Chapter Nine
“You should walk the grounds more often, Your Grace.”
Mrs Harding delivered this pronouncement during the morning’s household review, her tone suggesting it was less a suggestion than a prescription. “You have been indoors too much. The fresh air would do you good.”
Eleanor looked up from the menu she had been examining—Cook had proposed an ambitious French dish for Thursday’s dinner, and Eleanor was attempting to determine whether the household budget might sustain the necessary ingredients. “I do take air from time to time.”
“Through the window; that is scarcely sufficient.” The housekeeper’s severe expression softened a fraction. “The grounds here are quite beautiful, when properly explored.”
“Perhaps I shall,” Eleanor said. “This afternoon, if the weather holds.”
Mrs Harding inclined her head, satisfied. “The east garden is particularly fine at this time of year. The roses are beginning to bloom.”
The weather did hold—a rare blessing in early spring, when the English countryside seemed to delight in sudden showers and unexpected chills. By late afternoon, the sky had cleared to a pale, tentative blue, and Eleanor found herself restless in a manner she could not quite define.
The library catalogue was progressing admirably. The tenant correspondence had been answered. The household functioned smoothly under her quiet direction. For the first time since her arrival, nothing required her immediate attention.
She did not know what to do with nothing.
Walk the grounds, Mrs Harding had said. The fresh air would do you good.
Eleanor changed into her sturdiest boots and ventured outside.
The grounds of Thornwood Park were, she discovered, considerably larger than she had realised.
She had glimpsed them only in passing—from carriage windows, from the upper floors of the house, from the brief and panicked moment of her arrival when a grey streak had sent her stumbling. Walking through them, however, revealed layers she had not discerned from a distance.
The formal gardens nearest the house were overgrown yet beautiful, their structure still visible beneath the tangle of unpruned hedges and rampant roses.
Beyond them lay a succession of smaller gardens—an herb garden run wild, a kitchen garden that continued to yield despite its neglect, a small orchard of apple trees whose branches had not been trained in years.
And beyond those, at the furthest edge of the cultivated land, stood a courtyard she had not known existed.
It lay concealed behind a crumbling stone wall, accessible only through a narrow breach where the mortar had given way.
Eleanor had not intended to explore it—had, in truth, been making for the east garden and the roses Mrs Harding had recommended—but something about the hidden space drew her forward.
A secret place, she thought. A place where no one goes.
She slipped through the breach in the wall.
And froze.
The Duke was kneeling in the centre of the courtyard.
He had not seen her—his back was to the broken wall, his attention fixed upon something before him.
He was dressed simply, without his coat, his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow in a manner that revealed the scarring that traced his left forearm.
His dark hair was dishevelled, as though he had been running his hands through it.
And before him, observing from a cautious distance, sat the grey cat.
Eleanor could not move. Could not breathe. She could only stand within the shadow of the ruined wall and watch as her husband—her distant, silent, armoured husband—placed a dish of food upon the ground with the gentle deliberation of a man engaged in sacred ritual.
“There you are,” he said softly.
He was speaking to the cat.
His voice was different. Lighter. Almost… warm. It was a voice Eleanor had never heard from him—a voice stripped of the careful restraint he maintained in her presence, the measured distance he preserved from everyone and everything.
“I know you’re hungry. You always are.” He settled back upon his heels, making himself smaller, less imposing. “Take your time. I am not going anywhere.”
The cat regarded him with wary green eyes. It did not approach the food. It did not move at all. Yet neither did it flee.
Trust, Eleanor thought distantly. He is earning its trust. Slowly. Patiently. Without demanding anything in return.
Something fractured within her chest. Something she had not known was still capable of breaking.
Then Benjamin looked up.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
His expression passed through surprise, then something that might have been embarrassment, before the familiar shutter descended—the walls rising, the warmth receding, the man she had glimpsed vanishing behind the duke she had married.
He rose swiftly, his movements sharpened by tension, and stepped to one side. The motion placed him squarely between Eleanor and the cat.
He is protecting it, she realised. Protecting it from my fear.
Or perhaps protecting her from the cat. Or perhaps both. She could not be certain, and it scarcely mattered, for the gesture remained the same: a barrier between two creatures who could not yet exist comfortably together.
“Your Grace.” His voice had returned to its customary, careful neutrality. “I did not expect—”
“I am sorry.” The words tumbled out too quickly, too breathlessly. “I did not mean to intrude. Mrs Harding suggested I walk the grounds, and I found the breach in the wall, and I thought—”
She stopped. She did not know what she had thought. Had not been thinking at all, in truth, until she had stumbled into this hidden courtyard and discovered a secret her husband had plainly not intended to share.
