Chapter 12 #2
James’s eyes went cold. “Then you will do so with consequence.”
Her gaze flashed. “Threats again. You are becoming quite predictable.”
“Not threats. Reality, my dear,” he corrected.
Eleanor exhaled, sharp. “You are impossible.”
James’s mouth tightened. “And yet you married me.”
She glared. “You gave me no choice.”
James stared at her. “You always have a choice. Do not insult us both by pretending otherwise.”
Eleanor’s hands clenched at her sides.
James held her gaze a moment longer, then nodded once, decisive. “You will meet with Mrs. Hargreaves this afternoon. She will begin instruction on household management. The steward will walk you through tenant ledgers.”
Eleanor blinked, surprised he was conceding at all.
James’s voice hardened slightly. “And if you want to please me, Duchess, you will stop trying to earn your place by humiliation.”
Her eyes flashed. “I was not humiliating myself.”
James’s gaze flicked over the immaculate room. “You were.”
Eleanor drew herself up, pride returning like armor. “Then perhaps I will humiliate myself in more creative ways.”
James’s lips pressed thin.
She swept past him toward the door, pausing only once with her hand on the knob. “I am not a doll, James.”
“Do not!”
She froze.
He clenched his jaw until it started to hurt.
“You shall not leave under these pretenses.”
“What pretenses?” she asked through gritted teeth, her back still toward him.
And for reasons he refused to name, the anger in her voice made something in him tighten with something that was not anger at all.
Eleanor stood frozen at the door.
Her skin felt tight with the echo of James’s voice, his sharp restraint, the way he had spoken as though she were both precious and inconvenient in the same breath.
She stood there, hand still curled around the handle, and murmured without quite meaning to, “Perhaps I only know how to be useful when I am… small.”
Her own words startled her.
They slipped out, thin and unguarded, like a thought that had never been invited into daylight.
“What was that?” James said from behind her.
Eleanor flinched, then drew her hand back slowly, turning to face him again. “Nothing.”
He did not move closer. “I dislike when people mumble.”
She swallowed. “I was only… thinking.”
“Then speak,” he said quietly.
Her mouth opened, but no sound came. The realization she had stumbled upon seemed too large to name, as if it would break something simply by being spoken aloud. Her father’s voice flickered through her memory. Orders. Dismissals. The quiet understanding that her worth was measured in compliance.
She whispered, “I am not certain I know what a lady of her own house is meant to be.”
James’s brows drew together. “You are a duchess.”
“That does not tell me how to exist,” Eleanor replied faintly.
She was still half-turned from him, her gaze drifting down the long corridor as if the answer might be waiting somewhere between the portraits and the shadowed doors. “Perhaps my sense of duty has been trained incorrectly.”
James stepped closer.
“Incorrectly how?”
Her voice trembled. “I was taught that usefulness is obedience. That worth is measured by how quietly one can make oneself disappear.”
Silence gathered between them, thick and watchful.
James’s voice softened. “Look at me.”
She did not, at first.
Then his hands were on her face, warm and steady, his palms bracketing her cheeks as he tilted her gently toward him. His eyes searched hers, sharp concern cutting through the anger that had sparked moments before.
“You are not disappearing,” he said quietly.
Eleanor blinked. Her lashes fluttered, but her gaze drifted unfocused, as though she were still somewhere else entirely.
“I should not have raised my voice,” James added. “That was not–”
His words broke off when he leaned forward and kissed her.
It was not sudden. Not forceful.
It was careful, as though he were trying to reach her without startling her further. His lips brushed hers, tentative and searching, as if he were uncertain how much of her he was allowed to touch.
Eleanor did not pull away.
When he drew back, her eyes locked on his, wide and bright with something that made his breath catch. There was a fire behind his gaze now, unmistakable and barely restrained, as though something in him had shifted from control to vigilance.
She whispered, “May a duchess do as she pleases?”
His jaw tightened faintly. “Within reason.”
The answer was measured, careful, entirely James.
Eleanor’s gaze fell briefly, then lifted again. “I have not seen Arabella since the wedding, save for a moment at church.”
His expression flickered.
“I have not written,” she continued. “I have not called on anyone. I am… alone here, except for you. On our bridal tour.”
James exhaled slowly. “You are not alone.”
“I am,” she said gently. “You leave at night. You eat in your study. You have built this house around me like a corridor that does not quite connect.”
Impatience crept into his posture. “Then tell me what you want.”
She hesitated, surprised by the sharpness of his tone.
“I will grant nearly anything,” he added, tension edging his voice. “Just say it plainly.”
Eleanor searched his face, the set of his mouth, the restrained urgency in his eyes.
“I want you,” she said quietly, “to sit with me in the mornings.”
He blinked.
“Breakfast,” she clarified. “Every day. With me. Not in your study. Not in your chambers. With me.”
James stared at her as if he had expected a far more dangerous request.
“That is all,” she added.
The silence that followed was heavy, but not unkind.
He nodded once. “Very well.”
Relief loosened something in her chest that she had not realized had been clenched.
“Every morning,” he said.
Eleanor’s lips curved faintly. “Thank you.”
James stepped back, his hands dropping to his sides, his composure sliding back into place like armor. But his gaze lingered on her for a long moment longer than necessary.
“You will meet with Mrs. Hargreaves,” he said, regaining his formal cadence. “And the steward.”
“I will,” Eleanor replied.
“And you will not clean my study again.”
Her mouth twitched. “I will not.”
He inclined his head slightly. “Good, and Eleanor?”
Eleanor turned to go, then paused, glancing back at him. “Yes?”
“You have never been small.”
Eleanor grinned slightly and then left him in the study.