Chapter Ten
The days following Lady Pufferton's departure settled into a strange new rhythm.
Nothing had been decided. Eliza had not accepted the offer, but she had not rejected it either.
She had simply thanked the countess for her generosity and promised to write with her answer before spring.
Lady Pufferton had accepted this with a knowing smile that suggested she understood far more than Eliza had said, and had departed with kisses for Henry, warm embraces for the staff, and a pointed look at her godson that Eliza pretended not to notice.
And now they were left alone; Eliza and Alistair and the weight of everything unspoken between them.
He was trying, and she could see that. In the days since Lady Pufferton's visit, he had redoubled his efforts with Henry, appearing at meals and lessons with an almost aggressive regularity.
"This section is structurally unsound," he had announced, frowning at a particularly precarious arrangement. "The weight distribution is all wrong."
"It's a fortress, Your Grace," Eliza had said, trying not to smile. "Not a bridge."
"Structural principles apply regardless of the building's purpose. If you don't establish a proper foundation, the entire thing will…"
The fortress had collapsed spectacularly, and Henry had laughed with delighted abandon, which made Alistair's expression soften at the sound.
"Perhaps we should start again," he had said. "With better engineering this time."
They had spent the rest of the afternoon rebuilding, and when they finally finished, Henry had declared it the finest fortress in all of England; a pronouncement that Alistair had accepted with a gravity that suggested he was receiving a knighthood rather than a six-year-old's approval.
But it wasn't just Henry he was attending to.
He brought her books from the library, volumes he thought she might enjoy, and left them on the nursery table with no explanation.
A collection of natural history essays appeared one morning; a volume of travel writings the next.
He asked about her comfort, her needs, and whether she had everything she required for Henry's lessons.
He inquired about her favorite authors, her preferred topics of study, and whether she found the nursery adequately lit for reading in the evenings.
He lingered in doorways when she was reading to Henry, his gray eyes following her movements with an intensity that made her skin flush.
He found reasons to be wherever she was; in the garden when they were taking nature walks, in the library when they were selecting new books, in the breakfast room long after he had finished eating, nursing a cup of cold tea while she helped Henry with his toast soldiers.
He was courting her, she realized. In his awkward, uncertain, utterly endearing way, the Duke of Northmere was trying to court her.
The realization made her heart race, her stomach flutter, and her mind spin with questions she couldn't answer. What did it mean? What did he want? And, most terrifying of all, what did she want?
She didn't know. That was the truth. She didn't know if she wanted to stay at Northmere forever or escape to London before her heart was broken beyond repair.
She didn't know if the feelings between them could ever be more than charged glances and unspoken words.
She didn't know anything except that every time he walked into a room, she felt like she had lost her breath.
And every time he left, she felt like something essential had gone with him.
***
The incident with the hair happened on a Thursday.
They had been in the garden, all three of them, taking advantage of a rare sunny afternoon to continue Henry's nature studies.
The boy was enthusiastically cataloguing every insect he could find, which meant a great deal of running and scrambling and dirt-covered hands. He had abandoned his usual solemn dignity entirely, transformed by the sunshine and the freedom into something approaching a normal, boisterous child.
"Miss Harrow! I found a caterpillar!"
"How wonderful! Be gentle with it."
"I am being gentle! My brother says I have to be gentle because…! Alistair, come look!"
Alistair had been standing at a careful distance, watching them with that expression Eliza had come to recognize as trying very hard to be neutral and failing spectacularly.
Henry had felt comfortable enough lately and had started calling his brother by his name and not ‘Your Grace’, which was spectacular and had made Eliza cry.
At Henry's summons, he crossed the lawn to examine the caterpillar with appropriate gravity.
"That's a beautiful caterpillar," he said, after a moment's study. "Some caterpillars can predict the weather, supposedly. The wider the brown band, the milder the winter."
"Really?" Henry peered at the caterpillar with renewed interest. "What does this one say?"
"I believe it suggests a moderate winter with occasional snow. Though I should note that caterpillar meteorology is not an exact science."