“There is another path to the east garden,” Benjamin said stiffly. “I can have a footman show you. This area is… not well-maintained.”
Not well-maintained. A dismissal dressed in practicality. A door closing before she could glimpse what lay behind it.
“I—yes. Thank you.” Eleanor took a step backwards, toward the breach in the wall, her cheeks burning with an embarrassment she could not entirely name. “I apologise for the intrusion.”
She turned to leave.
“Eleanor.”
Her name again. Spoken in that roughened voice that sent something fluttering beneath her ribs.
She looked back.
He remained in the same position—between her and the cat, his expression unreadable. Yet there was something in his eyes that had not been present a moment earlier. Something almost resembling… pleading.
“The cat,” he said slowly, as though the words cost him dearly. “It has been… a project of mine. For some time.”
“A project.”
“I feed it. Every day. At dawn and dusk.” He paused. “It will not approach while I remain. But it eats after I leave. It has learnt to trust that I will return.”
Eleanor’s throat tightened. She thought of what he had said in the library—of choosing her because he recognised her armour. Of two people with matching wounds finding a way to exist, imperfect, together.
The cat has learnt to trust that he will return.
“How long?” she asked quietly.
“Four months. Perhaps five.” His mouth twisted—neither smile nor grimace. “It is… slow work. Earning the trust of something that has every reason to fear.”
They stood in silence, the weight of his words settling between them. The cat had withdrawn further into the shadows of the courtyard, invisible now yet undeniably present—still watching, still waiting, still deciding whether these humans were danger or deliverance.
“I shall not tell anyone,” Eleanor said at last.
Benjamin’s expression flickered. “I did not ask you to—”
“I know you did not. But I shall not.” She met his gaze, willing him to understand. “Your secrets are your own, Your Grace. I have no wish to expose them.”
Another silence followed—longer this time, heavy with all that neither of them knew how to express.
“The east garden,” he said at last. “The roses are worth seeing. If you follow the main path from the terrace, you will find it without difficulty.”
A dismissal. Yet gentler than before. Almost an offering, in exchange for the secret she had promised to guard.
“Thank you,” Eleanor said.
And then, because there was nothing else to be done and no words equal to the moment, she turned and walked away.
***
She did not go to the east garden.
Instead, she returned to the house, ascended the stairs to her chambers, and seated herself by the window that overlooked the wild gardens where, somewhere beyond her sight, her husband was feeding a stray cat that had no reason to trust him.
Slow work, he had said. Earning the trust of something that has every reason to fear.
Eleanor pressed her palm against the cool glass and thought about fear. About trust. About the careful, patient labour of teaching a wounded creature that not everything that approached meant harm.
She thought of Edmund Hale, who had offered warmth and meant nothing by it. She thought of her mother, who had been beautiful and beloved and slowly diminished by a love that had never been real.
She thought of Benjamin, kneeling in a hidden courtyard, speaking to a cat in a voice she had never heard—soft, warm, and utterly unguarded.
I feed it. Every day. At dawn and dusk
The words echoed in her mind, taking on meanings she was not certain he had intended.
It has learnt to trust that I will return.
***
That night, Eleanor could not sleep.
She lay in her beautiful, impersonal bed, gazing at the canopy above her, and listened to the silence of a house that was beginning—slowly, tentatively—to feel more like a home.
She thought of the cat—of its wary green eyes, its matted grey fur, and the careful distance it maintained even from the man who fed it.
She thought of herself—of her own wary gaze, her carefully maintained armour, and the distance she preserved from anyone who attempted to draw near.
Are we so very different? she wondered. The cat and I?
Both strays, in their fashion. Both scarred by experiences that had taught them to expect injury. Both learning—slowly, painfully, against every instinct—that this particular human might be safe.
He provides for it, she thought. Without demanding anything in return.
And what had Benjamin offered her, if not the same? Security without condition. Patience without pressure. A willingness to wait until she was ready to believe.
Eleanor turned onto her side, curling around the ache in her chest.
She was not ready. The fear remained too strong, the wounds too raw, the lessons of Edmund Hale too deeply ingrained. She could not simply choose to trust, could not will herself into vulnerability, could not command her battered heart to open merely because her mind understood that it ought.
But she could observe.
She could observe the way her husband spoke to frightened creatures. The way he placed himself between her and her fears. The way he offered kindness without expectation, patience without limit, and truth without cruelty.
She could observe, and remember, and allow—slowly, cautiously, against every instinct—the first fragile seeds of trust to take root.
Slow work, she thought. Earning the trust of something that has every reason to fear.
Perhaps it was time to allow herself to be earned.