"You are a burden, Eleanor."
The words struck the breakfast table harder than the silver knife Julian Blackwood had just laid beside his plate.
Eleanor's hand stopped above her untouched tea. Across from her, the Duke of Ashkam pushed a document toward her, its final page waiting for her signature.
"Sell the workshop," he said. "I will see that you never want for anything."
Twelve families depended upon that workshop. Julian knew it. Worse, he knew she had refused to sell it before.
Eleanor looked at the document, then at the man she had married eighteen months earlier. "And if I say no?"
His mother, seated beside the window, lowered her cup without a sound.
Julian's jaw tightened. "Then we must discuss whether you ought to remain in this house."
Eleanor reached for the pen. For one foolish instant, Julian thought he had won, but she turned the document over and began to write something on its blank reverse.
He leaned forward. "What are you doing?"
She did not answer. Not yet.
Earlier that morning, Eleanor had stood in the small sitting room adjoining her bedroom, examining a letter that had arrived from the workshop in the nearby market town. The paper smelled faintly of glue and damp wool—familiar scents from a life she had been expected to abandon when she became a duchess. Thomas Reed, the workshop's foreman, had written in his careful, uneven hand: orders were sufficient to keep the workers employed through autumn, but the roof above the drying room needed attention before the next heavy rain. He had included an estimate from a local carpenter and asked whether he might authorize the work.
Eleanor took a pencil from her writing desk and calculated the expense against the workshop's available funds. They could afford it, provided the autumn orders were paid promptly. She wrote her approval and folded the letter for the morning post.
Her husband had never visited the workshop. He called it a sentimental attachment, although its books told a different story. Eleanor had learned to read those accounts beside her father long before marriage brought her silk gowns, servants, and a title she had never particularly wanted. The workshop was hers under the arrangements made before their wedding, with its property held for her separate use.
Julian had accepted those arrangements without much interest. At the time, he had been more concerned with the respectable marriage his family expected and the quiet wife he believed Eleanor would become. She had believed that his reserve concealed consideration. Eighteen months had taught her that silence could mean several things, and not all of them were kind.
At eight o'clock, Eleanor entered the breakfast room carrying no papers. She intended to speak to Julian about the repairs after he had eaten. Lady Margaret Blackwood was already seated, her gray silk immaculate, her attention fixed on the morning correspondence. Julian stood near the sideboard, reading a letter with a crease between his brows.
"Good morning," Eleanor said.
He glanced up. "Your workshop has become troublesome again."
She stopped beside her chair. "Has something happened?"
"My agent has received another inquiry about purchasing it. An attractive offer, considering its condition."
Eleanor looked toward Margaret, whose expression remained pleasantly composed.
"The building needs a roof repaired," Eleanor said. "The business itself is sound."
Julian placed the letter beside his plate. "You are refusing another sensible opportunity."