Chapter 10
Ten
You are a marchioness now. Let the world come to you.
Lady Hartwell’s words echoed in Eliza’s mind. What she had not considered was the world arriving as a wage ledger and a notice from Mrs. Finch regarding the imminent departure of Mr. Atkinson, a footman.
Now, Eliza approached August’s study with the papers pressed to her chest. At the door, she knocked softly, but there was no answer.
She waited then knocked again, louder. Nothing.
The handle turned in her palm, and she pressed the door open an inch. “My Lord?” she called. The words sounded wrong in her mouth.
Inside, the study was a study in the artful shambles of busy men.
There were three ledgers open on the desk, each marked in a different color of ink.
Loose sheets, weighted by an empty glass, formed an island in the center.
But the master of the room—August, the Golden Rake and terror of the ton—was not upright behind his desk.
He was draped across it, head pillowed on his folded arm, the knuckles of his left hand still curled around a quill.
He was asleep. Utterly, shamelessly, asleep. In the broad light of morning.
Eliza closed the door behind her and regarded the scene. It was as if a marble statue had toppled and been too proud to ask for help rising. She did not know what to do: retreat or observe or wake him and pretend none of it had happened.
He breathed slow and deep, the lines of his face slackened from their usual tension. In sleep, the golden-brown stubble shadowed his jaw unevenly. She noticed, for the first time, how young he looked. Or, rather, how little of his true age he permitted to show.
A movement on the desk caught her attention: the unfinished letter, written in a hand that teetered between control and collapse. The address was to a Dr. Henry Charleston, a medical man of reputation.
She did not mean to read it. But the first line was inescapable:
Dr. Charleston,
I write in regards to my father’s declining health as you were recommended by both my mother and our mutual acquaintance Lady Ingram.
The next lines ran in quick succession, then tripped and tangled:
I am aware that—crossed out—You doubtless have seen cases more desperate, but I must ask—no, insist—that you come at once. The situation is not yet dire, but we — here the ink bled, the line scratched over —I have lost too much already. I will not lose him as well.
The rest of the page was blank, save for a final, wavering attempt:
If there is any hope. Please advise. Yours—
The signature was only an initial.
Eliza set the papers down, fighting the urge to touch his shoulder, to rouse him gently. He looked so unlike himself, so unlike the man who had dominated ballrooms, who had held her hand in public and taunted his rivals as if life were merely the sum of its performances.
He is not a villain, she thought. He is only a man, and he is tired.
She set about making the room less cold. The fire had died to a stubborn red core. She found a few splinters in the kindling basket and coaxed it back to life, careful not to make a sound.
She gathered the tray from the low table by the window—the teapot, now stone-cold, the cup stained with a dark crescent, a plate that had once held a roll. She balanced it in one hand and with the other, fetched a wool blanket from the armchair. She paused beside him.
The instinct was to drape it carefully over his shoulders, to avoid even the suggestion of touch. But as she moved, August shifted. He lifted his head a fraction, eyes still shut, and muttered a syllable that was only half her name.
She froze, heart battering her ribs, the blanket a barrier between impulse and discretion.
He said, “Don’t—” and then subsided, face pressing to the crook of his elbow, the words dissolved in a breath.
She laid the blanket over his back as if closing a wound. The weight of it made his shoulders slump further, and for a moment, he looked as though he might never move again.
Eliza arranged the tray, stacked the ledgers into a polite tower, and left a single sheet of cream writing paper at the center of the blotter.
On it, she wrote, placed the note so that he could not miss it, then paused, surveying her own handiwork as if she had stitched up a bandage and expected the patient to protest.
On the way out, she glanced back once. August was still unmoving.
We are all wounded. Some of us simply have better tailors.
August woke at dawn with a crack in his neck and the taste of ink on his tongue.
The dream he’d been having—if it was a dream and not merely the afterimage of exhaustion—had been of running.
Running through the estate’s fields, running from something slow and inevitable until the earth itself decided to trip him.
Now, his cheek stung with the impression of a button, and his mouth was dry as burnt toast.
He stretched, the movement pulling every vertebra into reluctant alignment.
The chair creaked. For a moment, he did not recognize the room.
The fire was burning again, high and healthy, casting a firm line of warmth along his spine.
He blinked, and the study’s familiar outlines emerged: the wall of books, the stained rug, the calendar with three dates underlined in angry red.
His hand came up, and he found it encased in a blanket—a woolen one from the armchair of a pattern he particularly despised. He recoiled then drew the blanket in closer, holding it as if it might explain itself.
Who in God’s name—? The staff would never risk such a liberty. He had not had a mother capable of these gestures since childhood, and his sisters would sooner have painted a mustache on him than offer comfort.
He stood, letting the blanket slide to the chair. It caught on the edge, refusing to drop to the floor.
On the desk, his work had been stacked, not as he left it but in a neat tower. Atop the pile, a note. August stared at it, willing it to resolve into something less absurd.
He read:
Mr. Atkinson, the footman, is leaving. I wanted to review options for his replacement with you. —E.
The handwriting was meticulous, the line at the bottom brisk and final.
He sat back down, all at once more tired than before. The blanket, the fire, the orderliness—they were all the work of his wife.
She must have come in, found me in a heap, and rather than parade it about the house, she fixed the mess herself.
He snorted then sobered. He could not recall the last time anyone had seen to his comfort. He had never asked for it, and the world had generally obliged him by withholding it.
The memory of the night before—a blur of conversation, then the sudden collapse—came back to him in pieces. He had not written a single line worth sending. The unsent letter to Dr. C——, with its ugly scrawl of panic, was crumpled under the ledger.
He pulled it out, flattening it. The words glared up at him:
I have lost too much already. I will not lose him as well.
He had not meant to write that. The phrase was raw, childish. Not the sort of sentiment that survived the morning.
He dropped the letter into the bottom drawer then sat and regarded the room as if it might attack. The blanket stared back.
He wanted to be angry. He wanted to dismiss the gesture as unnecessary, to sneer at the intrusion, to sweep the blanket back to its chair and issue a sarcastic note of thanks.
But instead, he found himself staring at the fibers, noting the way the edges had been folded to keep his hands from the cold.
A ridiculous warmth pooled in his chest. It was not pleasant.
He read Eliza’s note again. She had not mentioned the blanket. She had not shamed him by pointing out his collapse. She had simply done what needed doing and left him to carry on.
He turned the note over. On the back, she had written in smaller script: If you require tea, I can send for it. If you require nothing, disregard this entirely.
He barked a laugh, rough and brief. Then, without thinking, he folded the note along the creases and tucked it into the breast pocket of his waistcoat.
He swept his hand through his hair which now stuck out in an alarming array of directions. He could feel the shape of the night’s rest engraved in the strands.
The sun was barely above the horizon. He had half an hour before Denton would start shadowing the hallways, waiting for his first command. There was no time for introspection.
He shook himself, stood, and arranged the room back to its usual state: blanket draped, tea tray sent out, the note pressed flat beneath his vest. He checked his reflection in the glass of the bookcase: eyes bloodshot, hair untamable, but otherwise, no one would know he had spent the night as anything but a model of ducal efficiency.
He strode to the window, the chill creeping in through the glass. The frost on the lawn had yet to thaw, and the world looked newly made if a bit indifferent.
He had things to do. An estate to run, a father to save, a reputation to maintain. There was no room for… whatever this was.