It was the kind of midsummer day that made work feel like an imposition—warm but not oppressive, the heat softened by a gentle southern breeze, with a sky so vividly blue it seemed to insist upon idleness. The hedgerows were in full leaf, bees moved lazily between windowsills, and the scent of sun-warmed stone clung faintly to every building along the lane.
Mr. Blyth should have been at his desk. Technically, he was in the office—situated on the ground floor of a modest two-story building near the center of town, just a short walk from the post and directly across from the apothecary, whose perpetually smudged windows never quite obscured the rows of tonic bottles lined inside. The papers were laid out in their usual arrangement: letters to be answered, forms to be signed, an uncapped ink bottle sitting patiently beside a stack of legal drafts. The air smelled faintly of old paper, dust, and the lavender sachet Eleanor had tucked into one of his drawers earlier in the season, claiming he needed "something mildly pleasant to keep him from becoming entirely insufferable."
The chair behind the desk, however, was empty. Instead, Mr. Blyth sat on the narrow bench beneath the front window, long legs stretched forward, one heel tapping absently against the floor. The sash had been propped open since morning—held in place with a copy of the railway ordinances he had never quite managed to finish—and the breeze that drifted in from time to time curled through the room with polite indifference, lifting the corner of a letter and brushing cool fingers against the back of his neck.
He leaned forward, arms resting along the windowsill, head tilted until his chin came to rest against his forearms. The wood was cool beneath his sleeves, a quiet contrast to the warmth gathering just beyond the glass. Outside, sunlight glittered along the rooftops and carved slow-moving shadows across the road, turning each passerby into a soft silhouette. The town was in full, unhurried motion.
A woman in a ribboned bonnet attempted to coax her terrier across the street with a series of theatrical sighs and increasingly persuasive gestures. Two delivery boys—one lanky, the other still the size of a school satchel—wrestled a crate of apples toward the grocer's with the grave determination of footmen bearing crown jewels. Miss Partridge's maid, familiar and perpetually flustered, could be seen waging her daily battle with a rebellious parasol, while a lone goose stood its ground in the center of the lane, issuing vague, unrepentant threats to every cart that dared approach.
Above them, a slow drift of clouds wandered the sky—soft, trailing things that seemed to have forgotten their purpose and were content, for now, to enjoy the view. Mr. Blyth watched them for a long while, blinking slowly, his thoughts drifting as freely as the breeze. The work could wait.
For once, there was no ticking clock. No voice in the back of his mind reciting names, figures, or deadlines. Only the warmth of the windowpane against his sleeve and the gentle hush of a world that didn't require him—at least not just now. So he sat in silence and in sunlight, letting the moment pass exactly as it wished to.
He wasn't exactly daydreaming. There were no elaborate scenes playing out behind his eyes, no imagined conversations, no recollections of things left unsaid. He wasn't thinking about Miss Bennett or Mr. Fitzwilliam, or Eleanor's sudden fondness for tea gardens, or even the half-finished letter he'd meant to send to a colleague in Kent. In truth, he wasn't thinking about anything at all.
His mind had simply… stilled. No calculations, no cleverness, no effort—just breath in, breath out. The gentle weight of his elbows on the sill. The creak of the bench beneath him. The distant clatter of a cartwheel over cobblestone. He wasn't waiting for anything, nor was he reflecting, regretting, or planning. He was simply being.
And it was... nice. Not joyous. Not profound. But nice in the rarest, most unexamined way—a quiet sort of contentment that made no demands and required no defense. It was a small gift, a pause within the day's larger sentence. A moment of simply existing without the need to justify it.
A little break from a morning of monotony. A gentle reminder that he still had the capacity for stillness. And so, he let it last.
And then the world dimmed—just slightly. As though a cloud had passed in front of the sun. Nothing dramatic, only a subtle shading of the light that made the edges of things go soft and gray. Mr. Blyth felt the shift before he registered it, his eyelids fluttering closed for a breath as the warmth across his arms cooled. A faint sigh escaped him—not troubled, merely a long exhale from someone caught in that rare moment when everything still feels held.
