Chapter 9 Wife’s Offending Attitude Toward His Ballocks #2
Why should she? He had given her nothing. Not kindness, not companionship, not even basic courtesy.
Robert said Kedleston has been carrying a torch for her since childhood.
Aubrey shifted against the pillows, wincing at the pull in his hip.
He did not care. He should not care. Eleanor's friendships, her sources of comfort, were none of his concern.
Except they were starting to become his concern, whether he wanted them to be or not.
Because somewhere in the past five days—between the turnings and the washings and the quiet devotion of her care—Aubrey had begun to see Eleanor not as an obstacle or an enemy, but as a person.
A person he might have wronged far more terribly than he had ever believed. The thought was deeply troubling.
Aubrey closed his eyes and tried to summon Rose's face. Rose, who had loved him. Rose, who had been driven away. But all he could see was Eleanor's pale, exhausted face in the candlelight. The dark circles under her grey eyes.
The smile she gave to someone else but never to him.
Aubrey woke to pain.
Not the sharp, immediate agony of those first days, but a deep, throbbing ache that radiated from his hip through his entire left side. He had been lying in the same position too long and needed to be turned.
He squinted at the clock on the mantel. Half past midnight. Eleanor was late.
He could wait, should wait. But the discomfort was growing with each passing moment, making it impossible to settle back into sleep. Aubrey shifted slightly, testing whether he could ease the pressure himself, and gasped as pain lanced through his hip.
No, he would need help.
He was reaching for the bell pull to summon a servant when his bedroom door opened.
Eleanor entered carrying a single candle, her hair—
Aubrey's breath caught.
He had grown accustomed to seeing her in the mornings, her hair already pinned up in that severe style she favoured, wearing one of her practical day dresses. Or late at night, when exhaustion made him barely register her appearance beyond the basics.
But this...
Her hair was loose. Falling over her shoulders in soft waves, the candlelight catching hints of auburn in what he had always dismissed as merely brown.
Caramel brown, he realised now. Rich and warm in the flickering light.
The orange glow of the candle made her pale skin seem almost glowing, casting shadows that softened the sharp angles of her face and brought colour to her cheeks.
She had thrown on her dressing gown hastily—he could see lace peeking out from beneath it.
Something white and delicate that suggested the nightgown underneath.
The wrapper itself was simple, dark blue, but it draped differently than her usual severe dresses, following the lines of her small frame rather than hiding them.
She was beautiful.
The thought struck him like a well-timed hook, and Aubrey felt his entire body go rigid with shock at his own reaction.
No. She was not beautiful. She was Eleanor. Plain, practical Eleanor with her unfortunate colouring and boyish figure. The woman he had been forced to marry. The obstacle between him and happiness.
Except... in this moment, with her hair loose and the candlelight warm on her skin and something almost soft in her grey eyes as she approached the bed…
"You're awake," Eleanor said quietly, setting the candle on the bedside table. "Are you in pain? I apologise for my tardiness. I slept in."
"Not to worry. The pain is tolerable." His voice rumbled low and husky.
Eleanor nodded, immediately moving into action. She set about arranging the pillows, preparing to turn him, her movements efficient.
But Aubrey could not stop watching her. The concentration on her face as she worked. The surprising grace in her small, competent hands. The small curves as she turned him towards her, his eyes aligned directly with her chest.
"There," she said softly after she had eased him onto his side and tucked pillows behind his back. "Is that better?"
"Yes. Thank you."
She checked his forehead for fever, her hand cool and gentle, then moved to pour him water. The silence stretched between them, but it was different somehow from the tense quiet of previous days. Less fraught. Almost... comfortable.
"My lord," Eleanor said hesitantly, still holding the water glass. "I have been thinking, would you like me to bring you some books?"
Aubrey blinked, surprised by the offer. "I would be grateful. Yes."
"What sort of books do you prefer?" Eleanor set down the glass and clasped her hands at her waist. "I know you enjoy military history, and you have a fondness for Greek philosophy. You also read poetry, Byron, mostly. And the occasional novel, gothic, I believe?"
Aubrey stared at her, completely stunned. "How... how do you know all that?"
A faint blush coloured Eleanor's cheeks.
"I... when our betrothal was announced, my parents took me to visit your family estate.
