Chapter Five #2
Her hair, a soft chestnut threaded with warm gold when the light struck it, had been arranged in careful coils at the back of her head, though several tendrils had already loosened themselves near her temples.
She seemed entirely untroubled by the imperfection.
Indeed, she reached absently to tuck one curl behind her ear while Elizabeth spoke, scanning the office with a frank curiosity.
Her eyes were clear gray, bright and searching.
They moved with an appetite for novelty beyond the predictable choreography of drawing rooms.
“I was telling my sister,” Blackwood said to Elizabeth, “that trade requires both discipline and nerve.”
“And I was telling him,” Eleanor said with clear exasperation, “that I see no reason he should presume men ought to have all the satisfaction of it.”
There was no coquetry in her tone, only earnest contradiction.
Her chin lifted as she spoke, and for a fleeting instant she resembled her brother in profile with the same sharp line at the jaw, the same instinct to hold ground when challenged.
Yet where Blackwood’s resistance was tempered by calculation, Eleanor’s felt unfiltered.
Blackwood’s mouth curved, his smile brief and genuine. “Miss Seton seems to agree with you.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Entirely.”
Eleanor brightened at that, marking Elizabeth’s agreement as a small victory in a larger campaign. She took a step forward, closing the distance with unaffected eagerness.
“You see?” she said to her brother, though her eyes remained on Elizabeth. “If women may balance a household’s accounts, soothe egos, manage correspondence, and endure endless discussions of expenditure, I fail to understand why we should be presumed unequal to the actual making of money.”
Blackwood’s expression shifted toward amusement instead of reprimand. “My sister has recently discovered pamphlets,” he explained mildly, “and now believes the entire structure of commerce may be rearranged by argument alone.”
Eleanor did not deny it. “If an arrangement is illogical, why should it persist merely because it is comfortable?”
There was in her tone a trace of impatience still awaiting the sharpening hand of experience.
It was the impatience of someone who had yet to pay the cost of opposing comfort.
Elizabeth, watching her, felt a flicker of recognition, a glimpse of her younger self, who had once believed that clarity alone could compel change.
The office, cluttered with ledgers and stacked proofs, must have seemed to Eleanor a kind of frontier. Her gaze lingered on the ink-stained table, on the precise columns Elizabeth had been reviewing. Admiration lived there, and perhaps longing as well, though unnamed.
Blackwood observed the direction of her attention and, without comment, adjusted his stance once more, subtly reclaiming proximity.
“You would find the reality less romantic,” he told her gently. “Trade is not a philosophical exercise. It is patience, negotiation, and, more often than not, calloused hands.”
“Compromise,” Eleanor repeated, tasting the word. “You make it sound like a virtue.”
“It often is.”
She regarded him with affectionate skepticism. “It is convenient that the virtues you defend are those that you possess and which preserve your authority.”
Elizabeth suppressed a smile, feeling herself softening toward the Duke. The exchange bore the marks of familiarity. Eleanor welcomed the contradiction. Blackwood accepted it without offense.
Yet beneath the surface lay a greater fragility.
Eleanor’s defiance had yet to meet genuine consequence.
She turned back to Elizabeth, lowering her voice slightly.
“I confess I envy you,” she said. “To have work that produces visible results. To see words become tangible. One cannot quite point to a perfectly executed waltz and say it has altered anything.”
Elizabeth sensed the undercurrent. She was a young woman restless within prescribed roles. Eleanor’s world, for all its comfort, must feel bound by expectations. Balls, calls, polite conversation, and calculated introductions. It was a future already mapped out for her from birth.
“You may alter more than you think,” Elizabeth replied carefully.
Eleanor’s eyes lit again. “Do you truly believe so?”
“Influence is not always theatrical,” Elizabeth answered. “It often occurs quietly.”
Eleanor seemed to consider that, though the notion of quiet influence clearly held less appeal than visible disruption.
She glanced toward the window as if the street beyond might offer delight.
For his part, Blackwood appeared to read far more meaning into her words than she intended.
She could feel his gaze tighten, as though, in intending to comfort his sister, she had also declared herself a spy of the highest order.