He waited for the light to return. A second passed. Then another.
He blinked and glanced upward, expecting to see one of the woolly clouds he'd been watching earlier dragging its lazy mass across the sun. But the sky was clear. Empty. The same vivid, uninterrupted blue.
Strange. Before he could think much of it, a voice—low, smooth, familiar—drifted in from his left.
"What a beautiful day."
Mr. Blyth jumped. The sound came too close, too sudden, tearing the quiet apart like cloth. He gasped—an audible, embarrassingly startled breath—and turned sharply, his head twisting toward the window in alarm. His pulse jolted so abruptly that he had to place one hand against the sill just to steady himself.
There, leaning against the outer frame of the window as if he'd been resting there all afternoon, stood Mr. Fitzwilliam.
He was angled casually, one shoulder pressed to the brick, forearm resting beneath the open sash. His coat was perfectly fitted, his gloves tucked neatly under one elbow, and his expression—worse than anything—was amused. A crooked grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, equal parts charm and mischief.
So that was the cloud. Not weather. Not shifting light.
Mr. Fitzwilliam.
He was the reason the warmth had vanished. The reason the air had turned. It wasn't cruel, not overt—but it was unmistakable. His presence always tilted the atmosphere, subtle but immediate, like a stone dropped in still water.
He didn't move. He didn't speak again. Just stood there, one arm braced beneath the sash, the other draped across his coat, as though the window were built for him. That grin hadn't shifted since Mr. Blyth turned—still crooked, still self-satisfied, still entirely at ease with the chaos he'd caused.
Mr. Blyth, by contrast, was not at ease.
His heart beat uncomfortably fast, out of rhythm with the stillness of the room. His hand remained braced on the sill, fingers tense against the wood, as though any sudden movement might splinter what little composure he still held.
Mr. Fitzwilliam said nothing. He simply looked at him, and Mr. Blyth, with effort, remembered how to breathe.
He cleared his throat—once, then again, as if the first attempt hadn't quite worked. His hand lingered on the sill, fingers curling slightly now not from tension, but from the awkward uncertainty of what to do with them.
"I—good Lord," he muttered, the words finally catching. "You gave me quite a fright."
Mr. Fitzwilliam's grin stayed in place, though it softened just enough to perform remorse.
"My apologies," he said smoothly. "That wasn't my intention. I hesitated to speak, not wanting to interrupt your reverie. You looked so at peace."
He tilted his head slightly, voice lowering in that insufferably effortless way of his.
"I've rarely encountered eyes with such uncommon expressiveness in sunlight, Mr. Blyth. They hold… a remarkable depth."
There was no mockery in his tone. No teasing lilt. No overt flirtation. Just a quiet, deliberate weight to the words, as if he were commenting on the weather—pleasantly, offhandedly, but with too much precision to be casual.
Mr. Blyth blinked, caught off guard. He opened his mouth, then hesitated, unsure what shape the response should take. Whatever clever retort or polite dismissal might have come on any other day refused to surface. He shifted slightly on the bench, attempting the posture of someone unaffected, composed, but feeling instead the telltale prickling warmth beneath his collar and the creeping awareness that he was failing at both.
Across the windowsill, Mr. Fitzwilliam's expression didn't change—at least not at first. But the longer he watched, the more his grin deepened, as though he were quietly enjoying a private performance only he understood.
Just as Mr. Blyth drew breath to speak—perhaps to object, perhaps to deflect—Mr. Fitzwilliam raised a hand, palm forward, cutting him off with gentle finality.
"Hold that thought," he said lightly. "I'll step inside. There's a bit of business I'd like to discuss."
And then, with infuriating ease, he turned and disappeared from view.
Mr. Blyth blinked once, twice, then turned in his seat just in time to catch the faintest glimpse of Mr. Fitzwilliam's back as he rounded the corner toward the front door, his boots clicking smartly against the cobblestones. For a moment, he simply sat there, his mouth slightly open, hands hovering in the air like they were waiting to resume a conversation that had never actually begun. Then, all at once, he moved—rising from the bench with a bit too much haste, his legs brushing against the wood as he crossed the room in uneven strides.
