She had no answer. Only the memory of his hand moving toward hers and the knowledge that next time—if there was a next time—she might not have the strength to keep her own hands still.
Twenty
“You have eaten precisely three bites of toast in the last quarter hour,” Eliza said, setting down her teacup with a bit more force. “I begin to suspect you are punishing it for some past offense.”
August looked up from the morning paper which he had been holding at an angle that suggested he was reading it though Eliza suspected he had not turned a page in some time. “The toast is innocent. I am merely… distracted.”
“By what? The news from Parliament or the fact that you have been awake since four o’clock?”
His brows lifted. “How did you?—”
“The servants talk, Your Grace. And you left your study door open when you finally retired at midnight. It does not require a great mind to calculate that you are running on four hours of sleep at best.”
He folded the paper with exaggerated care and set it beside his plate. “I could say the same of you. I heard you moving about your rooms well past two.”
Eliza had not known he paid such attention. The realization sent a small jolt through her chest, one she tried very hard to ignore. “I was reading.”
“In the dark?”
“There was a candle.”
“One candle.”
“It was sufficient.”
They stared at each other across the table, and Eliza felt the absurdity of the argument settle between them. A smile tugged at her mouth before she could stop it.
August’s expression softened in response. “We are a pair of fools, are we not?”
“Speak for yourself. I am perfectly sensible.”
“You read by single candlelight in the dead of night and claim sensibility?”
“Better than prowling the halls at dawn like some restless specter.”
He picked up his coffee, took a sip, and made a face that suggested he had forgotten to add sugar. Or perhaps he had added too much. Eliza could not tell which. “I was not prowling. I was… thinking.”
“About?”
He set the cup down. “Everything. Nothing. The estate. My father.” He rubbed at his temple then seemed to catch himself and dropped his hand. “Forgive me. You did not ask for a recitation of my anxieties.”
“I asked what you were thinking about,” Eliza said. “You answered. There is nothing to forgive.”
He looked at her then, really looked, and something in his face shifted. It was not quite vulnerability, but it was close. Closer than she had seen before their dinner last night. Before his father’s death. Before he had let her stay in his study while he dictated letters and fell apart by increments.
“You have been very patient with me,” he said.
Eliza busied herself with buttering a piece of toast she had no intention of eating. “I have done nothing extraordinary.”
“You stayed.”
The words were simple, but they landed with surprising force. She looked up and found him watching her with an expression she could not quite name. Gratitude, perhaps. Or something more complicated.
“Where else would I go?” she asked, aiming for lightness and missing by a mile.
“London. Your aunt’s house. Anywhere that did not require you to bear witness to my family’s grief.” He leaned back in his chair, and the movement seemed to cost him something. “Most wives of convenience would have found an excuse by now.”
“Then I suppose I am not most wives.”