That was what seemed to startle her.
“What options?” she asked.
“You are not happy with our arrangement, and in spite of what you might think of me I do want you to be happy. The way that you have been offered late shows that you are anything but. We could– we could seek an annulment and find what we are looking for.”
She faltered, but her eyes did not leave his. Julian hardly knew what he was saying; it was not what he wanted at all, but it was what she deserved. If she were in the arms of another man, it would kill him, but at least she would be happy. She would know love, just as she deserved.
“Lady Rosamund has been mentioned,” he continued. “She is familiar with the nature of such arrangements. There would be no expectation beyond what is agreed, and no complication.”
For a moment, the room felt very quiet. Eleanor understood it completely, and Julian felt the impact of it. It confirmed what he had already begun to suspect, what he had tried not to fully accept even as he adjusted himself to her distance.
There had been something, and he had chosen to dismiss it. Eleanor drew a slow breath, the motion controlled, to gather herself fully before she spoke again.
“Of course,” she said. “That would be far more suitable.”
Julian did not react to the words, taking them as agreement. He had hoped, foolishly, that she would argue the point. She had changed, but he wondered if that was only because he had expected it. This was not her, and he wanted the Eleanor that he had married back, but he knew why she was absent.
“It could be preferable, in fact,” she continued. “It would avoid the unnecessary difficulty of our match, and allow us to find what we truly want.”
Julian regarded her for a moment, as though confirming that the matter had been settled.
“Then it is agreed,” he said.
“It is.”
“I will make the necessary arrangements,” Julian said.
“Thank you.”
She did not look away from him immediately, though there was nothing left to search for in his expression, nothing left to interpret. Whatever she might have hoped to find there no longer existed, if it ever had.
“I wish you every success in London,” he added, as though offering a courtesy to a guest rather than speaking to someone who had stood before him only nights before in a very different way.
“And I wish you the same,” she said.
The words were correct, entirely so, and entirely empty. Eleanor turned then, her movements unhurried as she crossed the room and reached the door. She did not falter, did not pause, and did not allow even the smallest hesitation to betray what she might have felt.
Only when she stepped into the corridor and the door closed quietly behind her did Julian allow himself a single, steady breath to hold everything exactly where it was.
Because whatever had just been confirmed between them, whatever had been ended without being named, he would not allow her to be hurt by it. He would take the blame, refuse to let her reputation be hurt again, and do all that he could to protect her from afar. She had never been able to choose what happened to her, and he was determined to give her that choice.
He simply wished her decision had not destroyed him the way it had.
CHAPTER 27
Eleanor closed the door to her room, the soft click of the latch marking a boundary she did not intend to cross again.
She stood there for a moment, her hand still resting against the handle, allowing the silence to settle around her before she moved. There was no confusion left in her thoughts, no uncertainty waiting to be resolved. What had passed between herself and Julian had stripped everything down to something clear and unavoidable, and she found, with a steadiness that surprised even her, that the clarity made action far easier than hesitation ever had.
She crossed the room and went directly to the wardrobe, opening it without pause. When she had first come to the estate, she had carried with her the firm understanding that it would only ever be an arrangement that would remain cordial and nothing more. She saw how easily she had been drawn into the illusion of love again, and how completely it had been undone.
She reached for the first gown and began to fold it, smoothing the fabric before placing it into the trunk. London no longer existed as a distant possibility or an uncomfortable memory she preferred not to examine too closely. It was something she could return to with a sense of control she had not possessed when she left it behind. The life waiting there would not be untouched by what had happened, and it would be governed by rules she understood, expectations she could meet without risking herself in ways she had not anticipated.
Her hands slowed briefly as her thoughts threatened to turn, but she did not allow them to. What Halford had offered was not something she accepted lightly, nor was it something she accepted because she believed in him. She did not trust him, and she did not pretend otherwise. The past remained exactly as it had been, unaltered by his apology or his attempt to reshape it into something less severe. What mattered now was not the man himself, but what he was capable of restoring, and she held firmly to that distinction as she continued to pack, refusing to let memory blur the clarity she had worked to maintain.
It was not Halford who unsettled her now, nor the past she had already endured and understood too well. It was Julian, and the way he had not tried to stop her, had not asked her to reconsider, had not given any indication that her leaving would alter anything for him beyond what was convenient.
What happened between them had not been imagined, she was certain of that, but it had been dismissed, set aside in favor of something simpler, something that required nothing from him beyond what he had always intended to give. His mention of Lady Rosamund had not been careless. It had been deliberate, areinforcement of the kind of life he preferred, one that stood in direct contrast to everything Eleanor had allowed herself to hope for.