He made straight for his desk and began straightening things that did not need straightening: stacking papers with excessive precision, repositioning the pen beside the inkwell, nudging the chair forward half an inch, then back again. His fingers, moving as if by instinct, smoothed the line of his waistcoat, fussed with his cravat, and flicked an invisible speck of lint from his sleeve.
Catching sight of himself in the beveled mirror above the bookshelf, he frowned. He didn't know why he cared—not really. It wasn't as though he had asked for this interruption, this sudden heat blooming beneath his ribs, or the absurd compliment that still echoed faintly in his ears. He hadn't invited Mr. Fitzwilliam to appear like some devil out of a sensation novel, leaning through the open window and speaking as though he were reciting a sonnet instead of ruining Mr. Blyth's carefully arranged quiet.
And yet, here he was—adjusting his hair, straightening his cuffs, behaving as if Mr. Fitzwilliam's opinion, even for a second, meant something. He let out a slow breath, settled into his chair, and folded his hands atop the desk just as the front door creaked open.
He heard the outer door open—the jingle of the bell above it faint but distinct. From the front room came the steady, familiar voice of Mr. Shepard, the elderly clerk who handled most of the foot traffic with quiet efficiency and a particular fondness for routine.
"Good afternoon, sir," Shepard said with his usual dry cheer. "How was the ride into town?"
Mr. Fitzwilliam's reply was too soft to catch through the door, but Mr. Blyth recognized the cadence of it—low, smooth, practiced. That voice could soothe a startled horse or ruin a perfectly calm afternoon.
The exchange lasted only a few seconds. Then came the sound of boot heels crossing the polished floor—measured, deliberate, getting louder with each step. Each footfall seemed to land directly against Mr. Blyth's chest, echoing through the still air of the office with impossible clarity.
His pulse quickened. No, not just quickened—raced. Each breath felt fractionally too shallow, his fingertips too aware of their position on the edge of the desk. There was no reason for this—no reason at all—but the logic of the body cared little for reason. It responded to heat, to memory, to tone, to the peculiar way one man's gaze could unravel another without ever raising his voice.
And then, at last, the knock. It was polite. Unhurried. A formality, really—but one that sent a bright jolt straight through his spine. Mr. Blyth cleared his throat, once again finding himself grateful for the desk between them. His voice, when it came, was calm enough.
"Come in."
The door opened with a soft click, its hinges offering only the faintest protest.
First came Mr. Shepard, stepping into the room with his hands clasped behind his back and a thin film of dust on his cuffs, as though he'd once again been reorganizing files he'd been told—repeatedly—not to touch.
"Mr. Fitzwilliam to see you, sir," he said, inclining his head with a tone that landed somewhere between helpful and ceremonial.
With a practiced sidestep more suited to a drawing room than a legal office, he moved aside to allow the visitor through.
Mr. Fitzwilliam entered without pause.
There was no dramatics to it—no sweeping glances or choreographed charm. He simply stepped inside as though the room already belonged to him, the way he seemed to inhabit every space: shoulders relaxed, coat immaculate, one glove loose in his hand.
And with him, the air shifted. Not drastically. Just enough to feel. Just enough to remember.
Mr. Blyth remained seated, spine straight, hands folded loosely on the blotter. He offered a small nod, his face carefully composed, though his pulse had not yet resumed its prior rhythm.
"Mr. Fitzwilliam."
He gestured to the chair across from him. "Please. Sit."
Mr. Fitzwilliam obliged without comment. He crossed the room in unhurried strides and settled into the seat with quiet ease. No lounging, no posturing—just one ankle resting neatly atop the other, his gloves placed on the armrest with the same tidy precision he seemed to apply to everything.
Behind him, Mr. Shepard made a move to step out and close the door.
"Leave it open, if you would," Mr. Blyth said, not looking up.
There was a pause—small, but unmistakable.
