Chapter Eighteen
“No—”
The word tore through the silence of the sleeping house, ragged and desperate and unmistakably his voice.
Eleanor sat upright in bed, her heart pounding. For a moment she was disoriented, uncertain what had roused her—and then the sound came again, muffled but distinct through the walls that separated her chambers from the sitting room, and beyond that, from his.
“No. Get them out. Get them—”
She was moving before she consciously resolved to do so, her feet finding the cold floor, her hands reaching for the wrapper draped across the chair beside her bed.
The connecting door to the sitting room stood unlocked—it had always stood unlocked, though neither of them had ever made use of it—and she passed through it without hesitation.
The sitting room lay in darkness, though sufficient moonlight filtered through the windows to guide her steps.
The door to his chambers stood slightly ajar—an unusual oversight, for he was scrupulous in maintaining boundaries—and through the narrow opening came the sounds of distress that had woken her.
She ought not to enter. She knew she ought not. Walking uninvited into her husband’s bedchamber in the middle of the night was improper at best and presumptuous at worst, regardless of whether that husband was clearly in the grip of something terrible.
But the sounds he was making—the broken words, the harsh breathing, the low, strangled moan of a man imprisoned within some private horror—rendered propriety very small indeed.
Eleanor pushed the door open.
He was entangled in the bedclothes, his body rigid, his scarred hand clutching at the sheets as though he sought to hold them together. In the dim light, she saw the sheen of perspiration across his brow, the rapid, panicked rise and fall of his chest.
“The fire,” he gasped. “I cannot—they are still inside—I cannot—”
“Benjamin.”
She spoke his name firmly, clearly, pitching her voice to cut through whatever nightmare held him captive. He did not respond. His head turned sharply upon the pillow, his face drawn with anguish that made her chest ache.
“Benjamin,” she said again, stepping closer and halting beside the bed. “You are dreaming. You are safe. You are at Thornwood.”
Still nothing. His breathing grew more ragged, his movements increasingly desperate. Whatever vision held him—the flames, the men, the horror he had once described to her—possessed him entirely.
Eleanor made her decision.
She seated herself upon the edge of the bed and reached out, gathering his scarred hand between both of hers.
The contact startled her with its immediacy.
His skin burned beneath her palms—fever-warm and damp with sweat. She felt the uneven texture of the scars, the altered pull of damaged tissue. His fingers remained clenched, rigid with tension, and for an instant she thought he might wrench free.
Then, slowly, his grip slackened.
“Benjamin,” she said again, softer now. “I am here. You are safe.”
His breathing faltered, then began to steady. The rigid lines of his body eased by degrees as wakefulness displaced the nightmare. She watched his face—watched anguish yield to confusion, confusion to recognition, recognition to something perilously like shame.
His eyes opened.
For several moments, he simply looked at her—at her face, at her hands enclosing his, at the impossible reality of her presence in his chamber at such an hour.
“Eleanor?” His voice was rough, scraped raw. “What—”
“You were dreaming.” She did not release his hand. Did not move from the bed’s edge. “I heard you.”
He closed his eyes briefly, and she saw him attempt to gather himself—to reconstruct the composure that had deserted him in sleep.
“Forgive me,” he said quietly. “I did not mean to wake you. It happens sometimes. The dreams. I thought—” He stopped, swallowed. “I thought I had learnt to be quieter.”
Quieter. The word struck her with unexpected force.
Not to cease the nightmares. Merely to endure them in silence.
How many nights had he woken like this? How many years had he spent gasping in the darkness, reliving horrors that would never fully release him, with no one to hold his hand and tell him he was safe?
“You need not be quiet,” Eleanor said. Her voice came out stronger than she intended. “You need not endure such things alone merely to spare others discomfort.”
He regarded her, surprise flickering across his expression.
“You should return to your chambers,” he said after a moment. “I am quite well. It was only a dream.”
“You are not well,” she replied calmly, tightening her hold upon his hand as he instinctively sought retreat. “And I am not leaving.”
She did not know where the certainty came from.
She knew only that the notion of abandoning him—of returning to her own bed and feigning ignorance of his suffering—was intolerable.
Whatever boundaries they had maintained, whatever careful distances they had preserved, they could not apply here. Not while he looked at her with eyes that held equal measures of gratitude and alarm.
“Eleanor—”
“Tell me about it,” she said gently. “The dream. Tell me what you see.”
He lay silent for a long while. She watched him wrestle with some internal conflict—habit against need, solitude against trust.
“Fire,” he said at last. “It is always fire.”
“The farmhouse. In Spain.”
“Yes.” His hand shifted within hers—not withdrawing, but adjusting, his fingers slowly uncurling until they laced through her own. “I see the flames spreading. I hear the men shouting. I try to reach the building, but the fire is too swift. Too fierce. And inside—”
His voice broke.
“Inside, I hear them. The families. Calling out.”
Eleanor swallowed. “You tried to save them.”
“I failed.” The words fell blunt and absolute.
“I gave the order that set events in motion, and I could not undo what followed. These scars—” He raised his damaged hand, studying it in the moonlight.
