Page 37 of A Question of Worth

"I should like to call very much," he stated, looking to Lady Newark first and then to Eliza. Suddenly, the heat of embarrassment turned to something altogether different. "If it would please you, Miss Fairleigh?"

Aware that he had returned to the use of her formal name in front of her aunt, Eliza inclined her head, hoping that tomorrow, there would be no formality between them but instead, only openness, honesty and truth. She turned to face him fully. "Yes, Lord Ashcombe," she said. "I should like that very much."

16

The morning light was already strong when Nathaniel turned from the window. He had not slept much. He had not minded.

He was dressed, though he did not remember the act of dressing with any particularity — his valet had come and gone at some point, and the result was a coat and cravat that were presentable, which was all that mattered. The world outside the window was the same world it had been yesterday: the same street, the same carriages passing, the same grey London sky pressing down over the rooftops. It did not feel like the same world. He had made his decision in the night, and it had settled into him past all undoing, so that he stood in the altered version of it with his hands resting at his sides and no desire whatsoever to clasp them behind his back.

He was going to call on her this morning. That was all he knew and all he needed to know.

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. "Yes?"

The footman stepped in, standing to one side to allow another gentleman to come into the room.

"Brother, is it true?"

Nathaniel greeted his brother with a lift of his eyebrows. "James. I did not expect to see you today."

"And I did not expect to hear that Miss Fairleigh's inheritance has been given to her," came the reply. James did not sit down. He stood in the centre of the room with his weight shifting from one foot to the other, his gaze darting around the study rather than landing on any one thing. "Has that taken place?"

Nathaniel nodded. "It has."

His brother exhaled through his nose, a short, sharp breath, and his hands went behind his back before he caught himself and brought them forward again, pressing them together in front of him. "I see. Then might I ask if all that you said about our aunt and her connection to Miss Fairleigh was correct?"

With a half smile, Nathaniel spread out his hands — palms up, fingers open. "It seems that I was."

With a huff of breath, James dropped his head and shook it. "Then I am come to apologise to you, with genuine regret and sorrow. On the night of the ball, I apologized to Miss Fairleigh and to her aunt, but I did not apologise to you." He took a deep breath, then lifted his steady gaze to Nathaniel's. "I doubted you, Ashcombe. I believed that you were being foolish, that you were caught up by a young lady when you ought, instead, to be stepping back from her. I see now that your attention to her and your dedication to understanding our aunt's motivations was right. I feared you had entangled yourself in a situation where our own good name could be damaged, the very thing that you set out to prevent — but I allowed my own concerns to push my own fears to the fore." He took in a deep breath. "You acted with honor, Ashcombe, and it was I who chose to behave with dishonor. I have already apologized to Miss Fairleigh, but perhaps I shall do so again, for I did not truly see the depths of my mistakes."

Nathaniel watched his brother's face as the speech came to its end. James's jaw was tight, his eyes steady but bright with the misery of a man who had come not merely to admit he was wrong but to understand why. That distinction mattered. A man could apologise because the facts had proved against him. It was another thing entirely to stand in a room and say: I was not only mistaken, I was unkind.

Nathaniel reached out and shook his brother's hand firmly, holding it for a beat longer than custom required. "I do not think there is any need for further apology," he said, his voice steady. "Miss Fairleigh has more than enough to consider at the present moment, and your apology, as you have said, was already given. Believe me, that young lady will not hold anything against you. Her heart is too kind."

James looked down at their joined hands and then back up, his jaw tightening with the effort of what he had come to say. "It is not only Miss Fairleigh I wronged, Ashcombe. It is you. I questioned your judgement when I should have trusted it. You saw what I could not — or would not — and I made you pay for my blindness." He cleared his throat. "That is what I came to say. Not merely that the facts proved you right, but that I should not have required facts to treat my own brother with more faith."

The room was quiet for a moment. It was not a wound healing, precisely, but Nathaniel felt the relief of a weight being set down that he had not realised he was carrying, his shoulders easing with it.

"Thank you, James," he said simply. "That means a good deal more than you know."

With a small, careful smile, his brother nodded. "You speak very favourably of her, Ashcombe. I recall that you told me at the ball that you intended to pursue her. Might I ask if that has already occurred? Now that the matter of her inheritance hasbeen settled, are you now to step forward and follow on with your connection?"

Nathaniel felt a smile tug at his mouth. "Indeed, I do have every intention of doing so."

James nodded slowly, his expression softening into approval. "I do hope that you will find happiness with her, Ashcombe. I can tell from how you look when you speak of her that she has captured a significant place in your heart."

"She has," Nathaniel admitted, more than ready to speak of all that he felt. "I mean to marry her, should she have me — and I do not intend a long courtship."

At this, his brother's face split with a smile, his eyes dancing. "Ifshe will accept you?" he asked, as Nathaniel chuckled. "My dear brother, given the way she was looking back at you as you spoke the night of your masquerade ball, I think you need not have even the smallest hint of fear of her refusal."

"I thank you," Nathaniel responded, turning his head to look at the clock. "I am to go to call upon her very soon."

"Then I will not keep you from her," James said, extending his hand so Nathaniel could shake it firmly once more. "I wish you every success."

Nathaniel smiled. "I thank you. I hope I will have good news for you very soon."

The door closed behind his brother and the study was quiet. Nathaniel stood where he was for a moment, his gaze falling on the desk — the pen still where he had left it, the ink not yet dry on the blotter from the letters he had written that morning. Then his gaze moved to the chair beside the cold grate, the chair where he had sat in the dark with the voice that told him the cost was too high. The cushion still held the impression of his weight. He looked at it. He did not sit down. He had no desire to linger in the room where he had once been unable to decide. He picked up his coat from the back of the chair and went.

The carriage was waitingin the drive. He climbed in and sat forward on the seat, his weight shifted toward the front edge, his hands resting on his knees. The door closed, the horses moved, and the city began to pass outside the window — the rattle of wheels on cobblestones, the cries of the street sellers thinning as the carriage turned south toward the quieter squares.