Mr. Fitzwilliam turned his head slightly, the corners of his mouth curling into something that sat halfway between amusement and challenge. He didn't speak, but the smirk said enough.
Mr. Shepard, still half in the doorway, glanced back with a squint that bordered on suspicion—or perhaps just mild confusion. One thick brow lifted in silent inquiry.
Mr. Blyth, aware of both expressions and the unspoken commentary between them, offered a composed explanation.
"There's a wonderful breeze today," he said, leaning back slightly and running a hand across the papers in front of him, as though they required aligning. "Mr. Shepard and I have been cooped up all morning—we could use the air."
Mr. Shepard studied him a moment longer, then gave a slow, deliberate nod.
"As you like, sir."
He returned to his small desk just beyond the door—positioned at an angle that left a narrow sliver of visibility into the office. From there, he adjusted his spectacles and resumed his paperwork with a level of focus that made one thing abundantly clear: he was absolutely still listening.
Mr. Blyth said nothing further. He did not meet Mr. Fitzwilliam's eyes, but he could still feel the smile—the press of it in the air between them, soft and insistent, like a hand laid lightly against the back of his neck.
"I really am sorry for startling you," Mr. Fitzwilliam said at last, though the faint curve of his mouth hadn't entirely left. "Truly."
Mr. Blyth shook his head—quick, dismissive—brushing the words aside with an automatic murmur. "Don't worry about it."
"Still," Mr. Fitzwilliam went on, "there's something indecent about interrupting a moment of peace. You looked…" He paused, choosing the word with care. "Unburdened. That's rare, I think."
Mr. Blyth didn't respond immediately. He didn't like the weight of that word—unburdened—and how it sat between them. As if Mr. Fitzwilliam had been watching longer than a moment. As if he knew what Mr. Blyth looked like when he was carrying something—and when he wasn't.
"I was only resting," he said after a beat, tone deliberately even. "It's been a quiet morning."
"Mm." Mr. Fitzwilliam leaned back just slightly, gaze still fixed on him. "You don't strike me as someone who rests very often."
And there it was again—that smile. Not sharp, not playful, but too knowing by half.
Mr. Blyth looked down, his fingers tapping once against the edge of the desk before folding quietly again.
"You've always assumed too much," Mr. Blyth said—not unkindly, but with a tone firm enough to suggest a boundary, even if he wasn't entirely sure where it lay.
"And you've always deflected too quickly," Mr. Fitzwilliam replied, his voice so casual it might have passed for disinterest, though it clearly wasn't. "It's a habit. Predictable. But I suppose we all have those."
Mr. Blyth met his gaze for only a second—and regretted it almost instantly. Mr. Fitzwilliam didn't look away. His expression was calm, composed, almost indifferent, but his eyes held that quiet, unnerving intensity, like a hand resting lightly over something sharp. The kind of look that didn't need to press to be felt.
Breaking away, Mr. Blyth glanced toward the open door, catching the faint sound of Mr. Shepard's pen scratching steadily in the outer room. Then his attention dropped to the papers on his desk—the same pages he'd fussed over minutes before, aligning and smoothing as if their order might protect him. Now, they were just shapes and lines. He couldn't read a single word.
One page fluttered slightly at the edge, stirred by his breath, and he shifted in his seat, crossing one ankle over the other, then uncrossing it again. The posture felt unnatural either way. The air between them remained unchanged—quiet but thick, as if every movement, every silence, held weight.
And still, Mr. Blyth could feel Mr. Fitzwilliam watching him. Not with insistence, but with the same careful attention as before. As if waiting—for what, he couldn't say.
Then, as if the silence had grown too taut to endure, Mr. Blyth cleared his throat and asked, a touch too brightly, "Was there… some matter of business you wanted to discuss?"
His voice was steady enough, but the sentence landed with a slight hitch—as though he'd plucked it out of the air and tried to set it down somewhere it didn't quite belong. Across the desk, Mr. Fitzwilliam's expression didn't shift right away. He merely regarded him for a moment, long enough to let the question settle uneasily between them, before the faintest twitch touched the corner of his mouth. Not a grin. Not quite. But close.
