Chapter 19
Nineteen
Eliza’s hand froze midway to her mouth when she heard strong footfalls in the hallway that could only belong to August. This was unusual because she was eating dinner, and he never ventured toward the dining room at dinnertime.
She turned her head in time to find him in the doorway, dressed for dinner. Her eyes widened, and she resisted the urge to gape.
August looked at the table, then at her, then back at the table as if solving an equation he had not prepared for.
“I did not mean to intrude,” he said.
She set down her spoon. “You are not intruding. This is your house.”
“Our house,” he corrected then seemed to regret the word. He shifted his weight, one hand gripping the doorframe. “I thought—that is, I assumed you would be dining with my mother.”
“She wished to rest. Your sisters are with her.”
He nodded, the gesture slow and heavy. For a moment, she thought he would retreat. Instead, he moved into the room, and a footman materialized from the corner, already pulling out the chair at the head of the table.
Another servant appeared with a second place setting, laying it out. Wine was poured, silver arranged, a napkin folded into a triangle and placed just so.
August sat.
The distance between them was absurd—fifteen feet of polished wood, two candelabras, and a silver epergne filled with hothouse roses. He looked small at the far end, diminished by the room’s proportions.
Eliza picked up her spoon again then set it down. She had no appetite, and the pretense of eating felt ridiculous with him watching.
He cleared his throat. “I apologize for the disruption.”
“There is no disruption.”
“I should have sent word.”
“You are the Duke,” she said. “You need not send word to dine in your own home.”
He reached for his wine glass, lifted it halfway to his lips, then set it down without drinking. His fingers drummed once against the stem before he caught himself and stilled them.
The silence expanded, filling the room like gas.
Eliza watched him fidget with his napkin, refolding it across his lap with unnecessary care.
She had never seen him uncertain before.
Even in grief, he had maintained his composure at the funeral, a pillar for his mother and sisters to lean against. Now, with only her for an audience, the mask had slipped.
“The weather has turned,” she offered.
He blinked. “Has it?”
“Colder. I expect frost by morning.”
“Ah.” He looked at his soup as if it had insulted him. “Yes. The autumn is always unpredictable.”
She wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it—two people who had faced down Lady Wilhampton together, now reduced to discussing the weather like strangers at a coaching inn.
A servant brought the fish course. They ate in silence, the scrape of cutlery against china loud enough to make her wince.
August cleared his throat again. “My father hated fish,” he said, the words tumbling out as if they had escaped without permission. “Said it was food for Catholics and Frenchmen, and he was neither.”
Eliza looked up. “Did he?”
“He once tried to convince the cook to serve beef at every meal, breakfast included.” August’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. “My mother threatened to take the girls to Bath for the season and leave him to fend for himself.”
“That would have been quite the scandal.”
“He backed down immediately. Claimed he had been joking, but we all knew better.” He paused then added, “He was terrified of my mother. Never admitted it, of course, but we all saw.”
Eliza found herself leaning forward. “She does seem rather formidable.”
“Formidable.” He tested the word then shook his head. “That is too kind. She once made a bishop apologize for his sermon in front of the entire congregation.”
“What had he said?”
“Something about women knowing their place. She stood up in the middle of the service and asked him to clarify exactly where that place was and whether it included managing estates, raising children, and ensuring their husbands did not bankrupt the family through poor investments.” He picked up his wine glass, drank this time.
“The bishop has been considerably more cautious in his pronouncements ever since.”
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. August’s eyes met hers, and for a moment, something passed between them—recognition, perhaps, or relief that the wall had cracked.
“She sounds remarkable,” Eliza said.
“She is.” He set down his glass. “My father knew it, too. That was why he married her, I think. He wanted someone who would not simply agree with him.”
“Did she agree with him often?”
“Almost never.” He smiled properly now, the expression transforming his face. “They argued about everything. Politics, money, the proper way to train a horse. But they—” He stopped, the smile fading. “They were quite matched.”
The servants removed the fish and brought the fowl. Eliza cut into the capon but did not eat, watching August instead. He had begun gesturing as he spoke, his hands moving to illustrate his points, the stiffness in his shoulders gradually loosening.
“He taught me to fish,” August said, “by falling into the stream himself.”
She raised her brows. “Did he?”
“I was seven. He had decided I needed to learn the proper way to cast a line, so he took me to the stream on the east side of the property. Spent half an hour lecturing me on technique—the angle of the rod, the weight of the line, the importance of patience.” He paused, his eyes distant with memory.
“Then he demonstrated. Stepped onto a rock that looked solid, cast the line with great authority, and went straight into the water. Boots, coat, hat—everything.”
“What did you do?”
“Laughed until I could not breathe. He came up sputtering, covered in moss, his hat floating downstream. I thought he would be furious, but instead he started laughing too. We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to catch his hat.”
“Did you succeed?”
