He wanted to shout. He wanted to assert his authority, but the margins of her little leather book flashed behind his eyes. "He forgot my name for a moment." He walked to the small sofa opposite her chair and sat down heavily. The velvet cushions yielded beneath his weight. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, destroying the perfect, rigid posture he had maintained since childhood.

"I read it," he said softly.

Beatrice frowned. "Read what?"

"Your ledger."

The color drained from her face. Her hands tightened on the cover of her book. For a second, the calm facade shattered, revealing the fragile, wounded creature beneath.

"You had no right."

"I was looking for an explanation. I found a graveyard." Arthur swallowed hard. His throat felt like sandpaper. "October 4th, you wore the blue dress. I spoke fourteen words."

Beatrice looked away, staring out the window at the rain-slicked street. Her jaw tightened. "Stop it."

"January 9th, you were ill for two days. I did not go upstairs."

"Stop!" she commanded, her voice cracking.

"I thought I was being a good husband," Arthur confessed to the floorboards. "My father was a monster. He threw plates. He screamed until the veins bulged in his neck.

He dragged my mother through hell with his temper. I swore I would never do that. I swore my house would be calm. I thought by giving you peace, I was giving you a good life."

"Peace?" Beatrice turned her head back to him. Her eyes were flashing now, a spark in the ash. "You didn't give me peace, Arthur. You gave me an airless room.

You gave me nothing to push against. No anger, no passion, no interest. Do you know what it is like to scream into a void and hear absolutely nothing bounce back? It makes you think you don't exist."

She stood up, pacing the small space between the chair and the window. "I tried," she said, her voice trembling with years of suppressed grief. "I wore your favorite colors. I read those dreadful political essays.

I learned the names of your hunting dogs. I tried to make you see me, but you only saw the house turning smoothly. As long as there was hot food and quiet hallways, I was entirely replaceable."

"You are not replaceable."

"Yes, I am," she fired back. "Hire a housekeeper, Arthur. She will do exactly what I did, and you can pay her a wage. I at least want to be paid in acknowledgement. I want someone to ask me if I'm cold because they actually care if I'm shivering, not because it is the polite thing to say before returning to The Times."

Arthur stood up. He bridged the gap between them, stopping mere inches from her. She didn't back away.

"I didn't know," he said. The admission cost him everything. Dukes do not admit ignorance. Dukes do not apologize.

"I was blind. I was arrogant. I was terrified of being a monster, and in doing so, I became a stone."

He slowly reached out. He hesitated, his hand hovering in the air between them. Then, gently, he touched her cheek. Her skin was warm. She stiffened, closing her eyes, a single tear escaping to trace a hot path over his thumb.

"Come home," he whispered.

She opened her eyes. The tear fell, but her gaze was resolute. She stepped back, breaking the contact. The loss of her warmth left his hand feeling frozen.

"No."

Arthur dropped his hand. "I am telling you I will change. I am telling you I see you."

"You see me because I'm missing," Beatrice said softly. "It is human nature to notice the empty space on the wall where a painting used to hang. But if I return, the painting goes back on the wall. The crisis is averted. The routine resumes. And in a month or a year, you will stop looking at it again."

"I swear to you."

"Words, Arthur. Promises made in a panic." She picked up her book again. The dismissal was devastatingly polite.

"I am tired. It took all the strength I had to leave that house. I do not have the strength to go back and wait for you to forget me a second time."

"Then what do I do?" The desperation in his voice was raw, entirely unmasked. "Tell me what to do."

Beatrice walked to the parlor door and opened it. The noise of the house drifted in, Margaret barking an order at a servant, a dog barking in the kitchen, the clatter of pans. It was a symphony of life.

"Go back to London," she said. "Go back to your bills and your ledgers. I am staying in Bath. If you wish to write, you may.

If you wish to visit, you may. But I am not your wife, Arthur, not anymore. If you want me, you will have to court me. You will have to convince me that the man I am sitting across from is not a stone."

Arthur looked at her standing in the doorway. She wasn't a smudge of pale blue cashmere anymore. She was a fortress. She was real. And for the first time in eight years, he realized he was entirely in love with her.

He didn't argue. He picked up his hat from the side table. He walked to the door, stopping just beside her. He looked down into her gray eyes.

"I will be back next Thursday," he said. "I will not speak a word of Parliament, and I will notice exactly what dress you are wearing."

Beatrice didn't smile, but she didn't close the door, either. "Drive safely, Your Grace," she said.