Beatrice stared at him. She knew exactly what that meant. For two years, the Duke of Ashborne had hidden from his tenants, too ashamed to look them in the eye, too broke to fulfill his duties as their lord.
"What did he say?" she asked.
Arthur looked down at his scarred hands. "He spit on the ground. He told me the slate would probably be rotten." A small, wry smile touched the corner of his mouth. "Then he gave me a loaf of bread and told me not to be late with the cart."
"It is a start."
"It is," she agreed softly.
Arthur reached across the table. He didn't ask for permission; he simply laid his hand over hers, trapping the needle and the wool beneath his palm. His skin was rough, warm, and heavy. Beatrice's breath hitched. She went perfectly still.
"You saved my life, Beatrice," he said. His voice was barely above a whisper, raw and entirely stripped of pretense. "I was a dead man sitting in a chair. You kicked the door down and dragged me back."
Beatrice looked at his hand, large and capable, covering her own scarred, tired fingers. A sudden, fierce ache bloomed in her chest. She had spent her whole life fighting to be invisible, fighting to survive in the margins of a world that didn't want her. No one had ever looked at her the way Arthur was looking at her now, as if she were the only thing keeping the roof from caving in.
She turned her hand over beneath his. She laced her fingers through his.
"You chopped the wood, Arthur," she whispered back. "I only lit the match."
He squeezed her hand, a desperate, anchoring grip. They sat there as the wind battered the old house, two ruined people holding on to each other in the dark.
The thaw arrived in March, turning the estate into a sprawling sea of mud. The snow melted, revealing the full extent of the rot in the gardens, the collapsed stone walls, and the sheer volume of work that lay ahead. It also revealed the road to London.
Beatrice was on her hands and knees in the courtyard, tearing out thick, dead briars from the old kitchen garden when she heard the sound: the heavy, rhythmic thud of hooves and the rattle of a well-sprung carriage. She stood up, wiping her muddy hands on her burlap apron.