Their gazes met across the table, the silence between them carrying no discomfort. Two days had already begun to shape a habit—not love, but something ordered and deliberate, like consideration and shared intent.
The door opened, and Rosalind entered, a trace of wind brightening her cheeks.
“Have I missed the eggs?” she asked.
Catherine laughed, gesturing to the table.
“You are just in time,” she said. “Sit here, if you like. There is tea, and I believe they brought up the currant scones.”
Rosalind smiled brightly, taking the seat beside Catherine and helping herself to the food.
“I walked all the way to the hedge maze,” she said as she settled into her chair. “There are daffodils blooming beside the sundial. I shall sketch them later, if the weather holds.” She reached for the teapot and poured her own cup, then leaned toward Catherine with a conspiratorial tone. “Mrs Thornberry saw me with a pencil tucked into my bonnet and asked if I were drawing maps of the estate. I suspect she fears I am cataloguing the weaknesses in her flowerbeds.”
Catherine snorted, noting the amused smirk on Marcus’s face as he pretended to return to his meal.
“She might welcome the advice,” she said with a smile. “Or she might send the gardener to stand guard.”
Rosalind laughed.
“He already watched me suspiciously from the yew walk,” she said. “I waved, and he dropped his shears.”
Marcus closed a letter and placed it atop a stack of others.
“I am pleased to hear the gardens are in bloom,” he said. “The botanist from Cambridge arriving next week will likely walk through every bed with a magnifying glass.”
Catherine turned from her cousin back to her husband.
“Shall I warn the footmen to sweep the paths more carefully?” she asked.
He shook his head fervently and made a sour face.
“No,” he said. “If they disturb the specimens, he will complain twice as much.”
Rosalind reached for a roll.
“Then let him stumble through nettles,” she said bluntly. “I have no patience for men who inspect flowers as if they might reprimand them for growing imperfectly.”
Catherine saw Marcus glance toward Rosalind then, as if measuring her reaction to Rosalind’s irreverence. His mouth did not lift in a smile, but something in his expression softened. She held his gaze for a breath before turning to spoon preserves onto her plate. In that brief exchange, she felt the beginnings of understanding. He watched her as if studying a passage, he had read once before but never fully understood. And with his attention, she felt steadied.
Later that morning, they closed the study door behind them with a quiet click, muting the morning activity in the rest of the house. Catherine followed Marcus across the carpet to the large desk where correspondence lay sorted into neat piles, each labelled in his firm hand. He motioned toward the chair opposite his own.
“Shall we begin with the guest list, or would you prefer to look over the lecture schedule first?” he asked.
Catherine sat, glancing down at the documents he had on display.
“Let us begin with the list,” she said. “If we know who is arriving when, the rest will fall into place more easily.”
Marcus opened the uppermost folder and passed her the first page. They worked in companionable silence for some time until Marcus reached behind her for a volume shelved to her left. As he leaned forward, his coat brushed against the back of her gown. The contact was brief but distinct.
Catherine stilled. The brush of fabric across her back held no significance beyond proximity, yet it sent a tremor of awareness through her. She felt Marcus draw back as quickly as courtesy allowed, though the air between them now felt altered.
“Pardon me,” he said.
Catherine cleared her throat, hating the flush she felt spreading on her cheeks.
“Of course,” she said.
She lowered her eyes to the page before her, though the names upon it seemed suddenly blurred. Her thoughts, once orderly, unravelled into scattered impressions. The warmth of his nearness lingered; the faint scent of his shaving soap and cologne still touched her senses. This marriage had been intended as rational, practical, nothing more. Yet each smallexchange between them suggested the possibility of something she scarcely knew how to define.
