From the schoolroom above, the children’s voices drifted down as they settled in for the night. Mrs. Neal’s footsteps creaked on the new floorboards.
“Shall we go up?” Elinor asked. “I promised them a lesson tonight.”
He nodded and followed her up the staircase. The lesson was about planets. Elinor taught with her usual fire, her hands moving as she described Jupiter’s storms and Saturn’s rings, and the children leaned toward her with the hunger of young minds being fed for the first time.
Lucien sat among them and wrote on his slate. He did not try to hide it this time. He did not angle the chalk away from the children beside him, nor tuck the slate behind his back when the lesson ended.
When Elinor came to collect the slates, she paused at his. He held it out to her.
“May I?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She took the slate. Her eyes moved across whatever he had written. He watched her face change: the slight parting of her lips, the way her breath caught, the slow blink that meant she was holding something back.
She pressed the slate back into his hands without speaking.
Their fingers overlapped on the edges of the frame, and for a moment, neither of them let go. The schoolroom was quiet. The children had filed out. The lantern burned low.
Then Elinor released the slate, gathered her cloak, and left.
Lucien sat alone in the empty schoolroom and looked down at what he had written and knew, with a certainty that felt less like discovery and more like surrender, that three weeks would not be enough.
Three lifetimes would not be enough.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Does he always walk with such purpose, or is he simply trying to outpace us?” Annabelle watched Newton trot ahead on his lead, his tail held high, his gaze fixed on a sparrow that had landed several yards away on the path.
His stride carried the dignified urgency of a creature who believed the entire park existed for his benefit.
“He is on a mission,” Elinor said, keeping pace. “He spotted a pigeon near the Serpentine last time, and I believe he has held a grudge about not catching it. He will spend the entire walk searching.”
Annabelle laughed, a bright, unguarded sound that drew glances from the ladies promenading nearby. She walked with her arm looped through Elinor’s, a habit she had adopted within hours of their first meeting and showed no sign of relinquishing.
The morning was cool and clear, the park lush with the last extravagance of the Season’s greenery, and for a few merciful minutes, Elinor could pretend that this was simply what it appeared to be: two friends walking a cat in Hyde Park.
“Tell me about this constellation you mentioned at dinner,” Annabelle said. “The one with the queen who was punished for vanity.”
“Cassiopeia.” Elinor smiled. “She boasted that she and her daughter were more beautiful than the sea nymphs, and Poseidon placed her in the heavens as punishment. She circles the celestial pole for eternity, sometimes upside down, which the Greeks considered a humiliation.”
“Upside down for eternity because she was vain?” Annabelle’s brow arched. “That seems rather excessive. Half the ton would be hanging from the sky.”
Elinor laughed before she could stop herself, the sound escaping in a way it rarely did outside Lyra House. Annabelle grinned at her, pleased, and squeezed her arm.
“You should laugh more,” Annabelle said. “It suits you. Lucien says you are reserved in public, but I do not think you are reserved at all. I think you are careful, which is different.”
The observation was so precise that Elinor faltered.
Careful.
Yes, that was the right word. She had been careful for four years, measuring every sentence, calculating every expression, building walls so practiced they felt like skin.
Annabelle tilted her head, studying Elinor that made her want to look away.
“He is different, you,” Annabelle said. “My brother. Since the engagement. His letters are longer. He asks questions about things beyond the duchy. He mentioned wanting to learn about astronomy himself, which is extraordinary for a man who once fell asleep during a lecture on navigation.” She paused, her voice softening. “He seems lighter, Elinor. Less burdened. When I saw him at the ball, he smiled at you, and it was not the smile he gives the ton. It was the one he used to give before.”
Before. The word pressed against the bruise Annabelle had left at the Whitmore ball.