Chapter Nine #2
"You are something more, Miss Harrow. Anyone with eyes can see that." Lady Pufferton rose, signaling that the interview was over. "I shall be staying for a few days; Alistair has invited me to see the improvements he's made to the estate. We'll talk more before I leave."
Eliza stood and curtseyed, her mind still spinning. She was halfway to the door when Lady Pufferton's voice stopped her.
"Miss Harrow?"
"Yes, my lady?"
"Whatever you decide…" The countess's eyes were kind but knowing. "Make sure it's your decision. Not anyone else's. Not duty, not obligation, not fear of what people might say. Your life is your own. Don't give it away to someone else's expectations."
Eliza nodded, not trusting her voice, and fled.
***
Alistair had not meant to eavesdrop.
He had been walking past the drawing room, on his way to his study, when he heard Lady Pufferton mention Miss Harrow's name. He had stopped without thinking, his feet simply refused to carry him past a conversation about Eliza, and by the time he realized he should move on, it was too late.
He had heard everything.
A position in London. Double the salary. A future that doesn't involve nurseries and schoolrooms.
He stood frozen in the hallway, his back pressed against the wall, his heart hammering with something that felt dangerously like panic.
His hands had gone cold, and his throat was tight.
Every instinct screamed at him to move, to walk away, to pretend he hadn't heard, but his body refused to cooperate.
She was going to leave.
Of course, she was going to leave. Why wouldn't she?
What did Northmere have to offer compared to London?
What did he have to offer? He was a man who had spent years perfecting the art of not feeling, who still struggled to hold a conversation with his own brother, who couldn't even tell her how he felt without fleeing like a coward?
He thought of all the things he hadn't said.
All the times he had looked at her and felt words building in his chest, only to swallow them back down.
All the nights he had lain awake thinking about her hair in the firelight, her laugh in the garden, the way she said his name as if it meant something to her.
He had wasted so much time. So many opportunities to tell her, to show her, to give her a reason to stay.
And now she was being offered everything he couldn't give her: security, advancement, a future that didn't depend on the whims of a man who couldn't even admit his own feelings.
I would need to give notice.
She had said it so calmly. So practically. As if leaving, leaving Henry, leaving Northmere, leaving him, were merely a matter of logistics to be sorted out.
And why shouldn't she be calm? She owed him nothing. She was his employee, nothing more. The heated glances, the charged silences, the confession he'd made at her door in the middle of the night…none of it meant anything. None of it gave him any claim on her.
You should have told her, a voice whispered in his mind. You should have told her that night at her door. You should have said the words instead of running away like a coward.
But what words? What could he possibly say that would make a difference? Stay with me was selfish. I need you was pathetic. And the truth—the real truth, the one he had been running from for weeks…
The truth was that he loved her.
He loved her, and he had no idea what to do about it.
He heard footsteps approaching the drawing room door and forced himself to move, retreating around a corner just as Eliza emerged.
He caught a glimpse of her face, pale, thoughtful, her brow furrowed with what might have been confusion or concern, before she turned and walked in the opposite direction.
He didn't follow her.
He went instead to his study, closed the door, and stood at the window staring out at the moors without seeing anything at all.
The realization, when it came, was not the dramatic thunderbolt he might have expected.
He loved her.
Not the cautious, controlled affection he had convinced himself was all he was capable of. Not the carefully managed fondness that could be kept at arm's length, examined from a safe distance, packed away when it became inconvenient.
He loved her with the same consuming, terrifying intensity that had destroyed his father.
The thought should have sent him running. It should have triggered all the defenses he had spent years constructing, all the walls and barriers and careful distance that had kept him safe from exactly this kind of feeling.
But he was so tired of running, so tired of walls, and so tired of guarding his words instead of speaking them.
He loved her. And she was going to leave.
And there was nothing he could do about it, because he had no right to ask her to stay.
No right to burden her with his feelings when she had a chance at something better, something safer, something that didn't depend on a man who still flinched when his brother reached for his hand.
She deserved better than him. She deserved London, society and a future full of possibilities.
