Beside the carriage wheel, Andrew looked down at her gloved hands, his pulse beating a slow, heavy rhythm against his collar. He wanted to ask for her direction in Bath. He wanted to ask for permission to write to her. More than anything, he wanted to ask if he might call upon her when the season turned. But to ask those questions was to concede the very thing he had spent years protecting. It meant acknowledging that his next destination would no longer belong solely to his own whims. It meant letting himself be anchored.
He hesitated. The seconds ticked by, loud and unyielding.
Eliza interpreted the only thing she could actually see: he had not asked.
She drew a quiet breath, burying the sharp ache in her chest, and offered him a smile of true, dignified gentleness. "I hope the continent is kind to you, Lord Andrew," she said softly.
Andrew felt the words land like the quiet closing of a door. He gave a stiff, formal bow. "And Bath to you, Miss Harkort."
She stepped into the carriage. Andrew closed the door himself, the metallic click echoing loudly in the damp night air. Neither of them had been cruel. Neither had lied. Neither had done a single thing that was socially incorrect. And yet, as the carriage pulled away into the dark street, both of them knew that something immensely important had just been allowed to slip away.
The days that followed were defined by the steady, rhythmic measure of distance. Two carriages traveled in opposite directions, carrying them further away from the quiet understanding they had left behind.
Inside a well-appointed coach rolling steadily southward toward Bath, Mrs. Ellison looked up from her reading. She had not forced any confessions, nor had she offered any unsolicited wisdom since they left Scotland. But as the miles passed in silence, she finally spoke.
"Were you hoping he would ask you something, Eliza?"
Eliza kept her gaze directed firmly out the carriage window, watching the blur of the passing trees. "I was hoping nothing at all, Aunt."
Margaret did not press. She merely waited, letting the silence do the work.
A long moment passed before Eliza let her breath out in a slow, uneven sigh. She closed her eyes. "...which is perhaps not quite the same thing."