August pressed his palms against his eyes and tried to summon the rational part of his mind. The part that understood that people had pasts, that Eliza was a grown woman who had lived a full life before their marriage, and that he had no claim on her affections beyond what their vows demanded.
“Your Grace, I thought you might require this.”
August looked up from his desk to find Denton standing in the doorway, a cup of coffee balanced on a silver tray. The clock on the mantel showed half past five, and the first gray light of dawn was just beginning to creep through the windows.
“Denton, you are a saint among men.”
“Mrs. Finch said you were up late again, sir. She suggested coffee might be in order.”
August accepted the cup and took a grateful sip. “Please thank her for me, and tell her I shall attempt to sleep at some point before next Tuesday.”
“I shall relay the message, Your Grace.”
Denton withdrew, closing the door with his usual soundless efficiency, and August returned his attention to the ledger spread before him. The numbers had begun to blur together somewhere around three o’clock, but he persisted, determined to finish reconciling the accounts before the day’s obligations descended upon him.
He reached for the coffee again and happened to glance toward the window.
A figure moved through the gardens below. Small, cloaked, moving with the kind of purpose that suggested a destination firmly in mind.
August set down his cup and crossed to the window, pressing closer to the glass to get a better view. The figure had reached the edge of the formal gardens now and was heading toward the small gate that led to the lane beyond.
He recognized the cloak. Dark blue wool with a slightly frayed hem. He had seen Eliza wearing it just yesterday when she had walked the grounds with Lady Wilhampton.
What in God’s name was she doing outside at this hour?
He watched as she slipped through the gate and disappeared from view, swallowed up by the morning mist that clung to the hedgerows.
For a moment, he simply stood there, coffee forgotten, ledger forgotten, all his carefully organized thoughts scattering like leaves in a wind.
Where was she going?
The question lodged itself in his mind alongside all the others that had been accumulating there since he found the letter.
He told himself not to be ridiculous. Eliza probably could not sleep and had decided to take a walk. Nothing sinister in that. Nothing worth worrying over.
But she had passed through the gate. Had left the grounds entirely. That was not a walk. That was a destination.
The hours we spend together are too few.
August’s jaw tightened. He turned from the window and stared at the ledger on his desk, at the neat columns of figures that had seemed so important just moments before. They looked meaningless now. Trivial.
Where was she going?
And more troubling still, why had she not told him she was leaving at all?
Twenty-Three
The theater offered other attractions beyond the stage.
Eliza could not get Lady Wilhampton’s words out of her mind, and that ensured that this might be her second night without sleep.
She threw back the covers and reached for her wrapper, tying it with more force than necessary. A book might help. Something dull and improving, the sort of thing that made one’s eyes cross with boredom. She had seen a volume on agricultural reform in the library that looked promising in its tedium.
She lit a candle and slipped out into the hallway, her bare feet silent on the carpet runner. The house felt different at night, larger somehow, as though the walls had expanded to accommodate all the shadows.
She had nearly reached the staircase when she saw him.
August stood in the hallway, one shoulder pressed against the wall, his head tipped back as though he had been studying the ceiling and found it wanting. He wore only his shirtsleeves and breeches, and his hair stuck up at odd angles, as though he had been running his hands through it repeatedly.