She deserved everything he couldn't give her.
Then give her what you can, the voice whispered. These last months. Whatever time you have left. Give her that, at least.
It wasn't enough. It would never be enough.
But it was all he had.
***
Dinner that evening was an exercise in exquisite torture.
Lady Pufferton, seated at the place of honor, regaled them with stories of London society: the scandals, the fashions, the endless whirl of gatherings, balls and entertainments. She was a gifted storyteller, witty and warm, and under other circumstances, Alistair might have enjoyed her company.
But he couldn't focus on anything she said. He was too aware of Eliza, seated across the table, her face carefully composed, her responses to Lady Pufferton's queries polite but subdued.
She was thinking about the offer. He could see it in the way her eyes went distant sometimes, the way her fingers traced the stem of her wine glass without drinking. She was weighing her options, considering her future, deciding whether to stay or go.
And he was powerless to influence her decision.
Every time their eyes met across the table, he felt the impact like a physical blow. She would look at him, and something would flicker in her expression. Uncertainty? Longing? He couldn't tell, and the not-knowing was driving him mad.
He found himself cataloging details, as if memorizing her for the time when she would be gone. The way the candlelight caught the copper threads in her hair. The graceful line of her neck above her modest dress. The small furrow between her brows when she was thinking deeply about something.
He wanted to reach across the table and smooth that furrow away. He wanted to take her hand and tell her that he needed her and that the thought of her leaving made him feel like he was drowning. That somewhere in the past months, she had become as essential to him as breathing.
He said nothing and did nothing. He just sat in his chair like the frozen statue his godmother had called him, and watched the woman he loved contemplate a future that didn't include him.
"Alistair, you're being remarkably quiet," Lady Pufferton observed, her voice cutting through his thoughts. "Usually, when I visit, you can't stop telling me about your latest agricultural innovations. Have you run out of things to say about crop rotation?"
"Forgive me. I'm... preoccupied this evening."
"So I see." Her knowing gaze flicked between Eliza and him with an intensity that made Alistair deeply uncomfortable. His godmother had always been too perceptive for anyone's good, and the last thing he needed was her meddling in whatever this was between him and his governess.
"The pheasants have been particularly difficult this season," he said, grasping for any topic that might redirect her attention. "The gamekeepers are quite vexed."
"Pheasants." Lady Pufferton's tone suggested she knew exactly what he was doing. "How fascinating."
"Indeed. Very troublesome birds."
"I'm sure they are."
The conversation limped along, punctuated by awkward silences and Lady Pufferton's increasingly pointed glances.
Eliza barely spoke, her attention fixed on her plate, and Alistair found himself watching her hands; the delicate way she held her fork, and the slight tremor in her fingers when she reached for her glass.
Was she nervous? Upset? Thinking about London and all the things she would see and do when she left this frozen corner of Yorkshire?
Thinking about leaving him?
"I believe I'll retire early," Eliza said, as soon as the last course was cleared. "It's been a long day, and Lord Henry will want an early start tomorrow."
"Of course, Miss Harrow." Alistair rose as she did, propriety demanding it even as every instinct screamed at him to stop her, to say something, to find the words that might make her stay. "Good night."
"Good night, Your Grace. Lady Pufferton."
She curtseyed and left, her copper hair catching the candlelight as she passed through the doorway. Alistair watched her go, unable to look away, feeling something in his chest twist painfully.
"Well," Lady Pufferton said, when the door had closed behind her. "That was illuminating."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Of course you don't." She rose from her chair with the grace of a woman half her age and crossed to where he stood, still staring at the empty doorway.
"You never were very good at recognising your own feelings, even as a boy.
Always so busy being responsible and proper that you forgot to notice what was happening in your own heart. "
"Godmother…"
"She's remarkable, you know. I spent twenty minutes with her, and I could see why the entire household is half in love with her." Lady Pufferton's voice softened. "I could see why you are, too."
"I'm not…" He stopped. There was no point in lying, not to her. "It doesn't matter how I feel. She deserves better than what I can offer."