“I had wondered,” he said after a pause, “if the season’s revelry had quite exhausted you. I find society somewhat... overfond of spectacle.”
“Then it is fortunate you have come to a house so devoid of it,” said Elizabeth, managing a smile.
He nodded, almost grateful. “Indeed.” He shifted, adjusting the fall of his coat sleeve. “I hope your uncle and aunt have not found the city too vexing in recent weeks?”
Mrs. Gardiner, still sewing, replied, “We are quite used to London’s tempers, Captain.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” His hands returned to his knees. “It is only—I have found the tone of late rather more sour than sweet. Especially in drawing rooms.”
Elizabeth folded her hands in her lap, pulse steady.
Marlowe gave another small smile. “But we endure, do we not?”
“I suppose I should make a confession of my own,” he said at last, after another silence. “Not of the sort that earns headlines, thank Heaven, but a confession nonetheless.”
Elizabeth turned slightly. “I am listening.”
He sat straighter. “When I began the business of courting, it was not—entirely—a matter of romantic impulse. I am a practical man. Naval life is uncertain. Promotions, even when deserved, can lag behind good fortune. A settled household, a respectable wife—these things do not go unnoticed by the Admiralty.”
“I see,” Elizabeth said. She did not blink.
He rushed on. “Which is not to say that I hold you in anything less than the highest regard. Indeed, I believe myself quite fortunate.”
Elizabeth let her eyes settle on the mantel. “And yet?”
Marlowe shifted. “And yet… perhaps I was hasty. You were not in want of a husband, nor I a wife. I pressed the matter. It was not fair to you.”
Her hands remained clasped, light but unmoving. “Captain, are you suggesting a withdrawal?”
He flinched—not visibly, but something in his manner recoiled. “No. That is—not unless you wish it. I have no intention of forsaking my word.”
She looked at him then, properly. “Despite what you have heard?”
His smile grew brittle. “The city feeds on gossip. It has no loyalty and little memory.”
She nodded once. “Then we must be well suited. I too am tolerably forgettable these days.”
He cleared his throat. “I meant rather that I—well, I have been warned to expect a posting. Cadiz, most likely. Once assigned far from London, none of it will matter.”
“You are certain it will not?”
He hesitated. “It may… trail us. But only faintly. It is not as though you wrote the pamphlets with your own hand.”
Elizabeth blinked once. Her fingers flexed slightly in her lap.
Ah. So that was the new threshold of virtue—plausible deniability by technicality.
She resisted the urge to check if ink still stained her fingertips.
Marlowe cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is, I find your wit engaging. Not threatening, as others do. I have always admired clever women.”
Elizabeth inclined her head, but her thoughts were elsewhere.Clever. Engaging. It felt as though he were describing a pastime, not a person. A woman to be admired from a distance, not cherished, not known.
He meant to comfort her, but the effect was airless.
She folded her hands, resting them lightly in her lap. The silence between them thickened—not strained, but hollow. Polite. That was worse.
Captain Marlowe made a small motion as though to speak again, then only adjusted the cuffs of his coat. His posture had stiffened; his earlier gentleness now carried the edge of someone mindful of stepping too near the fire.