He reached for one of his gloves and turned it slowly in his hands, his fingers moving with idle precision, as though weighing whether the question truly warranted an answer—or if it might be more amusing to let Mr. Blyth linger in his discomfort a bit longer.
"I did," he said at last, his tone unhurried as he leaned back with a kind of measured ease, as though they had all the time in the world. "It's a matter I thought best discussed face to face." He paused, eyes flicking toward the window, then added, "And the window was open."
Mr. Fitzwilliam, clearly pleased by the opening, offered the comment like a jest dressed in civility—light on the surface, but not without calculation. There was something almost complimentary in the way he acknowledged the redirection, as though he were silently applauding the effort. Then, with a bit of practiced flair, he reached into his coat and withdrew a neatly pressed stack of papers, bound in ribbon and squared with the kind of precision that suggested recent review. The top sheet was folded slightly back, just enough to suggest he'd already looked through it—but not enough to betray disinterest. The rest of the bundle remained untouched, as though it had been waiting, quite deliberately, for this moment.
"I'm in the process of acquiring an estate," he said, placing the documents on the desk with a measured hand. "Far north. Remote. A bit wild, if I'm being honest, but that's part of its charm." His tone was light, but not flippant. He glanced down at the pages, then back up at Mr. Blyth. "I've only just received the full file—ownership records, land history, tax rolls, a rather sprawling accounting of outbuildings that may or may not still be standing. It's the sort of thing that should be looked at properly before I sign anything final."
Mr. Blyth nodded, his posture straightening by instinct as one hand reached for the stack. "I take it your steward hasn't looked it over yet?"
A shadow crossed Mr. Fitzwilliam's face—brief, but enough to register. "He passed away last month," he said quietly, then exhaled in something that hovered between a sigh and a shrug. "His son's stepped into the role for now, but he's... not quite up to the task." There was no bitterness in his voice, but no sentimentality either. Just a clean break in the narrative, delivered plainly.
"So," he went on, tone shifting back into something brisk and professional, "I thought of you. You've always had an eye for language that doesn't say what it means." He leaned back slightly in his chair, settling into the moment with the ease of someone who already knew what the answer would be, watching with that same calm assurance. "Would you mind?"
Mr. Blyth gave a small nod, grateful to have something solid to hold onto again—something procedural, professional, defensible. "Yes," he said, carefully lifting the stack of documents and drawing them closer. "Of course. I'd be happy to review them. Though…" He flipped through the top few pages, scanning unfamiliar names, faded ink, and antique seals, "if this is everything, it will take at least a week to go over it properly. There's quite a bit here."
"Take whatever time you need," Mr. Fitzwilliam replied, his voice smooth and maddeningly low. "I trust your judgment."
The silence that followed was quieter than before, and somehow heavier. Not charged, not sharp—just full. Mr. Blyth reached for a pen that didn't need moving, shifted the inkwell slightly to the right, and adjusted the blotter as though it had ever dared fall out of place. He pressed a page flatter than necessary, then tapped his fingers once, twice, before folding them together again to stop their motion. Still, Mr. Fitzwilliam didn't rise. He sat watching—not overtly, not crudely, but with a patience that made the air feel impossibly still. It wasn't a leer. It wasn't a smile. But it was attention, held too long, too carefully.
Heat began to rise beneath Mr. Blyth's collar. He told himself it was the lack of breeze, the window now catching less air, the July warmth settling in again. But he knew better. It wasn't the weather. It was Mr. Fitzwilliam—always Mr. Fitzwilliam—and the way his presence drew color to Mr. Blyth's neck, his ears, the bridge of his nose. He didn't look up. Couldn't. Instead, his hands moved with pointless determination: straightening a ledger, adjusting the corner of a book, smoothing parchment that was already smooth. Useless motions. Transparent ones.
