Page 7

“You’ll see, miss,” Lucy said gently, her voice full of the quiet loyalty that had comforted Eleanor since girlhood. “Everything will come right in the end. It always does.”

Eleanor didn’t answer. She knew Lucy meant well. Lucy always meant well. But it simply wasn’t true.

The news had arrived two days earlier, delivered with the finality of a verdict. Her father had stood by the fireplace, with his arms clasped behind his back and his expression devoid of triumph or apology. It was simply the state of affairs.

“It is settled,” he’d said. “The Fairfax arrangement is confirmed. A special licence has been secured.”

Just like that, as if they were merely handling business of the utmost urgent nature.

A fortnight. That was all. In two weeks’ time, she would be Lady Eleanor Fairfax. The name fit her like a borrowed gown: elegant, respectable, and utterly wrong.

Her wishes had not been requested. Her feelings had not been acknowledged. She had not been asked of anything.

A part of her had wanted to argue, to rage, to demand the why of it. But the words had dried in her throat, and her father’s face, grave and already turned away had made it plain.

This was not a conversation. It was a decree.

“Miss?”

Eleanor blinked. Lucy was watching her reflection in the mirror, brows drawn with concern.

“I’m fine,” Eleanor said softly. The lie sat lightly on her tongue. “Just thinking.”

Lucy gave a tentative smile and resumed brushing. “He’s very handsome, Lord Fairfax. Everyone says so.”

“Yes.” Eleanor’s voice was even. “How fortunate that beauty compensates for tyranny.”

Lucy stifled a laugh, scandalised and delighted. “Miss!”

Eleanor didn’t smile. But a ghost of something wry and bitter flickered in her expression.

She thought of the way he’d looked at her at dinner. Calm, cool, unreadable, yet beneath that, something more. Not indifference. No, that would’ve been easier to bear. He had listened to her barbs. Answered them. Matched her.

She thought of his silence in Hyde Park. His lack of apology. His infuriating refusal to explain himself. And then the moment their eyes met in the drawing room, both of them unwilling to give ground.

That was when a soft knock on the door broke the stillness. Eleanor turned slightly in her chair. Lucy paused, mid-stroke.

“Yes?” Eleanor called softly, expecting it to be Charlotte.

A moment later, the door eased open. Their butler, Graves, stood with his usual immaculate posture and downcast gaze.

“Begging your pardon, miss,” he said, his tone careful, neutral. “Lord Fairfax has called. He is in the parlour.”

Eleanor let out a sigh. It was quiet but unmistakably heavy.

Of course, he has.

She didn’t answer at once. Graves, tactfully, waited.

So, this was how it would go. The visit. The courtesies. The ironclad pleasantries that sounded like kindness but felt like ceremony.

The ceremonial tightening of chains. Her own father had offered no comfort, only decisions already made. She could expect little better from the man who would soon call himself her husband.

“Thank you, Graves,” she finally spoke. “Please, inform him I shall be down shortly.”

“Yes, miss,” Graves bowed, then gently closed the door behind him.

Still, as Lucy stepped forward to lay out a fresh gown, Eleanor rose.

“Something soft,” she murmured. “And nothing blue.”

Lucy blinked. “Miss?”

“He’s already in the blue parlour. I won’t match the furniture.”

That earned a fleeting smile from her maid, who moved quickly to obey.

Eleanor stood before the mirror, studying her reflection not as a girl on the verge of marriage, but as a soldier on the verge of engagement. The enemy was not altogether cruel. Not altogether known. That was what made him dangerous.

She allowed Lucy to fasten her gown, pale sage silk with delicate cream trim, and pin her hair with deliberate care. There was something petty and triumphant in wanting to look well for him. Not for admiration.

Not for praise. But as if beauty itself could be a kind of rebellion. A reminder that she had not broken.

Her lips curved, faintly, into something that might have been a smile, if it hadn’t been more a blade than a bloom.

“Very good, miss,” Lucy said as she stepped back.

Eleanor smoothed her skirts, shoulders drawn high.

“Let’s not keep his lordship waiting,” she said, voice like cut glass. And with that, she turned and left the room.

***

The blue parlour was awash in the late morning light, filtered soft and pale through tall windows that overlooked the eastern gardens.

Eleanor stepped through the threshold with the careful poise she had honed like armour over the years, with her chin lifted, her eyes cool and her heart barricaded.

But when she saw Nathaniel standing by the window, something in her footing faltered, just slightly.

He was rigid, yes, his spine held in perfect alignment, and his shoulders squared as if bracing against something invisible. But when he turned at the sound of her approach, the mask she had come to expect, that practiced, aristocratic neutrality wasn’t fully in place.

There was a strain in his jaw. A flicker of something human and hesitant in his eyes. And though his voice was measured when he spoke, it was quieter than she anticipated.

He did not bow. He did not smile. He did not ask after her health.

“There is something I must say,” he said without preamble. “And I would rather say it plainly.”

