Page 5

“—of course, the key is to diversify, My Lord. Tenants are unpredictable creatures. Land is not,” the Earl of Ravensdale insisted.

Nathaniel resisted the urge to sigh. Instead, he nodded with the solemn interest of a man who hadn’t spent the past ten minutes imagining a woman with wild eyes and a sharper tongue than propriety allowed.

He would rather be anywhere than Ravensdale House, with its overstuffed furniture and the earl’s voice thick with self-importance.

The lamps were trimmed too low. The air smelled faintly of furniture polish and boiled beef. His boots pinched. His cravat was suffocating him.

His waistcoat, deemed unsuitable that very morning by his mother who was now seated by his side, was of deep claret silk and therefore, clearly the height of scandal.

Everything felt wrong. And yet, none of it mattered, because he was, in spirit, a million miles away.

He was in Hyde Park. Laughing.

Not aloud, of course. That wouldn’t do. But deep within the unflappable calm he wore like armour, something was positively gleeful.

Evelina Anville.

She’d said it with perfect composure, chin lifted, defiance in her eyes, as if daring him to believe it. And he had, at least outwardly. He had nodded, bowed, and ridden away with appropriate grace.

But internally?

He’d nearly laughed aloud.

Evelina Anville, the heroine of Fanny Burney’s novel. Na?ve, charming, intelligent Evelina, who was forever caught between wit and propriety.

It was a name any well-read woman might pluck from her shelves for a lark, but to deliver it with such steel … now, that had been the surprise. She had given him fiction as fact. A line from a novel instead of her truth.

And he had adored it.

Truth be told, he hadn’t expected meeting someone like that. He hadn’t expected anyone to ride like that, with such wild elegance, nor to speak to him with such unfiltered honesty.

She had glared at him like she wished him to the Devil. Accused him of negligence. Scolded him with the authority of a duchess and the fire of a revolutionary.

And when she’d been asked for her name, she lied. Beautifully so if he had to admit it.

Nathaniel found his smile widening despite himself.

“I daresay, My Lord,” the earl said, pausing for breath, “it appears that something else has caught your attention.”

“My Lord?” Nathaniel blinked, dragging his mind back with effort.

“I was saying that you’ve the look of a man dreaming of a better investment.”

That was the moment when the air changed. It wasn’t dramatic. No gasp or sudden hush. Just a ripple like the faint pressure drop before a storm. A flicker of movement at the edge of the room. The door opened, and something shifted.

“Ah, there you are, my dear,” the earl greeted the two women in the doorway.

Nathaniel’s eyes flicked sideways, almost idly.

And then he saw her.

She entered on her mother’s arm, gliding into the drawing room with the serene assurance of someone who knew exactly how to command attention and had chosen to wield that power with restraint.

Her gown was deep burgundy, the colour of spilled wine and secret promises, and it fit her with quiet precision. Not ostentatious. Not timid. Simply … striking.

But it wasn’t the gown that commanded his attention. It was the woman wearing it.

The sharp tilt of her chin. The unmistakable fire banked behind her composed gaze.

Miss Evelina Anville.

No.

Lady Eleanor Henshaw.

Nathaniel stiffened, and there was a momentary though subtle realignment of his shoulders. Inside, something like laughter tried to stir.

Of course, it was her. The lie had been too deft. The anger too vivid. No proper young lady invented false names for strangers unless she had something to hide, and Eleanor Henshaw, evidently, had much to guard.

Their eyes met across the room, and the recognition hit them both with silent, exact precision. Her lips did not part. Her brow did not lift. But her gaze sharpened … just a breath, just enough.

You, it said.

He offered her nothing but blank civility.

The moment passed. Or rather, it passed unnoticed by anyone else. The earl turned to greet them with a broad smile, launching into some pleasantry Nathaniel did not hear. Lady Eleanor curtsied with the perfect grace of a practiced daughter. Nathaniel bowed, smooth and low.

Neither of them smiled.

“My dear Eleanor,” said the earl, gesturing between them, “may I present Lord Nathaniel Fairfax, the Marquess of Loxley?”

The faintest flicker passed through her eyes. Not surprise. Oh, no. She was far too quick for that. It was rather an instant of reassessment. She inclined her head.

“My Lord,” she said coolly.

Nathaniel straightened. “Lady Eleanor.”

And that was all. No flicker of amusement. No trace of Hyde Park. Not even the faintest hint that they had ever exchanged words, let alone barbs sharp enough to draw blood.

Except, Nathaniel could still feel the tension humming between them. Taut and invisible like a string pulled tight between violinist and bow.

No one else noticed. The room moved on. Chairs were drawn, pleasantries exchanged, and her mother murmured about tea. Her father settled near the hearth.

But Nathaniel felt it. He felt that crackling silence, that spark of knowing. And the echo of a name never hers—Evelina—still tasted like something intimate between them.

He did not smile.

But God help him, he wanted to.

***

Dinner was a grand affair in form only.

The table glittered with cut crystal and the low gleam of polished silver. Wax tapers burned in their sconces, dripping soft light across porcelain plates and gilded edges.

A footman moved silently behind each chair, like chess pieces shifting in a slow rhythm. Conversation hummed around the table in measured tones, all perfectly respectable.

Nathaniel barely tasted a bite.

Across from him sat Lady Eleanor Henshaw, and the linen-draped table between them had become a battlefield.

