstance, but by choice.

She reached out tentatively and brushed her fingers against his cheek. His eyes fluttered shut. A breath trembled from his chest.

“Then begin,” she whispered. “From this moment … begin again.”