Eleanor blinked, but nodded once, stifling her curiosity. “By all means.”

Nathaniel glanced out the window once more, as though summoning resolve, then returned his gaze to her. It was steady, unsettlingly so.

“My father is not well,” he said. “He would never allow himself to show it, of course, but that is the truth. The pain does not come often, but when it does … he has been told by the physicians to settle his affairs.

Eleanor said nothing, though her breath caught slightly. She knew what that meant. The Duke of Wycombe had seemed immovable, like an oak rooted in iron, and yet …

“Our engagement,” Nathaniel continued, “has brought him peace. Perhaps not joy, for he is not a man for indulgences, but peace, nonetheless. He believes the line is secure. That the family legacy will continue unbroken.”

He exhaled slowly, the sound almost inaudible. “I mean to give him that. To carry it through.”

She watched him, waiting. The silence felt charged like air before lightning.

Nathaniel stepped closer, but not so near as to intrude. There was a careful distance between them as if he sensed she might bolt at any sudden movement.

“But once he is gone,” he said, “I see no reason to bind us both to a life neither of us chose.”

Eleanor’s lips parted, but no words came.

“We could pursue an annulment,” he said, evenly. “Discreetly. There are means if one has enough funds and the right connections. No scandal. No bitterness. Simply … freedom.”

The word landed with a weight that surprised her.

“But an annulment always comes with scandal,” she reminded him cautiously. She had never heard of it done any other way.

“True,” he agreed with a half-nod. “But like I said, there are means, of which we could speak when the time for it comes.”

Somehow, he made it all sound so simple, even though an annulment had to encompass fraud, insanity, or even impotence. She was certain that the man before her had no such issues, and the thought immediately made her blush.

What surprised her, though, was that he wasn’t offering escape in the way men usually did, with some thread of possession or guilt beneath their words. He spoke as if he owed her something. As if he wanted to give her a key she hadn’t asked for.

Her throat tightened.

This wasn’t what she had prepared herself for: no veiled smugness, no condescension, no cold insistence on duty.

She had expected him to play the part his station demanded, which was that of a man entitled to obedience and submission to his title.

But instead, here he stood, a son trying to give his father peace. A man offering her an exit.

It unsettled her more than it should have.

Eleanor drew a breath, slow and deliberate. Her voice, when it came, was low. “You are proposing a marriage in name only.”

Nathaniel nodded once. “Until the time comes when it no longer serves either of us.”

She studied him. Not just his face, but the tension in his stance, the quiet in his voice. And behind all that was something she had not seen yet in him, something softer. Not weakness. Not pity. But a kind of consideration she hadn’t known to expect.

“You surprise me, My Lord,” she said carefully.

“I have that effect,” he replied, the faintest curl at the corner of his mouth.

“What you propose is … reasonable,” she said slowly, each word measured like steps over uncertain ground. “But I don’t make a habit of trusting men simply because they speak with conviction.”

Nathaniel turned fully towards her now, one brow lifting in that insufferably mild way of his. “Ah,” he murmured, “and here I thought you might be inclined to trust me after our warm introduction. You were so charming, after all.”

Her lips twitched. She suppressed the smile before it could form.

“Miss Evelina Anville,” he added with a slight tilt of his head. “Who, if I recall, was known for her modesty and good manners.”

This time, she did chuckle, but barely. “You knew,” she said, more to herself than to him. “Of course, you knew.”

“I did,” he said, stepping forward just enough to lessen the distance between them. “And I liked it. I liked that you lied.”

Eleanor arched a brow.

“You could have told me your real name, played the part expected of you, bowed to form. But you didn’t. You gave me a heroine instead.” His gaze held hers. “That told me more than any introduction ever could.”

Eleanor exhaled slowly, the sound less weary than thoughtful.

He went on, quieter now, “We don’t have to like the circumstances. But we could make something of them. A temporary alliance. One that keeps both our reputations intact, satisfies our families, and, when the time comes, frees us.”

“And in the meantime?” she asked. “We simply smile at dinner and play at harmony?”

“In the meantime,” he said, “we trust each other. A little. Enough.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t strike me as trusting.”

“I’m not,” he admitted. “But you intrigue me.”

Eleanor folded her arms. “You intrigue me less and less the more you talk.”

He laughed then. The sound was magnetic. So low, rich, utterly unbothered.

“But you’re listening,” he said.

To her great irritation, she was. And worse still, she was considering it.

The room had softened, somehow. The light at the window had deepened to gold, and the air had grown still. And for the first time since her father’s announcement, the future didn’t feel like a cage, but like a door, slightly ajar.

She looked at Nathaniel Fairfax, the man who had annoyed her, challenged her, and offered her freedom no one else had even thought to name.

Finally, she said, “Very well. An alliance.”

His brow rose. “A truce?”

“Don’t push it,” she replied.

But this time, she did smile. Just a little.