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Her fingers tightened gently around his arm.

"...and you will bring Colonel Radnor safely home."

For a long moment, he simply looked at her. He understood what she was truly saying.

Then he lowered his head with the solemn certainty of a soldier making an oath.

Eliza realised then there were a hundred things she suddenly wished to say, but instead, she slowly released his arm. Arthur held her gaze for the space of a breath before turning towards the open doors, where the waiting carriage stood ready beneath the portico.

Without another word, he walked away.

Eliza remained exactly where she was, listening until the sound of his footsteps was swallowed by the rumble of carriage wheels and the sharp crack of a whip, until there was nothing left but silence.

Chapter 21

Over the next eleven days, Winworth House settled into a different rhythm.

The first day was consumed by preparation.

Together, she and Laurence readied one of the larger bedchambers overlooking the gardens for Colonel Radnor's arrival, ordering fresh linens, additional fires and everything they thought a wounded soldier might require in recovery. Before the first day had passed, Laurence had dispatched a rider requesting that a physician attend Winworth without delay. By the third day, the physician had arrived and taken up residence, his leather case resting unopened beside a room prepared for a patient no one yet knew would survive the journey.

Laurence had also dispatched a rider to Lady Radnor, but Eliza knew very little about her, and for once, Laurence was not forthcoming.

There was little else to do. Sleep came even less so than before. Most nights she lay awake long after bidding goodnight to Laurence, staring up at the canopy above her bed whilst imagining endless roads stretching across France and Belgium. She wondered whether Arthur had reached Colonel Radnor, whether on his travels he had remembered to eat, whether he had found shelter from the rain, and whether the horses had endured the relentless pace he had undoubtedly set.

She never questioned whether Arthur intended to keep his promise.

He was not a man who made promises lightly, nor one who abandoned them once given. If there was breath left in his body, she believed he would bring Colonel Radnor home.

It was not Arthur's resolve she feared.

It was fate.

War had little regard for honourable men.

Her thoughts inevitably drifted to Richard. Somewhere far from home, her brother remained at sea, exposed to dangers she could not fathom. Unlike Arthur, Richard had offered no solemn promise that he would return safely. He had simply smiled, embraced her, and gone where duty and adventure called, leaving her to place her faith in providence alone.

Those thoughts followed her into each new day.

Breakfast was now a meal shared only by Eliza and Laurence, and the Duke's chair remained conspicuously empty at the head of the table, though neither of them ever acknowledged it directly. Instead, Laurence unfolded the first newspaper to arrive each morning, and together they searched every column with growing familiarity.

Reports from the Continent contradicted one another almost daily. Yet, they read each one with painstaking attention before inevitably turning to the casualty lists, their eyes scanning every line in silent hope that no familiar names would appear. On mornings when there was no news at all, Laurence simply folded the paper with quiet resignation, reached for another cup of tea, and remarked that no news was usually better than bad news.

Eliza found herself believing him. Laurence possessed an extraordinary talent for sensing precisely when silence ought to be respected and when it ought to be chased away. Some mornings he distracted her with absurd stories, and she learnt that the fearsome Duke of Buckingham was once made to dive headfirst into the college pond whilst attempting to retrieve a cricket ball, refusing to speak to another soul for the remainder of the week out of sheer spite. She learnt that Arthur had once earned six demerits at Eton for politely, but quite publicly, correcting his master's Latin, that he had never once lost a fencing match during his final year at Eton, and that he had precisely the same formidable glare at fourteen as he did now.

After breakfast, they settled into a quiet routine of walking together, and before long it became the part of each day she looked forward to most.

Sometimes they wandered through the formal gardens, where roses climbed the stone walls in exuberant blooms beneath the warmth of the summer sun. Their conversations drifted as lazily as the breeze itself, touching upon the weather, the estate, the peculiar habits of ducks and whatever else happened to capture their attention. There was nothing remarkable about those exchanges, and yet they somehow made the long hours pass more kindly.

When they returned, Laurence invariably disappeared into Arthur's study.

Eliza never asked what occupied him there.

She knew enough to understand that Arthur's correspondence had not ceased merely because he had left Winworth. Letters travelled constantly, and Laurence answered those he could, leaving as little as he could for Arthur's return. Occasionally she caught sight of him through the half-open study door, sleeves rolled to his elbows, surrounded by maps and dispatches, looking considerably older than the cheerful gentleman who had shared her breakfast only hours before.

Her evenings still belonged to dancing.

She continued to dance every day, though no longer because she wished to perfect another step or impress her tutor. Movement occupied both mind and body in a way little else seemed capable of doing, and as the sun slipped behind the trees, the lively country dances she had once delighted in gradually gave way to slower melodies.