His mind scrambled for language—for a question about taxes, a comment about Highland soil, some mention of property rights—but nothing would come. Only the sound of his own breath, tight and shallow, and the soft creak of Mr. Fitzwilliam's chair as he shifted—not away, but forward, closer, like someone leaning into the heat they themselves had lit.
And then—without warning—it hit him.
Not in fragments, not as a trickle of memory, but in a single, blinding rush: the dream. The way Mr. Fitzwilliam had looked at him. The unbearable nearness. That imagined voice—so low, so impossibly tender. A hand at his jaw. The lean in. The kiss. Not just the kiss itself, but the wanting of it, the way it had ignited something deep and volatile and terrifyingly real. It flooded him all at once, as if a second version of himself had surfaced without permission, demanding to be known.
His breath caught. His fingers pressed hard against the edge of the desk, knuckles whitening. And the heat—what had begun as a quiet flush—now tore through him with nowhere to settle. His face burned. His skin prickled. There was an ache deep in his chest, a low, pulsing pressure in the pit of his stomach that radiated outward until even the brush of his knee beneath the desk felt unbearable. Every inch of him was suddenly too much—too aware, too alive, too near the edge of something he could not name without undoing everything.
Still, he didn't move. Couldn't. If he so much as shifted his weight, he feared the thing inside him—whatever it was—might break loose. Might take shape. And it was not allowed to take shape. Not here. Not now.
And across from him, Mr. Fitzwilliam just sat—silent, still, unreadable. That silence, that impossible calm, only made it worse. Because it felt deliberate. Because it felt like he knew.
"Mr. Blyth."
The voice cut gently through the haze—not sharp, not loud, but so precisely placed it struck like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples straight through him.
"Are you all right?"
He blinked—twice, quickly—as if trying to shake himself loose from whatever spell had passed over him. His mouth felt too dry, his hands too still, and for a beat too long, he couldn't quite remember where he was—only the rush of heat, the dream, and the unbearable weight of being seen.
Then, with effort, he cleared his throat and straightened in his chair. He forced his features back into something neutral, smoothing the crease between his brows as if composure were something one could press back into place.
"Yes," he said, a touch too quickly. "Yes, I'm fine."
He reached for the top document again, though his eyes barely registered the words.
"Just a bit distracted. It's been a long morning."
A pause. Then, more carefully: "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
The question hung between them like a lifeline—something structured, official, safe. Business. That was what this was. Business. If he could just keep reminding himself of that, maybe he could breathe again. Maybe the room would stop feeling like it was listening too closely.
Across the desk, Mr. Fitzwilliam said nothing. He only looked at him—quiet, unreadable, and still entirely, inescapably there.
"Yes," Mr. Fitzwilliam said at last, his voice composed once more, smooth as a surface too carefully polished. "One more thing."
He reached into his coat and drew out two envelopes—thick, cream-colored, the kind favored by those who enjoyed the weight of their own importance. Each bore an unbroken wax seal, the faint scent of lavender and ink still clinging to the folds. He placed them on the desk with a quiet, deliberate tap—one directly in front of Mr. Blyth, the other just off to the side.
"These are invitations," he said. "I'm planning a small gathering—more of a dinner than tea, really—for your family. And mine."
Mr. Blyth's eyes dropped to the envelope bearing his name: Mr. Henry Blyth, Greymoor Hall. The handwriting was clean and sure. The paper, heavier than necessary. There was a certain precision to it all. A kind of theatrical restraint.
But it was the second envelope that caught his attention. Angled just enough to be seen, just enough to suggest it was meant to be noticed. The script across the front read simply: The Bennett Family.
His brow furrowed, ever so slightly.
Before he could speak, Mr. Fitzwilliam filled the silence with a pleasant, practiced cadence. "I included one for Miss Bennett and her family as well," he said. The tone remained smooth, conversational. But the name—Miss Bennett—was too crisp. Not clipped, exactly, but cooled. Just enough to register. Just enough to make Mr. Blyth's posture tighten.
"You seem to be spending more time with her," Mr. Fitzwilliam added, the corner of his mouth tugging toward an almost-smile. "It seemed appropriate."
