Eliza’s smile was small. “You’re afraid because this time, it matters.”
He looked at her. “Yes.”
“Now, I find myself thinking about her when I ought to be attending to estate correspondence. I remember things she’s said in passing. I recall the way she looked at the scarab beetle artifact at the Egyptian Hall and the cleverness of her observations. I remember the scent of her hair when she stood too close. And the sound of her laugh.”
Eliza smiled faintly. “It sounds rather like more than a mild case of affection to me.”
She stood and crossed to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Arthur, I’ve seen the way she looks at you. And I’ve seen the way you look at her. If there is anything false in it, then I am a terrible judge of character—which I assure you, I am not.”
He looked up at her. “But what if we’re simply… too different?”
“Different?” Eliza echoed. “You read the same books. You share the same cynicism for the marriage mart. You both detest the same shallow rituals of courtship and yet pretend to play along for the sake of survival. Different, my dear brother, is the only thing you are not.”
Arthur was silent.
“She makes you better,” Eliza said. “And you make her feel seen. I suspect she hasn’t known much of that in her life.”
Arthur leaned back, running a hand through his hair with a grimace. He looked at her, his eyes shadowed. “I don’t trust myself with this.”
There was a long silence between them. The clock on the mantel ticked softly. A bird called outside the window.
“Arthur,” Eliza said at last, “you may continue pretending this is only temporary. That this is still a performance. But your heart knows the truth. And so, I think, does hers.”
Arthur rubbed a hand over his jaw. “What if I’m wrong? What if I misread her?”
“Then you will have risked something for the sake of honesty. But if you remain silent…” She gave a delicate shrug. “You may lose her to someone who is not afraid to speak plainly.”
Arthur’s thoughts turned unbidden to Edward—the possessive stare, the calculated charm. The man would not hesitate. He would manipulate, flatter, pursue with single-minded ruthlessness.
And Abigail, caught in the web of society’s expectations, might have no choice but to relent.
The thought made his chest ache.
“I do not know how to be vulnerable,” Arthur murmured. “Not anymore.”
“Then mayhap,” Eliza said softly, “it is time you reminded yourself.”
Arthur looked down at their joined hands. He felt the weight of his uncertainty pressing against him like fog—thick, cloying, persistent.
But beneath that uncertainty was something else.
Hope.
It was a fragile, flickering thing. But it was there.
“I’m afraid,” he said.
“I know,” Eliza replied. “Of course you are. And that’s all right. It only means this is real.”
He closed his eyes briefly, then nodded.
“What should I do?” he asked, quietly.
“Be honest with her,” Eliza said simply. “Tell her what you’ve told me. Stop pretending the charade is still about convenience when every glance, every conversation, says otherwise.”
Arthur stood; his brandy forgotten on the table. He crossed to the window once more, gazing out across the lawn.
“I want it to be real,” he said at last, his voice almost reverent. “And I’m beginning to think… it already is.”
