"A wise answer," she said, "and rare in my experience among those who wear fine titles." She paused, her gaze shifting once more toward Alaric, who forced a tight smile of his own, clearly uncertain whether he should feel proud or unsettled by the attention his wife had just received.
The Queen said nothing further on the matter for the remainder of dinner, but the exchange lingered in the air long after the plates had been cleared: a quiet seed of curiosity planted firmly in the Queen's mind, one that would soon grow into something Alaric could never have anticipated.
As the evening drew to a close and guests began exchanging polite farewells, Lady Margaret approached Eleanor quietly, away from the crowd.
"Her Majesty rarely asks such direct questions of new guests," she said softly, studying Eleanor's face with quiet interest. "You made quite an impression tonight, Duchess."
Eleanor offered a small, uncertain smile, unsure how to respond to such an observation. "I only answered honestly," she said.
Lady Margaret's eyes glimmered with something close to amusement. "Yes," she said. "That is precisely what made the impression."
With that, she offered a polite curtsy and disappeared back into the crowd, leaving Eleanor with a strange, uncertain feeling that something important had shifted that evening, though she could not yet say exactly what.
On the long carriage ride home, Alaric remained unusually quiet, staring out the window with a troubled expression Eleanor had never seen on his face before. She wondered briefly whether he was angry at her for speaking more than he had instructed. But when he finally spoke, his words surprised her.
"The Queen has never asked such a question of anyone at my father's dinners," he said slowly, almost to himself. "Not once in all the years he hosted royal guests."
Eleanor said nothing, sensing that he was working through something privately rather than seeking a response from her. For the first time since their wedding, a flicker of uncertainty had crept into her husband's usual confidence. And though neither of them said it aloud, both understood that something had changed the moment the Queen chose to notice the quiet duchess sitting beside her mocking husband.
Life at the Ashkam estate returned to its usual rhythm in the weeks following the royal dinner, though something subtle had shifted beneath the surface. Alaric said little about the evening, but Eleanor noticed him watching her more closely than before, as though trying to understand something about her that had always been hidden in plain sight. She did not dwell on it. Instead, she returned to the work that had always given her life meaning—work that had nothing to do with impressing dukes or queens.
The morning after their return, Eleanor rose early and walked to the eastern edge of the estate, where the tenant cottages stood in need of the roofing repairs she had insisted upon months earlier. The work had finally begun, and she found the roofer, a broad-shouldered man named Peter Ainsley, directing a small crew of workers as they replaced rotted beams with fresh timber.
"Morning, my lady," Peter called out, wiping sweat from his brow despite the cool autumn air. "Should have this section finished before the week is out. The Hollis roof will be the sturdiest one on the estate."
Eleanor smiled, pleased. "Thank you, Peter. I know this delayed your other work."
He shook his head firmly. "No thanks needed. Half the men on this crew grew up in these cottages. We're glad to see them fixed properly, and glad still that someone finally noticed they needed fixing."
As she walked further along the lane, Eleanor passed a small gathering of children playing near the well, including the youngest Hollis girl, fully recovered from her fever weeks earlier. The child ran to Eleanor immediately, wrapping her small arms around the Duchess's skirts without hesitation.
"Miss Eleanor, Miss Eleanor, look what I found!" the girl said excitedly, holding up a smooth gray stone she had collected from the riverbank.
Eleanor knelt down to admire it properly, spending several minutes listening to the child's excited stories about her adventures near the water, while the child's mother watched from a nearby doorway with quiet gratitude. This was the Eleanor that Alaric never saw: the woman who knelt in the dirt to admire a child's stone collection, who remembered every tenant family's name and troubles, who spent her quiet hours not in idle gossip, but in genuine care for the people around her.
She did not do these things for recognition. She did them because it was the only way of living she had ever known to be meaningful, learned first from her own mother's example, and carried forward into every corner of her new life, however unwelcoming that life sometimes felt.