“They are what I earned for that failure. A daily reminder of what occurs when I attempt to protect those who depend upon me.”
“That is not what they are.”
He looked at her, faint bewilderment crossing his face.
“They are not reminders of failure,” Eleanor said steadily. “They are proof that you tried. That you walked into fire for others. That you risked everything—your life, your future—for people you did not know.”
“It was not sufficient.”
“It was more than most men would have attempted.” She met his gaze, refusing to yield. “You bear this guilt as though you lit the blaze yourself. You did not. You were the man who sought to fight against it.”
Benjamin said nothing. In the wavering light, she saw something shift behind his eyes—some belief loosening, some long-held certainty faltering.
“I have never—” He stopped. Started again. “No one has ever said that to me.”
“Then no one has looked clearly enough,” she replied, squeezing his hand. “You are not monstrous, Benjamin. You are a man who made a decision amidst the confusion of war and has punished himself ever since for not possessing impossible foresight.”
His breath caught. She saw his control falter, the barriers he maintained trembling.
“Stay,” he said.
The word escaped him, raw and unguarded. Almost at once, something like alarm crossed his face.
“I did not mean—” He began to withdraw his hand. “Forgive me. That was improper. You should—”
“Yes,” Eleanor said.
He stilled.
“Yes,” she repeated quietly. “I will stay.”
***
She did not climb into the bed beside him.
That would have been too much—too swift, too far beyond the careful boundaries they had preserved. Yet neither did she leave.
Instead, she shifted, settling more comfortably against the headboard while remaining perched upon the mattress’s edge. His hand remained enclosed within hers, their fingers still interlaced, and she made no attempt to withdraw.
“You need not—” he began.
“I know.” She looked down at him—at this scarred, wounded, astonishingly brave man who had spent years persuading himself he was something far darker than he truly was. “I wish to.”
Something altered in his expression. Some last reserve yielding, some final defence falling quietly away.
“Why?” he asked.
It was such a simple question. Yet the answer lay tangled in emotions she had only begun to understand—feelings she had spent weeks attempting to name and failing.
“Because you remained with me,” she said at last. “When the cat frightened me in the corridor. When I spoke of my mother. When I lay wakeful and heard your footsteps pause outside my door.” She hesitated. “You remained—even when you had no obligation. Even when departure might have been easier.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
He had no answer. She watched him search for one—watched him attempt to construct some argument that would render his care duty and hers indulgence—and fail.
“I am not good at this,” he said instead. “At... accepting help. At allowing anyone to see—” He gestured vaguely at himself, at the sweat-dampened sheets, at the evidence of his vulnerability. “This.”
“Nor am I,” she replied, tracing her thumb lightly across his knuckles, a small gesture that felt strangely momentous in the quiet dark. “But perhaps we might learn together.”
They did not speak again for a long time.
The moon travelled slowly across the sky, casting shifting lattices of light and shadow across the bed.
Eleanor felt her own weariness pressing upon her—the late hour, the emotional strain of the night—but she did not permit herself to sleep.
She simply remained where she was, her hand in his, her presence a silent assurance that he was no longer alone.
Benjamin’s breathing gradually steadied.
His hold upon her hand loosened, though he did not relinquish it altogether.
At length, his eyes drifted closed, and she watched as tension slowly abandoned his features while genuine rest—not troubled slumber, not restless turning, but true, peaceful sleep—claimed him.
He appeared younger in repose. Less guarded. The severe lines about his mouth softened, and the habitual crease between his brows eased into stillness. Even the scars seemed gentled by rest.
This was the man he might be, Eleanor thought, if he ever permitted himself peace.
She remained until the first pale light of dawn crept through the windows. Only then did she carefully disengage her fingers from his and slip quietly from the chamber, leaving him to wake alone but—she hoped—with the knowledge that solitude need not be inevitable.
***
He found her at breakfast.
She had expected awkwardness. Expected withdrawal, deflection, some careful reconstruction of the barriers that had fallen in the night.
Most people were reluctant to be witnessed in such moments of vulnerability, and she had seen Benjamin at his most unguarded—had seen nightmares he likely believed no one would ever share.
But when he appeared in the breakfast room doorway, his expression held no distance.
It was gentle.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
Two words. Plain. Unadorned. Entirely sincere.
Something unfurled within Eleanor’s chest—warm and fragile and faintly terrifying.
“You would have done the same for me,” she answered.
“I would.” He crossed the room and resumed his customary seat opposite her. “But that does not lessen what you have done.”
They regarded one another across the breakfast table—across tea cups and plates and all the ordinary rituals of morning. And something passed silently between them: acknowledgement, understanding, the quiet recognition that the previous night had altered them both.
“Tonight,” Benjamin said slowly, “if the dreams return—”
“Then I shall hear you.” Eleanor met his gaze steadily. “And I shall come.”
He inclined his head once. Something very near a smile touched his expression—not fully formed, not yet—but closer than she had ever seen.
“Good,” he said softly. “That is… good.”
And as she held his gaze, Eleanor realised that staying—through fear, through memory, through the long shadows of the past—had altered something between them in a way neither could deny any longer; nor, it seemed, did either wish to turn away from it.