Chapter 16
Amelia had her hand on the latch of the side door when a light bloomed in the maids' window above the courtyard.
She froze against the wall, breath held, watching the pale glow move across the glass — someone up late, or woken by something, or simply restless the way she herself could not seem to stop being.
She counted the seconds until it guttered out again, and only then did she let herself breathe and slip out into the dark.
The garden was quiet when she reached it, and empty. She waited beneath the ash tree, listening for him, and for longer than she liked, nothing came — only the wind moving through the hedges and her own heartbeat, loud in her ears.
Then she saw him, coming from the direction of the house, unhurried as always.
She did not wait for him to reach the shadow of the tree. She crossed the last few steps herself and kissed him before either of them had said a word.
When they parted, she kept her hands at his collar.
"Why did you do it?"
"I am done hiding." He said it simply, without any of the weight the words might have carried.
"If I am to restore my family's dignity, its respect — I must be the first one to embrace what it actually costs to carry that name.
But more than that." He looked at her steadily.
"I did not want you to carry the burden of it any longer.
If we are to go on seeing each other, we would have hidden it either way.
And that gap in the fence will be mended sooner or later — I gave my word on it.
Better, I thought, to be bold now, while I still had the choosing of the moment. "
"I confess I was not expecting there to be a plan behind it," she said. "It seemed, in the moment, entirely impulsive."
"I was battling myself the whole of the walk to your father's door." A faint, rueful smile. "But the decision itself was made before I ever stepped inside your house."
"I wish I could step into yours as easily." She glanced toward the black shape of Russell Hall beyond the trees. "But—"
"One day you will," he said. "I give you my word on that as well."
She let the silence hold a moment before she went on.
"My father did not know quite how to react, after you left. He respects the honesty of it — I could see that plainly enough. But he cares a great deal for appearances, and I do not think he has yet reconciled the two."
"As he should," Benjamin said. "Especially where they touch on you."
Amelia rolled her eyes, though there was no real heat in it. "Mrs. Miller was right, then. You are all the same."
"After so many years in an army full of men exactly like him, I can hardly argue with her." He tilted his head slightly. "Though I do not think it is entirely a fault, whatever she says."
"That," Amelia said, "is a conversation for another evening."
"Agreed." He shifted, something softening in his face.
"As for Mrs. Miller herself — she was shocked as anyone.
I kept even her in the dark about my intentions, so she would not carry the nerves of it into the room with her.
But she liked your father. Liked you as well, I think, from what little she saw.
" Something almost fond crossed his expression.
"Her only complaint was that I might have let everyone eat first before dropping such a thing on the table.
Beyond that, she was proud. Prouder than I have seen her in a long while — though I noticed, under it, she has not stopped worrying since. "
"Truly?" Amelia looked at him. "She was proud?"
"She told me she could finally call me Your Grace in front of other people, and intends to make a habit of it at every opportunity she can find."
Amelia laughed, low and delighted, before the question that had been sitting under all of it finally rose to the surface. "And what do you intend to do now?"
"I want to draw them out into the open." His voice had gone quieter, more deliberate. "Force them to come to me, here, rather than let them work from a distance."
"Why would you want that?"
"In London, men like Harrington are untouchable.
Here, in Ashcombe, they are not — not entirely.
If I can hold his attention on me, keep him occupied with the target directly in front of him, he will not think to look too closely elsewhere.
" He paused. "The longer Harrington believes I am the whole of his problem, the longer that man has to work undisturbed. "
Amelia stared at him. "You see everything as a chessboard."
"Perhaps I do. I have never been taught to think of a problem any other way."
He looked up at the stars for a moment, and she watched him, turning something over in her own mind.
"Am I a pawn, then," she said finally, "in this grand game of yours?"
He looked at her, and considered the question with real seriousness before he answered.
"It may sound strange," he said, "but you are the king."
"The king?" She blinked. "I was hoping, at the very least, for the queen. Or the horse."