You were not in residence at the time. But your mother gave us a tour of the house, and I.
.." She looked down at her hands. "I spent quite a long time in the library, looking at the books and trying to understand what kind of man I was going to marry. "
Something twisted in Aubrey's chest. He could picture it suddenly: Eleanor, younger, nervous, wandering through his family's library; running her fingers along book spines, pulling volumes from shelves, trying to piece together an image of her future husband from his reading habits.
A girl preparing to marry a stranger, desperate to find some connection, some common ground, before they were bound together for life.
"I made notes," Eleanor continued, her voice quiet. "About which books showed the most wear. Which had marks in the margins. I thought... if I knew what you liked to read, we might have something to talk about when we..."
When we were married, Aubrey finished silently. When we were supposed to build a life together.
"I see," he managed.
Eleanor looked up at him then, and for just a moment, he saw it—a glimpse of the hopeful bride she must have been.
The girl who had tried to prepare herself for marriage to a man who did not want her.
Who had walked through his library and studied his books and made careful notes, all in the desperate hope that perhaps they might find some happiness together.
Guilt crashed over him like a wave, so powerful it nearly choked the air out of him.
"Eleanor—" he started, not knowing what he wanted to say. An apology? An explanation? Some way to acknowledge the terrible wrong he had done her?
But she was already turning away, her body rigid but her voice unnaturally bright. "What are you in the mood for, my lord? Something light to pass the time? Or something more substantial?"
The moment was broken. The glimpse of vulnerability was gone, replaced by her usual self-assurance.
"I..." Aubrey swallowed hard. "Military history, I think. I would appreciate any accounts of Wellington's campaigns."
"Of course. I shall bring them up directly." Eleanor moved toward the door.
"Eleanor, wait—"
She paused, her hand on the door handle, turned towards him slightly without looking at him.
Aubrey wanted to say something. He needed to acknowledge what she had just revealed and apologise.
But the words would not come. They lodged in his throat, tangled with guilt and confusion and the disturbing realisation that he had just thought his wife beautiful.
"Thank you," he said finally, inadequately. "For everything."
Eleanor nodded, still not looking at him. "Of course, my lord. I shall return shortly."
She slipped out the door, closing it softly behind her.
Aubrey lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, his mind reeling.
She studied his books, made notes, tried to know him, while he had been in London, raging about being forced into marriage, pining for Rose who’d described her as a witch. He’d refused to even consider that Eleanor might be a person worth knowing.
"I have not slept soundly for two years."
The guilt was overwhelming now, crushing. Aubrey tried to push it away, to remind himself that Eleanor had still destroyed his relationship with Rose.
But the conviction felt weaker now because the woman who had just stood beside his bed with candlelight in her hair and vulnerability in her voice did not seem capable of the calculated cruelty Rose had described.
She seemed... real. Human. Wounded.
The door opened again. Eleanor returned carrying an armful of books, her hair still loose around her shoulders, her expression carefully composed.
"I brought several options," she said, setting them on the bedside table.
"Wellington's dispatches from the Peninsula.
A history of Waterloo. And—" She paused, a faint smile touching her lips.
"The collected works of Marcus Aurelius.
In case philosophy suits your mood better than military strategy. "
"You did not have to bring so many."
"It was no trouble." Eleanor arranged the books within easy reach. "I want you to be comfortable. To have... something to occupy your mind."
Their eyes met, and Aubrey searched for the monster lurking inside her.
"Thank you," he said softly. "Truly. This is... kind of you."
Eleanor's expression flickered with surprise. As though appreciation from him was so unexpected as to be shocking. Which, Aubrey realised with shame, it was.
"You are welcome," she said quietly. Then, more briskly: "I shall return at four. Try to rest if you can."
She lit a candle by Aubrey’s bed and collected her lantern.
"Eleanor?" he called out as she moved toward the door.
She turned; eyebrows raised in question.
"Sleep well," he said awkwardly.
Something sad flickered across her face. "And you, my lord."
She left, and Aubrey was alone with his guilt and his books and the disturbing memory of candlelight in her hair.
He reached for the volume of Marcus Aurelius, opening it at random.
"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."
Aubrey closed the book and pressed it against his chest, closing his eyes.
Too late, he thought, far too late for that. But perhaps... perhaps not too late to try.