Chapter Three #2
“Such a useful accomplishment,” another guest added—Lady Vance, if Eleanor recalled correctly, a woman who had married advantageously and never permitted anyone to forget it. “Nine-and-twenty and still so useful to everyone. It must be a comfort.”
The words were not cruel, precisely. They were simply… accurate. Nine-and-twenty. Useful.
This is what you are, the room seemed to say. This is all you shall ever be.
Eleanor felt something stir beneath her ribs—not quite pain, not quite anger, but something adjacent to both. She extinguished it with practised efficiency.
“Usefulness has its comforts,” she said mildly. “If you will excuse me.”
She did not flee. Fleeing would imply the words had struck their mark, that the casual dismissal had found its target. Instead, she simply withdrew. Quietly. Calmly. The way water recedes from a shoreline, leaving no trace of disturbance.
She found a secluded place near the windows and stood with her back to the room, gazing out into the darkening garden and breathing slowly until the tightness in her chest subsided.
Usefulness has its comforts.
She had intended it as deflection—a smooth phrase to conclude an uncomfortable exchange. But standing there, alone in a crowded room, she found herself wondering whether it was, in fact, true.
What comfort could usefulness provide, if useful was all one was permitted to be?
***
Benjamin had been watching her.
He had not intended to. He had attended this wretched house party with the sole purpose of surveying the available candidates, selecting the least objectionable option, and escaping back to Thornwood with all possible haste. He had not intended to notice anyone in particular.
Yet the woman in grey had drawn his attention from the moment he entered the room—not because she was beautiful (though she was, in a quiet manner most would overlook), but because she was so evidently attempting to be invisible.
He recognised the strategy. He had employed it himself, in the years before his injuries rendered invisibility impossible.
The careful placement near walls and windows.
The neutral expression that invited no conversation.
The way she held her book like a shield—not reading it, merely using it as a barrier between herself and the room.
She is hiding, he had thought. In plain sight, surrounded by people, she is hiding.
And then he had watched her be summoned, displayed, made to perform like a trained animal, and he had seen the moment when the light behind her eyes flickered—not extinguished, but deliberately dampened, as though she had learnt to smother her own reactions before they could betray her.
“Nine-and-twenty and still so useful to everyone.”
The remark had carried across the room, casual and cutting, and the woman had absorbed it without flinching. Her reply—usefulness has its comforts—had been delivered with impeccable composure, revealing nothing.
But Benjamin had noticed her hands. For the briefest instant, before she clasped them together, her fingers had trembled.
Now she stood alone by the window, her back to the room, and he found himself moving toward her before he had consciously resolved to do so.
This was, he recognised distantly, a dreadful idea.
He had come here to secure a wife, not to pursue women who clearly wished to be left undisturbed.
His face would alarm her. His silence would unsettle her.
His reputation would precede him and burden every interaction with the weight of rumour and speculation.
He ought to turn back. Return to the insipid conversation with Lady Rutledge. Continue his survey of acceptable candidates.
He continued walking.
“The Inferno,” he said, halting at a respectful distance. “An unconventional selection for romantic entertainment.”
The woman turned. Her eyes—grey, he observed, the same shade as her gown—widened slightly as she recognised who addressed her, but she did not retreat. She did not flinch.
Interesting.
“Mrs Thornbury requested passion,” she said, after a pause just long enough to be intentional. “Dante seemed appropriate. Hell offers no shortage of dramatic illustration.”
“And the opening tercet in particular? ‘Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a dark wood, for the straight path had been lost.’”
Her expression shifted—surprise, swiftly concealed. “You know the text.”
“I have read it. Once. In translation.” He paused. “My Italian is not…fluent.”
“Perhaps not,” she said softly. “But even modest competence is respectable. Fluency suggests a mastery few can achieve.”
“A meaningful distinction?”
“To me.”
They regarded one another across the measured distance he maintained.
She was not beautiful in the manner society most valued—she lacked the rosy prettiness painters adored.
Yet something in her face held attention: the intelligence in her gaze, perhaps, or the resolute line of her mouth, or the way she regarded him without the pity or revulsion he had come to expect.
She looked at him, he realised, as she might look at anyone. As though his scars were merely a fact—no more remarkable than the colour of his coat.
It was, absurdly, among the most disorienting experiences of his recent memory.
“You selected Dante deliberately,” he said. “To avoid the romantic verses Mrs Thornbury desired.”
“Did I?”
“The Inferno is a journey through damnation. Not customary house-party entertainment.”
“Perhaps I find damnation more relatable than romance.”
The words landed with an edge that surprised them both. He saw her recognise it—the faint widening of her eyes, the nearly imperceptible tightening of her shoulders—and then smooth it away, as though nothing had occurred.