Her posture was exquisite. Her gown struck the precise balance between boldness and decorum. Her eyes did not stray to him more than propriety allowed, but he could feel them like pressure against his skin. Sharp. Curious. Vexed.

Their fathers, meanwhile, carried on as if the entire arrangement had been struck by Cupid himself and merely required a roast duck and a bottle of claret to seal it.

“The alliance between the estates will be mutually beneficial,” Lord Ravensdale declared with all the satisfaction of a man who had successfully traded livestock.

“Indeed,” said the Duke of Wycombe, Nathaniel’s father, his voice as dry as dust and just as yielding. “The Henshaw lands are solid. An enduring name.”

He said nothing more. Not a flicker of opinion towards Eleanor. Not a glance towards Nathaniel. His grace’s gaze remained inscrutable, fixed somewhere near the edge of the salt dish as if contemplating the secrets of the earth itself.

Lady Honoria, however, did not bother to conceal her scrutiny.

Nathaniel’s mother regarded Eleanor with the same quiet severity she reserved for assessing the quality of a drawing room carpet or the cut of a hemline.

Her words to Lady Ravensdale were sparse and precise.

Polite, yes, but lacking in any emotion.

Eleanor endured it with an admirable lack of fidgeting. She did not wilt. She did not preen. She sat, ate, listened, and looked as if this were merely another performance to survive.

Which, in a way, it was.

The silence between himself and Eleanor had stretched thin, humming with unspoken things. And then, suddenly, she severed it, completely catching him off guard yet again.

“Well,” Eleanor said, lifting her wineglass with casual elegance, “it is a curious thing to be engaged to a man one has barely spoken to.”

The air shifted. Just slightly. Enough for the room to register a change, though no one dared pause. Her tone had been mild. Her expression was pleasant. But the edge was undeniable.

Nathaniel set down his knife.

“Conversation is often overrated,” he replied smoothly, not looking at her, though he could feel the curve of her smirk forming like a storm behind a shutter.

“Is that so?” she said lightly. “How fortunate then that your pug is so delightfully verbose. I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered a creature so determined to express himself.”

A footman coughed behind her. Choked, really. It was quickly masked by a clatter of cutlery.

Nathaniel did not flinch. “Percival is an excellent judge of character. He’s especially fond of strong opinions and sudden rearing.”

Eleanor tilted her head, gaze sharp as a rapier. “He must find your company soothing, then. You seem to rarely startle.”

“No,” he said. “But I’m not easily led, either.”

There it was. Their eyes locked. Truly, this time. Across candles and crystal and duck à l’orange, the tension shimmered into something almost tangible. Neither of them smiled.

And yet, something beneath her composed expression flickered. Was it amusement, challenge, intrigue? She tilted her chin a fraction higher.

Nathaniel returned his gaze to his plate. A young lady, Charlotte Godwin, if he remembered correctly, was seated to Eleanor’s right, and was doing her utmost not to laugh as she kept her eyes on her fish.

Her shoulders quivered slightly, betraying her amusement, though her lips remained pressed into a line of decorous politeness.

A slight glance passed between the two friends. One was a warning on Eleanor’s part, the other irrepressible delight on Charlotte’s.

The others around the table had begun to fall quiet, one by one, lulled or rather, drawn by the tenor of conversation slipping, ever so politely, into something that felt far more dangerous than gossip or weather.

Nathaniel did not look away from Eleanor.

Every response from her was as deliberate as a move on a chessboard. Her tone never slipped from civility, but there was an edge to it, honed and gleaming. The sort of refinement that cloaked a blade.

She did not yield. She parried with the fluency of a woman who had spent a lifetime listening to men and learning how to best them without ever appearing to try.

He found it maddening. And also, utterly captivating.

“Tell me, Lady Eleanor,” he said, as the third course was served, and it was a medallion of veal in some unfortunate aspic, “do you always speak with such candour at dinner, or am I merely a rare recipient of your opinions?”

She delicately dabbed her mouth with a napkin, then replied, “Only when the company proves resilient enough to endure it.”

There was a pause.

“You assume much,” he said, finally breaking it.

“Do I?” she murmured. “You did say conversation was overrated. I thought it only kind to offer you a reprieve from silence.”

Charlotte gave up all pretence and smiled behind her wineglass.

Lord Ravensdale chuckled, misinterpreting the tension. “Ah, well, that’s the spirit. Always good to have some spark between a couple, eh, Wycombe?”

Nathaniel’s father was still gazing at something no one else could see, then he gave a mild grunt. Nathaniel’s mother, on the other hand, did not so much as blink.

Eleanor turned slightly towards Charlotte, as though to shift the subject, but Nathaniel wasn’t finished.

“You seem quite adept at knowing what others need,” he said. “A remarkable skill, considering we’ve barely spoken.”

That earned him a glance, not scornful, not flattered. Assessing. Calculating.

“A woman learns,” she said softly, “to read what a man refuses to say.”

There were perhaps ten other people at the table. Crystal glinted. Silver gleamed. Somewhere, a footman cleared his throat. But Nathaniel heard none of it.

Because Eleanor Henshaw—his betrothed, apparently—was far more than what the drawing room and dinner table made of her. She was not merely clever. She was sharp. She was unyielding. Elusive in the way a shadow slips through torchlight.

And she was to be his.

He lifted his glass. She did the same, as if by some unspoken cue. They drank. And across the great white expanse of the table, the war between them continued … quiet, razor-edged, and intoxicating.