Chapter 11
Alexander remained where he was after the servant left the garden.
His attention stayed fixed on Eleanor and Julian without interruption, tracking the small pauses between their words and the way they responded to each other as though the rest of the world had narrowed to that exchange alone. Eleanor spoke first, her voice quieter than before.
“There is nothing more to say on the matter.”
Julian answered immediately, though his tone carried restraint.
“That is not true, and you know it.”
“What I understand,” Alexander cut in, “is that you knew my wife before this arrangement.”
“Yes,” Eleanor said, then added more firmly, “but it does not matter now.”
Julian stepped half a pace closer to her.
“It mattered enough once,” he said. “It does not disappear simply because time has passed.”
“Then explain it,” Alexander instructed.
Eleanor’s answer came quickly.
“There is nothing to explain that concerns you.”
“It concerns all of us now, apparently.” Julian chuckled.
Alexander watched the way Eleanor’s attention broke briefly between them, not resting fully on either side, and the way Julian seemed to wait for something that did not arrive. Alexander finally spoke again.
“This is not the time for private history.”
Eleanor stepped back from both of them.
“Then stop treating it as if it is.”
The three of them held in silence for a brief moment after that, none of them attempting to resolve what had been exposed. Eleanor’s reaction to Julian had not been subtle enough to ignore, yet it was not something she had offered any explanation for either.
That in itself was not unusual; she had never been inclined toward telling people her secrets, and he had not expected otherwise. What unsettled him was not the lack of answers, but the certainty that there were answers she was choosing not to give.
He told himself, repeatedly, that it did not matter. The arrangement between them had never been built on affection or expectation beyond formality.
Trust, in the strict sense of obligation and conduct, was present in all the ways that mattered for a marriage such as theirs. And yet that reasoning did not quiet the unease that lingered beneath it, because what he had seen was not a matter of duty or propriety.
Alexander considered what he knew of her, what little she had revealed since arriving. He had accepted that she was reserved; that had not troubled him before.
But it troubled him now, because whatever stood between Eleanor and Julian was not something recent or incidental. It had weight, and that weight had not disappeared with time. He found himself returning to the same conclusion more than once, each time with less satisfaction than the last.
He wanted to trust her judgment, to accept her word when she said there was nothing to worry about, and to leave it at that as he would have done with any other matter of household concern.
Yet his instinct told him that something in that assurance was incomplete.
Even so, he had no proof of anything beyond unease.
Julian broke the silence first.
“I should leave you both to your evening.”
“See that you do.”
Julian turned away, leaving the garden without another word, and the sound of his departure faded into the distance. Eleanor remained where she was for a moment longer before speaking quietly.
“That did not need to happen the way that it did.”
“Perhaps not, but it is not as though we can change it.”
She did not respond, instead turning on her heel and walking away from him without looking back at him. Alexander wondered if he had taken it too far, but he did not think so. The man seemed to be making his wife uncomfortable, so he had every right to make his thoughts known.
***
Dinner was already underway when Eleanor entered the dining room. Julian was speaking when she took her seat, his voice carrying lightly across the table as though the earlier strain had been set aside.
“I remember the rivers being colder than anything I have ever known,” Julian said, lifting his glass slightly as he spoke. “We used to wager who could stand in them the longest without complaining. It was a foolish sort of entertainment, but it kept morale where it needed to be.”
Eleanor seemed to react to his words before she could stop it.
“That sounds unbearable.”
Julian turned toward her at once.
“It was,” he admitted. “But we survived it.”
“You speak of it as though it were amusing,” Alexander said, his voice quieter than before but sharper in delivery.
“It is easier to speak of it now than it was to live through it, do you not think? After all, we lived to tell the tale.”
Eleanor glanced between them.
“I cannot imagine living like that at all.”
“You would have adapted faster than you think,” Julian replied immediately. “After all, you have survived your first while as Duchess. You could handle a battlefield far more easily.”
That earned a quiet laugh from her.
“I doubt that very much,” she said.
The sound of it changed something at the table. Alexander set his cutlery down, though the movement carried more force than necessary.
“It is not a matter for amusement,” he said.
Eleanor turned toward him.
“I am not amused,” she replied, though her tone was lighter than her words suggested.
Julian leaned back slightly in his chair.
“There is no harm in remembering what was once endured,” he said. “Even laughter has its place.”
“Not at this table.”
The words were immediate and final enough to still the conversation for a brief moment. Eleanor’s attention shifted fully to Alexander then.
“Then what would you prefer we speak about?” she asked.
“Something appropriate,” he replied.
Julian gave a faint smile that did not reach the rest of his words.
“Politics, then? Or estate matters? Those always seem safe enough in houses such as this.”
“If you have nothing of value to contribute, silence would be preferable.”
Julian paused, the briefest flicker of surprise crossing his focus before he recovered.
“That is rather uncharitable.”
“There is no need for this,” Eleanor muttered.
“There is every need when laughter is misplaced.”
Her voice sharpened slightly in response. “It was a conversation!”
“It is a reminder,” he said. “Of everything that is better left forgotten.”
Julian looked between them both.
“I did not intend to disrupt your household.”
“Yet you have.”
“Perhaps,” Eleanor offered, “we should finish dinner without turning it into an argument.”
Julian nodded once.
“I would prefer that. That is why I tried to share memories with you both, but I see now that that is not deemed appropriate here. Very well.”
Alexander did not immediately respond, though his attention remained fixed on the exchange that had just passed between the two of them.
The rest of the meal continued, but conversation was reduced to brief exchanges that never fully regained their earlier ease, and the space between Eleanor and Julian remained charged in a way that Alexander did not look away from for long.