“I should like to do something imprudent at least once,” Eleanor said abruptly.
Blackwood’s attention sharpened. “Imprudence is rarely improved by rehearsal.”
She laughed, unchastened. “I do not mean scandal, only… unpredictability. Something not already anticipated.”
Elizabeth noted the word. Anticipation. Eleanor bristled at the idea that her path had been prewritten.
There was hunger in her for surprise and a path of her own choosing.
Blackwood’s gaze softened, though his voice remained even.
“Eleanor, as we have discussed frequently, unpredictability often belongs to those without obligations.”
“And I have so many?” she pressed.
“You have more than you realize,” Blackwood replied solemnly.
Eleanor delayed her answer. For the first time since entering the room, she appeared thoughtful instead of animated.
Her gaze drifted over the ledgers again, imagining what it might be to inhabit a world beyond careful curation for her benefit.
She was young enough to mistake novelty for freedom.
Eleanor’s appetite for experience, combined with her belief that rules were negotiable, formed a combustible mixture.
“You must think me insufferable,” she said suddenly to Elizabeth, half-teasing, half-sincere.
“On the contrary,” Elizabeth replied. “You seem very certain.”
Eleanor moved nearer to the desk, trailing her gloved fingertips along its edge, her curiosity unfeigned. “Do you never tire,” she asked Elizabeth, “of being sensible?”
The question was posed lightly, yet it revealed more than she intended. Sensibility, in Eleanor’s mind, belonged to her brother, to Parliament, to systems beyond her. She craved a deeper pleasure. Elizabeth replied kindly. “One may be sensible and still be bold.”
Eleanor’s expression shifted, her curiosity deepening into contemplation.
She had yet to learn the distinction between boldness and recklessness.
She knew only that she desired a life that felt unscripted.
Blackwood cleared his throat softly, drawing her attention back to him.
“You mistake structure for confinement,” he said.
“And you mistake confinement for structure,” she returned.
The exchange ended in mutual, affectionate exasperation.
Eleanor adjusted the fall of her skirt and glanced once more around the room.
There was in her an energy awaiting direction.
It hummed beneath the surface, eager for stimulus.
Elizabeth watched her and understood that this brightness, left unchecked, could easily be captured by the wrong influence.
Blackwood returned his attention to Elizabeth.
He had come to examine Mark’s accounts to uncover evidence of interference in his affairs.
He had scarcely anticipated finding Elizabeth there first, embedded in the very records he meant to inspect.
Was her presence a coincidence or a calculation?
Blackwood’s attention lingered on her for a fraction longer than necessary, searching for signs of deceit yet finding none.
If she had beaten him to Mark’s office to alter the records, she would be more capable than he had presumed.
“I had not realized your involvement was so direct,” he said mildly.
Elizabeth answered without hesitation. “Someone must ensure order especially when matters grow complicated.” The words were innocuous. The look they exchanged was not. Elizabeth wondered how much Mark and Eleanor could sense the undercurrent of the exchange between herself and the Duke.
Mark’s amused laugh broke through the haze. “Come, Blackwood, let us discuss business in the other room before your sister drags you off to buy more ribbons for her hair.”
Blackwood bowed. “Miss Seton, a pleasure to see you again.”
Elizabeth realized she was exhausted from all the verbal sparring and that she would achieve nothing further with the Duke present, so she decided then to hastily take her leave.
The weight of the day pressed against her temples as the carriage door clicked shut and she leaned back into the cushions while her mind began to race through the labyrinth of her remaining choices.
She would need to return later to continue her investigation, or perhaps she could find an alternate path altogether.
She would find a way to help Mark although it meant stepping outside the bounds of polite society or risking her own reputation to secure the evidence.
She had thought that reviewing the accounts alone would reveal all the answers required, but it had only yielded more questions and more threads that pointed to the Duke’s involvement.
As she watched the streetlamps flicker the thought came flooding to her – the opera.
She had forgotten entirely to decline the invitation and the realization sat heavy in her stomach because it meant another night of performance.
Yet as she stared into the dark, she began to see the theater as a tactical opportunity where the noise of the crowd and the dimming of the house lights could provide the perfect cover for a different kind of meeting.