One morning, she sat near the drawing-room window sketching the bare trees when Nicholas spoke behind her. "You draw."
She looked up. "I sketch," she corrected. "Drawing requires talent."
"May I see?"
She handed him the sketchbook. He studied it longer than she expected. "You notice the one that stands apart," he said.
"Which one?"
He pointed to the far left tree, the one she had spent the most time drawing. "It grows slightly away from the others," he said. "Most people would draw the line of trees."
She looked down at the page. "I suppose I identify with it." The words slipped out before she could stop them.
He looked at her. She looked back. Something opened quietly between them.
"When did you begin sketching?" he asked.
She told him about the fever she had as a girl, about the long weeks in her bedroom when she had drawn the wallpaper patterns simply to pass the time. He listened carefully. Actually listened. That surprised her.
Later, she asked about the estate. He told her about the orchard he had replanted, about the cottages he repaired for the tenants, about the river he redirected after the spring floods. His voice changed when he spoke about the land—less guarded, more alive.
Then one night, she discovered the room with the telescope. The door stood slightly open. Inside the room, the curtains had been pulled wide to reveal a sky filled with stars. A large telescope pointed toward the heavens.
Nicholas sat beside it, studying a detailed map of the constellations. He looked different in the starlight—less controlled, more himself.
"I am sorry," she said softly from the doorway. "I saw the light."
He studied her. Then he said something unexpected: "Come and see."
She stepped beside the telescope. He showed her Orion, Cassiopeia, a distant cloud of stars barely visible to the naked eye. Through the telescope, the universe looked endless.
"It looks like smoke," she whispered.
"It is a nebula," he said, "new stars being born."
They stood together for nearly two hours studying the sky. Nicholas spoke more freely than she had ever heard—about mathematics, about light, about distance.
"When I cannot sleep," he said quietly, "I come here."
She understood that sentence held more meaning than he explained.
"I used to walk the garden at night," she admitted, "at my parents' house."
He nodded. "The stone bench beneath the wisteria arbor," he said. "It is very quiet there."
Something warm moved through her chest.
Later that night, she lay awake in bed staring at the ceiling. "Do not do this," she warned herself. "Do not fall for him."
But deep down, she already knew it might be too late.
The sound woke her in the middle of the night. It was not loud, not a crash—something sharper: a short breath forced through clenched teeth, followed by silence.
Genevieve sat up slowly in bed. The fire in the grate had burned low, painting the ceiling with faint orange light. The house around her was completely quiet. For a moment, she thought she had imagined it.
Then she heard it again.
She was out of bed immediately. She pulled a robe over her nightdress and stepped into the corridor. Moonlight spilled through the tall window at the end of the hall, and there, 20 feet away, Nicholas's chair lay on its side.
Nicholas himself was on the floor beside it. He had clearly been returning from the observatory room; the chair had tipped during the transfer.
Genevieve did not run. She walked calmly across the corridor and knelt beside him. His face was pale with pain, his jaw clenched tight. When his eyes lifted to meet hers, she saw something in them that surprised her: not anger, but shame.
"Muscle spasm?" she asked gently.
He nodded once. "Lower back."
"I see."
She stood and righted the chair, then placed it beside him. He did not ask for help, and she did not offer it. Instead, she held the chair steady while he pulled himself back into the seat. The process took a moment. When he was settled again, his breathing slowly steadied.
Genevieve sat down on the floor beside him—not hovering over him, not retreating, just sitting.
"You should return to bed," he said quietly.
"In a moment."
Silence filled the corridor.
"I am not an invalid," he said suddenly.
"I know," she said simply. "You are a man who had a muscle spasm and fell. That happens to people."
He looked down at her for a long moment. "You are not what I expected," he said.
"Nor are you."
The moonlight shifted slightly through the window. After a while, he spoke again. "The spasms began after the injury."
She said nothing.
"They were worse in the first year."
"My mother was ill for many years," Genevieve said softly. "Bodies change their rules."
He studied her. "I did not know that."
"There is much we do not know about each other yet."
He heard the word yet.
When she finally stood to return to her room, he stopped her quietly. "Thank you."
She hesitated. Then she said something she had not said before: "Goodnight, Nicholas."
He did not correct her.
Winter deepened across Somerset. December arrived with frost and pale skies. Something between them had changed—not dramatically, but the distance that once filled every room had softened.
They spoke more in the library. Sometimes he read passages aloud from books that interested him; sometimes she showed him her sketches. The quiet afternoons together became something they both looked forward to.
Then the letter arrived. Genevieve did not see it, but she saw what it did to him.
At breakfast, he was silent—not his usual calm silence, but a colder silence. That afternoon, the library door remained closed. The next day, it was closed again. Three days passed without seeing him.
On the fourth day, he came to the greenhouse. Genevieve was tending the orchids when the door opened.