After dinner, the house settled into a quieter rhythm, though nothing about the silence felt restful. Alexander remained in the dining room longer than usual, the bottle on the table drawing his attention more than the untouched papers waiting for him elsewhere in the house.
Glass after glass followed without any real decision on his part, each one emptied with a steadiness that belied the growing weight behind his thoughts about what he could do.
Loyalty came first, as it always had. It was the foundation of everything he understood, the principle that had carried him through war, through command, through every choice that demanded certainty rather than comfort. Yet that night, it did not sit cleanly.
It shifted instead, pulling uneasily against memories he did not want to name, against the sight of Eleanor’s attention turning elsewhere without her seeming to notice it was happening at all.
The way he felt was not clean or reasonable, and it offered no clarity in return for its presence. It simply remained, growing more difficult to ignore with each passing hour. It felt wrong to have such expectations of a lady who was only there with him because she had to be.
Even so, he had started to wish that she did not think that way about him.
Eleanor moved through the preparations for the upcoming ball far more easily than he had expected, with her attention divided between arrangements and the constant adjustments required to turn it all into something presentable.
The weight of expectation followed her through every corridor; he could see it in her face, and each time he noticed it, his thoughts slipped back to the earlier tension in the garden and the dinner that had followed it.
Julian had not stayed away. He found her in the corridor outside the drawing room, where she had been reviewing lists with one of the household staff.
Alexander heard the conversation begin, having been standing a short distance away, around the corner so he could not be seen, but he did not interrupt this time, partly because he wished to know more about what the two of them had shared, and Eleanor seemed as though she did not want him to hear such a thing.
“You have been busy,” he said gently, stopping a short distance away.
Eleanor did not look up immediately.
“There is much to prepare,” she replied.
Julian took a step closer, though at least he kept his distance respectful this time.
“I did not come to interrupt that,” he said. “I only wanted to ask if you are managing well here.”
She hesitated before answering.
“I am managing,” she said carefully.
Julian studied her for a moment before speaking again, his voice softer now than it had been at dinner.
“I was harsher than I intended earlier,” he said. “Old habits return when I am not careful.”
“You are still the same person,” she replied quietly. “People do not change, Julian, not enough for there to ever be a real difference.”
“That is what I am afraid of,” he said.
Eleanor did not respond to that, instead lowering her gaze back to the papers in her hands as though the conversation had reached its end, whether it truly had or not.
Although it did not explain anything, Alexander reasoned that it was a start. Not only that, but his wife was not being duplicitous; she was just as unimpressed with Julian in his absence as in his presence.
That night, the distance between them all only seemed to widen.
Alexander remained in the darker corners of the house longer than necessary, while Eleanor continued with her preparations until exhaustion softened the edges of her focus.
Julian moved between rooms, attempting a lighter tone when he spoke, though it never fully settled what had already been set in motion.
And through it all, none of them found a way to step cleanly out of what the day had already begun to unravel. The house had settled into deep quiet by the time Alexander finally left the study. His steps slowed near the upper landing near Eleanor’s room, but he stopped outside without speaking.
Inside, movement could be heard—a restless pacing that broke the silence in uneven intervals.
He remained there longer than he meant to, listening without permission, as though the sound of it alone might offer him some clarity.
His hand lifted once toward the door before lowering again, the gesture unfinished and left hanging in the air.
He had never wanted this arrangement in the first place.
He had not sought companionship, nor expectation, nor the shifting obligations that now came with her presence in his house.
The idea should have made everything simple.
It should have confirmed what he had always believed about distance being preferable to complication, and yet it did not sit cleanly.
He stood there a moment longer before finally knocking. The sound cut through the corridor, and the pacing inside stopped almost immediately. A pause followed, then her voice came through the door.
“Yes?”
He exhaled once before speaking.
“It is me.”
Another brief silence came, then the latch shifted, and the door opened enough to reveal her.
Eleanor stood there, and for a moment, neither of them spoke. Alexander’s gaze searched her quickly, taking in the lack of sleep and the tension that had not fully left her.
“What is it?” she asked quietly.
“You were pacing,” he said. “I wished to make sure you were all right.”
“I could not sleep,” she said simply. “That is all.”
The explanation did not feel complete, but he did not press immediately. Instead, he watched her for a moment longer before speaking again.
“It has been a long day.”
“It has,” she agreed.
Silence returned briefly between them before he continued, his tone less certain than before.
“Is something troubling you?”
“No.”
The word should have ended it, but Alexander was not satisfied; her answer came too quickly for him to believe her.
“That is not entirely convincing.”
Eleanor gave a small, controlled breath, then shook her head slightly.
“There is nothing you need to worry about. Everything is as it should be, and I am pleased that you can spend time with your friend.”
“If you say so.”
Eleanor met his gaze briefly. “I do.”
Another silence followed, quieter this time, less strained but still unresolved. He should have left then, but he did not. Instead, he remained a moment longer, as though searching for something he could not yet articulate.
“I know that I have not made this easy for you,” he confessed. “And I have not told you enough yet, but you have adapted to your new life well. Everyone thinks so, even if they do not say it aloud.”
To his surprise, she genuinely seemed grateful to hear what he had to say. Her smile in that moment was enough to make Alexander wonder why he was always so reluctant to simply compliment his wife, for it was not at all difficult to think of kind things to say to her.
“Try to rest,” he said.
“I will,” she replied.
Only then did he turn away, though even as he walked down the corridor, she did not leave his thoughts. Nothing that he did seemed to make it stop, and he found to his horror that he was disliking that less and less.
She was, after all, a pleasant thing to think about.