“No. It washed up three days later in the mill pond.” He smiled at the memory, his expression open in a way she had never seen. “He had it framed. Hung it in his study as a reminder not to take himself too seriously.”
Eliza felt something shift in her chest, a loosening of the careful control she had maintained since entering this family. She saw him clearly now—not the Duke of Wildmoore, not the man who commanded rooms with his presence, but the boy who had laughed with his father in a stream.
“He sounds as though he was a good man,” she said.
August looked down at his plate. “He was.” The words came out rough, catching on something in his throat. “He was better than I deserved.”
“That is not true.”
“You did not know him.”
“I know you,” she said then realized the presumption in the statement. “That is—I am beginning to.”
He met her gaze, and the candlelight caught in his eyes, turning them gold. “Are you?”
She should have retreated then, should have turned the conversation to safer ground. Instead, she heard herself say, “My father died before I was born.”
August went still.
“My mother told me he was thrown from his horse on the way to town. A loose stone, a skittish animal—it could have happened to anyone.” She kept her hands flat on the table, fingers spread against the wood. “She was with child. Six months. She said he never knew.”
“I am sorry,” August said, quiet.
She shook her head. “It was a long time ago. I never knew him, so I cannot miss what I never had.” The lie sat easily on her tongue, polished smooth by years of repetition. “My mother raised me alone until I was fourteen.”
“And then?”
“She fell ill. Consumption, the physicians said though they seemed uncertain. It took six months.” Her eyes drifted to the candle flame between them, watching it waver in the draft. “When she passed, Lady Hartwell—my aunt by marriage—took me in.”
She did not mention the years of feeling like an unwanted obligation, the way the servants had whispered when they thought she could not hear.
She did not mention the empty seat at Christmas, the rooms closed off because there was no need to heat them for just one girl.
She did not mention the loneliness that had settled into her bones like cold.
“You were fortunate to have her,” August said.
“I was.” The truth and the lie tangled together, impossible to separate. Lady Hartwell had been kind in her way. It was not her fault that kindness could not fill the void left by love.
The candles had burned lower, wax pooling at their bases. One of them guttered and went out, and a servant moved forward to replace it. The small interruption broke the spell, and Eliza became aware of how much she had revealed.
August’s hand moved across the table toward hers.
She watched it travel the distance—over the roses, past the salt cellar, across the expanse of polished wood. It came to rest halfway between them, palm up, an offering or a question.
Her fingers twitched. She wanted to reach for him, wanted to close that gap and feel the warmth of his skin against hers. The want was so fierce, it frightened her.
What am I doing?
This was a marriage of convenience. An arrangement to save her from scandal. They had agreed to the terms, had signed the papers, had spoken the vows. But nowhere in that agreement had there been room for this—this pull toward him, this desire to be known.
Fear rose in her throat, sharp and acidic. Or perhaps it was not fear at all, but the weight of their arrangement, the knowledge that whatever existed between them now could shatter if she reached too far.
She kept her hands on the table.
August’s fingers curled slowly into his palm. He withdrew his hand, the movement careful, as if trying not to startle her. He cleared his throat, the sound too loud in the quiet room.
“I should—” He stood, the chair scraping against the floor. “It has been a long day.”
Eliza rose as well, her napkin falling unnoticed to the floor. “Yes.”
They stood on opposite sides of the table, the distance between them once again vast and unbridgeable.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For listening.” He looked at her, and his expression was raw, unguarded. “For being here.”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
He turned and walked toward the door. She watched him go, tracing the line of his shoulders, the way his hand gripped the doorframe for just a moment before he passed through.
The door closed behind him with a soft click.
Eliza sank back into her chair, her legs suddenly unsteady. She stared at the empty place where his hand had been, the space between them that she had not crossed.
She had glimpsed something tonight—not the Duke, not the performance he gave for the world, but the man beneath.
The boy who had laughed with his father in a stream.
The son who had held his mother as she wept.
The husband who had reached for her across a table and asked, without words, if she might reach back.
Her heart felt strange in her chest, tender and swollen, as if it had grown too large for the space allotted to it.
She did not know what to call this feeling.
It was not love—they barely knew each other, despite the vows and the shared name.
But it was something close to its cousin.
Something that felt dangerous and necessary all at once.
She pressed her palm to the table where his hand had been, half-expecting to find it warm.
The wood was cool beneath her fingers.
A servant entered to clear the plates, and Eliza stood, smoothing her skirts with hands that trembled only slightly. She walked from the dining room with her head high and her steps even, every inch the Duchess she had agreed to become.
But inside, in the private chambers of her heart, something had shifted. A wall had cracked, and she was no longer certain she wanted to repair it.
What am I doing? she thought, climbing the stairs to her room.
She had no answer. Only the memory of his hand moving toward hers and the knowledge that next time—if there was a next time—she might not have the strength to keep her own hands still.