“Forgive me,” she said. “That was—”
“Honest.”
She fell silent.
“Honest,” he repeated. “And therefore refreshing. Most people at such gatherings are incapable of honesty. They speak in pleasantries and implications and careful evasions designed to reveal nothing of substance.”
“Is that not the purpose of polite society? To reveal nothing of substance?”
“I would not know. I have avoided polite society for several years.”
“So I have heard.” Her chin lifted slightly—not quite defiance, but something near to it. “Your Grace.”
Ah. She knew who he was. Naturally she did. Everyone knew who he was.
“You possess the advantage,” he said. “You know my name, yet I do not know yours.”
“Miss Eleanor Finch.” She did not curtsy. The omission felt deliberate. “I serve as companion to Miss Honoria Cheswick.”
“Companion.” He allowed the word to settle between them. “And translator. And performer of parlour tricks.”
Something flickered in her expression—there and gone, too fast to name. “You heard that.”
“I did. I also heard your reply.” He paused. “‘Usefulness has its comforts.’ Do you believe that, Miss Finch?”
The question was too direct. He knew it. Yet he found, somewhat to his own surprise, that he sincerely wished to hear her answer.
She remained silent for several moments, her grey eyes searching his face as though seeking the snare concealed within his words. He permitted her scrutiny. He had nothing to hide—or rather, he had everything to hide, but none of it visible upon the surface.
“I believe,” she said at last, “that usefulness is preferable to uselessness. And that comfort is… relative.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the answer I have.”
“Fair enough.” He inclined his head slightly. “I shall leave you to your solitude, Miss Finch. My apologies for the interruption.”
He turned to depart, and her voice halted him.
“Your Grace.”
He looked back.
She watched him with an expression he could not quite interpret—curiosity, perhaps, or calculation, or something deeper still.
“The straight path,” she said quietly. “In Dante. It was lost because the pilgrim strayed from it gradually, not because it was taken from him. The error was his own. The dark wood was a consequence, not a punishment.”
Benjamin felt something shift within his chest—an uneasy recognition, as though she had reached through his ribs and touched something he had believed safely buried.
“I know,” he said.
And then, because no other response presented itself, he turned and walked away.
***
Eleanor watched him go.
Her heart beat faster than it ought—faster than it had any justification for doing—and her hands trembled once more, though now for reasons wholly unrelated to humiliation.
He understood.
The thought arrived unbidden, perilous in its simplicity.
The Duke of Thornwood had listened as she quoted Dante and understood why she had selected those particular lines.
He had heard cruelty disguised as kindness and recognised it for what it was.
He had asked her a genuine question—not a polite triviality—and had accepted her evasion without pressing for more.
He had looked at her, and for one profoundly disorienting moment, she had felt seen.
Do not, she told herself firmly. Do not make this into something it is not. He is a duke in search of a wife. You are a spinster companion with neither dowry nor prospects. He was being courteous. Nothing more.
Yet courtesy did not account for the intensity in his eyes.
Courtesy did not explain why he had crossed a crowded room to address her in particular when a dozen far more suitable candidates competed for his attention.
Courtesy did not explain the manner in which he had spoken the word honest—as though honesty were rare and valuable, something to be cherished rather than politely discouraged.
Stop, Eleanor commanded herself. You have learnt this lesson already. You learnt it with Edmund Hale, who smiled at your translations and meant none of it.
She turned back toward the window and pressed her palm against the cool glass, allowing the chill to steady her.
The Duke of Thornwood was not interested in her. He could not be interested in her. And even if he were—which he was not—it would signify nothing. Men of his rank did not marry women of hers. They married wealth, alliances, and beauty that reflected favourably upon their name.
They did not marry spinster translators who concealed themselves at house parties and quoted Dante instead of love poetry.
Usefulness has its comforts.
She had intended the phrase as deflection. Yet standing there, her palm chilled by the glass and her pulse still unsettled by a conversation that had lasted scarcely five minutes, she found herself wondering whether she had been deceiving herself all along.
There was nothing comfortable in this. Nothing comfortable in the manner he had regarded her, nor in the tightening of her chest when he spoke her name, nor in the unsettling realisation that she was already—despite every lesson she had learnt, despite every defence she had constructed—beginning to hope.
Hope was dangerous. Hope was a snare. Hope was the very thing that had broken her once before, and she had sworn—sworn—that she would never again be foolish enough to fall into it.
Eleanor pressed her hand more firmly against the glass until the cold bit sharply into her skin.
Do not hope, she told herself. Do not desire. Do not imagine.
But the warning arrived too late.
She was already imagining.