Henry laughed, and Alistair's face softened in response. She watched them, something warm expanding in her chest. He was trying so hard, learning, day by day, how to be the brother Henry needed.
"Miss Harrow! Come look! I found a beetle with spots!"
Eliza crossed the lawn to where Henry had moved on to his next discovery, crouching beside a rosebush and peering at something in the grass.
She knelt beside him, genuinely curious because Henry's enthusiasm was infectious, and she had learned more about insects in the past months than she had in her entire previous life.
"That's a ladybug," she said, examining the tiny creature on his palm. "They're considered good luck, you know. Farmers love them because they eat aphids; those little bugs that damage plants."
"Can I keep it?"
"I think she'd be happier in the garden, don't you? She has important work to do, protecting the roses."
Henry considered this with his characteristic gravity, then carefully placed the ladybird on a nearby leaf. "Go eat aphids," he instructed solemnly. "Protect the roses."
Eliza laughed, rising to her feet, and that was when the disaster struck.
Her hair had been pinned up in its usual practical style, twisted and coiled and secured with what she had thought was sufficient stability.
But the combination of bending and kneeling and the brisk autumn wind had apparently been too much for the pins to handle.
As she stood, she felt the entire structure begin to shift.
She reached up to steady it, but it was too late.
The pins scattered like fleeing soldiers, pinging against stones and disappearing into the grass. And her hair came tumbling down around her shoulders in a cascade of waves and curls that fell past her waist.
"Oh!" She clutched at the fallen strands, trying to gather them up, acutely aware of Alistair standing just a few feet away. "I'm so sorry, how mortifying, the pins must have worked loose…"
"Don't."
The word was quiet. Almost strangled. She looked up to find Alistair staring at her with an expression that made her breath catch.
He was looking at her hair.
No—he was looking at her hair the way a man dying of thirst looks at water. The way a starving man looks at a feast. His gray eyes had gone dark, almost black, and his hands were clenched at his sides as if he were physically restraining himself from reaching out.
"Don't apologise," he said, his voice rough. "Please. Don't."
"I should fix it…Find the pins…"
"I'll help you." He was already moving, dropping to his knees on the grass, searching for the scattered pins with a focus that seemed disproportionate to the task. "They can't have gone far."
Henry, bless him, immediately joined the hunt. "I see one! Over here by the stone!"
Eliza stood frozen, her hair streaming around her in the wind, watching the Duke of Northmere crawl through the grass on his hands and knees, looking for her hairpins. It was absurd, and it was improper. It was possibly the most intimate thing she had ever experienced.
"Here." He rose, crossing to where she stood, a handful of pins clutched in his fingers. "I think I found most of them."
She reached out to take them, but he didn't release them. Instead, he stood there, close enough that she could feel the heat of him, and his eyes fixed on her hair with that same desperate intensity.
The wind chose that moment to gust, lifting a strand of copper and blowing it across her face. Without thinking, Alistair reached out and caught it.
His fingers brushed her cheek as he tucked the strand behind her ear.
The touch was featherlight, barely there, but Eliza felt it like a brand. Her breath caught, and when his hand lingered, hovering near her jaw as if reluctant to break contact, she thought she might actually stop breathing altogether.
"Alistair?" His name slipped out without permission, soft and questioning.
He seemed to come back to himself. His hand dropped, and he stepped back, just a fraction, just enough to restore a semblance of propriety, but his eyes never left her hair.
"I should…" His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, visibly struggling to regain control. "I should give these to you. You should fix your hair. This is…I shouldn't…"
But he still didn't release the pins.
"I've never seen it down," he said quietly, and there was something almost reverent in his voice. "I've imagined…I've wondered…But I never…"
He stopped himself, and his jaw tightened with the effort of control. She could see the war playing out behind his eyes: duty and desire, restraint and need, years of careful walls straining against a flood that wanted to sweep them all away.
"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
The words fell between them like stones into still water, sending ripples in every direction. Eliza felt them impact her chest, her stomach, somewhere deeper and more vulnerable than she wanted to admit.