Mr. Blyth said nothing. The moment could have passed for benign. Easily. But the invitation in front of him felt weighted, intentional. The second one—strategic.
"If you'd be so kind," Mr. Fitzwilliam went on, tapping a single gloved finger atop the envelope meant for the Bennetts, "as to deliver theirs on my behalf?"
It was posed as a request, but somehow, the air suggested otherwise.
Mr. Blyth nodded slowly, fingers brushing the edge of the Bennetts' envelope. "Yes," he said—quiet, but certain. "Of course."
"It's for a week from now," Mr. Fitzwilliam added, gesturing slightly toward the envelopes. His tone was light, almost breezy—deliberately casual, as though the date bore no significance. No careful planning. No pointed meaning.
Mr. Blyth nodded again, his fingertips still resting against the thick paper, cool beneath his hand. "Thank you," he said, lifting his gaze. "I'll be sure to send our reply by the end of the day." A safe answer. Gracious. Prompt. Distant.
Mr. Fitzwilliam smiled in response—slow, measured. "Of course," he said, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. Something flickered there—just for a moment. Not quite irritation, not fully sadness, but something in between. A faint trace of disappointment, perhaps. A flash of something unsettled.
It vanished quickly, smoothed over with practiced ease. But Mr. Blyth caught it. Or thought he did. And that, somehow, made it worse—because whatever Mr. Fitzwilliam had expected from him in that moment, he hadn't received it.
For the first time since Mr. Fitzwilliam had walked through the door, Mr. Blyth wondered if this visit hadn't been about business at all. Not really. Not entirely. Perhaps it had been about something else. Something unspoken. And carefully—pointedly—left unnamed.
Mr. Fitzwilliam smiled once more and inclined his head in thanks, the motion smooth, perfectly composed. "Very good," he said. "I look forward to it." There was nothing in his voice that gave him away—no hesitation, no bitterness—but something in the air shifted. A quiet tension, like a bowstring drawn just slightly too far and then let go without a sound. The smile remained, but it settled oddly now, as if it had been placed there rather than risen naturally. It was a performance—and not his best.
Mr. Blyth couldn't say exactly how he knew that. He just did.
They both rose in near-unison, pushing back their chairs with the practiced ease of men who had shaken hands a hundred times before. And they did again now. Mr. Blyth extended his hand first, with just enough formality to suggest professionalism and just enough warmth to conceal what he was really feeling. Mr. Fitzwilliam took it.
The handshake was firm. Polite. Entirely ordinary.
Except that it wasn't.
It lingered—a second too long. Long enough for Mr. Blyth to feel the shape of it: fingers steady, sure—and then, the briefest, unmistakable brush of Mr. Fitzwilliam's thumb against the back of his hand. A small, deliberate motion. Not lingering. Not pressing. Just a gentle stroke, like a thought that had formed and passed in the same instant. A moment suspended between boundary and invitation.
And then, it was gone.
Then, just as abruptly, Mr. Fitzwilliam released his grip, turned without another word, and crossed to the door in three quiet strides. As he stepped into the front room, he gave Mr. Shepard a slight nod of farewell. "Good day, Mr. Shepard."
Mr. Shepard responded with a quiet "sir," though his brows had lifted slightly in Mr. Blyth's direction.
And then Mr. Fitzwilliam was gone. The door shut behind him with a soft click. And the room, for the first time in what felt like hours, exhaled.
Mr. Blyth sank back into his chair with a quiet, undignified huff. His shoulders slumped. His head tilted back just slightly. And for a long, aching moment, he simply sat there—hands limp in his lap, breath uneven, eyes unfocused. The air still felt thick. Warm. His skin prickled under his sleeves, and his collar, which had felt too tight earlier, now felt positively unbearable. There was a restless hum beneath his skin, as though something in his nerves had been lit and then left smoldering. That same persistent itch—low in his stomach, crawling behind his ribs, coiling at the base of his spine—had returned.
The butterflies were back, too. Not gentle ones. They thrashed.
