He did not respond.
“Is it Sophia?” she asked, her voice gentle but direct.
He flinched—only slightly, but enough for her to see. Eliza had always known where to look.
“No,” he said. “At least… not entirely.”
Eliza moved to the armchair nearest the fireplace and sank into it with a soft rustle of skirts. “Arthur,” she said quietly, “I know you far too well for you to attempt deception. Omitting information will not help you now either. Something has unsettled you, and I am quite determined to get to the bottom of it.”
Arthur exhaled slowly and stepped away from the window, moving toward the hearth though he did not sit. He stared into the empty grate for a long moment, as if searching for the right words in its soot-stained bricks.
“You kissed her, didn’t you?”
Arthur turned, startled despite himself. “What?”
Eliza raised a brow. “You forget that I’ve got eyes, and that you and Abigail disappeared onto a moonlit terrace without a chaperone while Edward Colton was practically frothing over her dance card.”
Arthur’s expression darkened at the name.
“I saw the way you looked at her when she danced with him,” Eliza added gently. “You were ready to murder someone. Possibly Edward. Possibly yourself.”
Arthur crossed the room and he stared at the window for a long moment before sighing. “Yes, I kissed her.”
“I rather thought so,” Eliza said, her tone deliberately light, though her eyes held nothing but understanding. “And?”
“And it wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“No,” she agreed. “But it did.”
“It wasn’t part of the performance,” Arthur added. “It wasn’t for show. It simply… happened.”
Eliza leaned back, her eyes kind. “And how do you feel about it?”
Arthur sat across from her, the glass untouched in his hand. “This entire arrangement was meant to be practical.”
“You never were one for emotional chaos,” she murmured.
His lips thinned. “It was convenient. Controlled. Predictable. We struck an agreement—an alliance of mutual convenience. She wished to avoid the suffocating attentions of Lord Colton and his ilk. I… had no desire to be hunted by every marriage-minded matron in London. We presented ourselves as a pair, not to deceive with cruelty, but to create space. Freedom.”
Eliza waited, sensing there was more.
Arthur shook his head. “I do not know how I feel about this. That is the problem. I cannot reconcile what was meant to be a charade with the way she makes me feel. When we are together, when we speak—truly speak—it feels real. Uncomplicated. Honest.”
“And yet,” Eliza said, “you are clearly struggling.”
He looked up then, his expression rawer than she had seen it in years. “Because I did not mean for it to become anything more. I cannot afford for it to become anything more.”
“Why?” she asked gently.
“Because I know what it is to lose oneself in the idea of love. I know what it is to believe in the promise of it, only to be made a fool.”
“Sophia?” Eliza said gently. “I know what she did to you. I know how badly it hurt.”
Arthur nodded, the name tasting bitter. “I gave her everything I thought I could offer. And she left—for a title. For security.”
Eliza reached across the space between them, setting her hand lightly atop his. “And now you fear that Abigail might do the same?”
He hesitated. “No. Abigail is nothing like Sophia. That is what terrifies me.”
