So was he.
They stood in silence, not awkward, but tentative—balanced on the edge of a strange precipice.
Abigail didn’t fidget, and didn’t press him further. She simply allowed the silence to exist between them, and somehow, he appreciated her more for it. She had made her proposal with clarity and logic, but beneath the composure, he sensed something deeper. A quiet strength. A refusal to surrender to the machinery of expectation.
He hadn’t expected that from her. And now, he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
***
The silence between them stretched—not heavy, not uncomfortable, but thoughtful. The kind of silence that lingered when two minds were turning over the same question from opposite sides.
Abigail kept her gaze trained on the neat hedgerows beyond the terrace, their edges softened by moonlight. The garden below looked peaceful, undisturbed by the social storm humming inside the walls they’d left behind. Here, there were no questions, no expectations, no tightly managed smiles or watching eyes. Just the faint rustle of leaves and the quiet presence of the man standing beside her.
She could feel Arthur’s attention even without looking at him. A subtle shift of energy. He hadn’t moved since she’d spoken—not toward her, not away—but there was something alert in the way he stood. Listening. Thinking. Weighing his options.
She dared a glance sideways.
He was watching her, as she suspected, but not in the way other men did—not the way Lord Colton did, with entitlement and expectation, nor with the vague admiration of well-meaning suitors. Arthur’s gaze was sharper, more curious. His expression gave very little away, yet there was an intensity in his stillness that made her pulse tick just a little faster.
His eyes searched her face, not for vanity’s sake, but with consideration. As though he were studying a chessboard and she had just moved a knight somewhere unexpected.
“Well,” he said at last, his voice low and thoughtful, “I must confess, Miss Darlington… your proposal is not what I anticipated when I stepped out here this evening.”
Her lips twitched. “It would hardly be effective if it were.”
That earned a quiet snort of amusement from him, a mere breath, but genuine.
He turned slightly, one hand slipping into the pocket of his waistcoat as he looked back out over the gardens. “It’s bold,” he said. “Strategic. And… rather inspired.”
Abigail tilted her head. “But?”
Arthur’s mouth curved into a half-smile, though his eyes remained distant. “But it is also dangerously clever. And clever things, Miss Darlington, have a way of slipping beyond the bounds of their original design.”
She watched him carefully. “You’re concerned.”
“I’m… aware,” he replied, “of how easily performance can blur with reality. Even when intentions are perfectly managed.”
Something about his tone was guarded. Not cold, exactly—but deliberately restrained. She wondered what memories he was protecting. What unnamed ghosts had made him so cautious.
Still, he looked back at her then, and there was something in his expression—something like respect.
“I won’t deny the appeal,” he said. “The freedom, the convenience. The blessed relief from matchmaking matrons and unsolicited admiration. It’s tempting.”
Abigail kept her features neutral, though her heart gave a hopeful beat. “Tempting enough?”
He studied her for another moment, and then, with the faintest incline of his head, he said, “Yes.”
She blinked.
“Yes?”
“I accept,” he said, his voice measured, pragmatic. “On the condition that we are clear about its nature from the start. This is a practical arrangement. A social alliance. Nothing more.”
Her breath caught—not from disappointment, but from relief. “Naturally,” she said quickly. “I never intended anything else.”
He nodded once. “Very well.”
A strange sensation fluttered in her chest—something between triumph and disbelief. She had done it. Somehow, impossibly, she had taken control of her own circumstances, had found a way to protect herself from the suffocating attentions of Edward, from her mother’s endless maneuvering, from the whole exhausting charade.