"The queen moves wherever she pleases, across the whole of the board, and answers to no one for it.
" He took her hand. "The king does not. He is guarded, watched, kept from every danger the rest of the board might carry toward him — because if he falls, nothing else on the field matters any longer.
He is the single most valuable piece there is.
And also, always, the most limited in what he is permitted to do. "
Amelia looked down at the grass between them.
"The way you put it," she said quietly, "that does rather sound like what it feels to be me."
"Do not forget the valuable part," he said, and squeezed her hand.
She looked up at him, something wry pulling at her mouth. "And what does that make you, in this game of yours?"
"Someone revising his entire strategy," Benjamin said, "because he did not know who the king was until a few weeks ago."
She laughed outright at that. "What piece, though? You still have not said."
He thought about it a long moment.
"The tower," he said finally. "Forming a wall around you."
Amelia's gaze drifted, unbidden, toward the gap in the fence, still half-hidden beneath its screen of ivy.
"Your wall has a hole in it, Benjamin."
"Thank God it does."
He drew her back to him, and this time when they kissed there was no urgency in it at all — only the slow, warm certainty of two people who had already decided, in every way that mattered, exactly where they stood with each other.
They stayed like that a while, foreheads together, her hands still resting at his collar, before Benjamin felt something shift in her — a small stiffness returning to her shoulders that had not been there a moment before.
He drew back just enough to see her face.
"What is it?"
She was quiet a moment, gathering the words.
"It is unfair," she said finally. "You must hide your name your entire life.
I must hide the one thing that makes me feel like myself.
And the two of us together — we are reduced to relying on a broken piece of fence to see each other at all, one that will be mended the moment your men finish their work.
" Her voice caught, just slightly. "All of it, because of reputation.
Because of titles. Why can we not simply live our lives the way we choose? "
Benjamin looked at her for a long moment before he answered.
"More often than not," he said quietly, "we are slaves to our circumstances. Unable to change the shape of the thing we were born into, however much we might wish otherwise."
Amelia let out a small, humorless laugh. "My father was right. You do speak like a scholar sometimes."
"I shall take that as a compliment." A faint smile touched his mouth, and then it faded into something more certain. "But there is a way through it. There always is. I have found one before, when I had far less to work with than I do now."
"It does not feel that way. Not tonight."
He pulled her back against him without another word, one hand at the back of her head, and simply held her.
"Hush," he murmured against her hair. "I have you."
She stayed there a moment, breathing him in, before she pulled back and straightened her shoulders with visible effort.
"No more complaining from me tonight." She wiped at her eyes, half laughing at herself for needing to. "I ought to be helping, not weeping into your coat."
"You are already helping more than you know."
"I mean it properly, though." She held his gaze. "I intend to use whatever influence I have to soften the scrutiny once the rest of Ashcombe learns who you truly are. I will make certain you are welcomed here, at the very least. I will not let them chase you out of the one place you have left."
"Thank you." Something in his face warmed at that, before caution crept back in. "Only take care not to press too hard. If your support for me becomes too visible, too quickly, people will begin to wonder what lies behind it."
"Then I shall have to visit Mrs. Miller and learn the proper art of it. I imagine she knows precisely how such things are managed."
"I am afraid the scrutiny may reach her as well, before the house is finished and she has somewhere safer to retreat to. I do not yet know how to shield her from it."
"You will find a way." Amelia said it with more confidence than she entirely felt. "And I want to believe the people here will not turn against a woman who has done nothing but honest, decent work her whole life."
"I hope you are right." Benjamin brushed a strand of hair back from her face, his hand lingering a moment against her cheek. "I have been wrong about people before. I would rather not be wrong about that."
She leaned into his touch, and for a while neither of them spoke at all — only stood together beneath the ash tree, her hand pressed flat against his chest where she could feel his heart beating steady beneath it, his arms around her holding off, for a little while longer, everything waiting for them beyond the garden wall.
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