And all of it—from one conversation. One. It had taken just a single encounter—one visit across a desk, one lingering handshake, one maddeningly unreadable smile—for Mr. Blyth to feel as if he had been drained of every ounce of energy. He wasn't even sure he could stand, not just yet. His legs felt strange. Loosened somehow. As though the floor might tilt if he moved too suddenly.
He stared at the closed door for a long time. Then, slowly, he closed his eyes.
He didn't want to say it. Not even to himself. Not fully. Not clearly. But the words had already begun to gather at the edges of his mind, soft but certain—like storm clouds on the horizon, undeniable despite the quiet.
He has feelings for me.
The thought landed gently, without question. It no longer felt like speculation. Mr. Fitzwilliam had feelings for him. And Mr. Blyth—Mr. Blyth, who had spent months twisting his thoughts into knots, denying, rationalizing, resisting—could no longer pretend that he hadn't felt it too.
The heat in his chest. The fluttering in his stomach. The aching, breathless anticipation that bloomed whenever Mr. Fitzwilliam entered a room. It wasn't confusion. It wasn't curiosity. It was response—pure and unbidden. His body had answered before his mind could catch up.
And that, somehow, was the most terrifying part. It hadn't waited for permission. It hadn't asked. It simply was.
But even as the room settled back into silence, another weight crept in—heavier than longing, older than desire. Not the breathless heat Mr. Fitzwilliam left behind, but the quiet, familiar burden that lived somewhere deeper.
What would everyone think?
The question arrived not as panic, but as pressure—familiar and persistent, like a stone resting gently against his chest.
He could already see their faces. His mother, lips pressed into a line so thin it could scarcely be called a mouth, her disapproval wrapped in the thinnest veil of civility. Eleanor, saying nothing, but narrowed at the eyes in that way of hers that said everything. And the town—always the town—with its glances and whispers, its careful courtesies and quieter withdrawals. Respect was never taken all at once. It eroded. Smiles turned brittle. Invitations stopped arriving. A name—his name—would carry less weight, spoken with a different inflection, and always in a lower voice.
And worse still, his father.
The man was long gone, but his voice remained—woven into the walls of Greymoor Hall, etched into the carved lines of the family crest, tucked behind every repetition of words like duty and legacy and our name. It lingered in the shape of his expectations, in the heaviness of manhood spoken always with certainty and never with question. In the way he praised composure, but distrusted softness. In the way he once said that affection was best kept private—and desire, best kept in check.
There had never really been a question of what Mr. Blyth's life should look like. A wife. A household. A son to carry the name forward. It was not just a path—it was a structure. A future already mortared into place, shaped by the steady hand of inheritance and reinforced by a thousand small reminders of what was proper.
He had accepted it all. Quietly. Dutifully. But now, he wasn't so sure he had ever truly chosen it.
And wasn't this the path he'd chosen? Wasn't Miss Bennett—beautiful, respected, admired—safe? Her laugh, her gentleness, the way they moved together with such practiced ease... it all made sense. People smiled when they stood side by side. They belonged, or so it seemed. She was everything he was supposed to long for.
And in some way, perhaps he had loved her. Or tried to. Or hoped to. It had been a love one could live with—clean, structured, the kind that could be folded into a prayer, written neatly into a will, recorded proudly in a family's ledger. It had never undone him. Never scattered his thoughts or stolen the breath from his lungs. Never made his hands tremble.
She made sense, but Mr. Fitzwilliam did not.
And yet, it was the thought of him—his voice, his gaze, the slow, knowing curl of his smile—that had taken root somewhere deep in Mr. Blyth's spine and refused to move. It was not sense that tethered him there. It was gravity.
And that, more than anything, was what frightened him. Not that it could happen ut that it already had. And now, he would have to decide: name it, or keep pretending that a future he had never truly chosen was the only one left.
A knock—soft, measured—tapped against the doorframe.
Mr. Blyth flinched, just slightly, the sound slicing cleanly through the fog of his thoughts. He looked up to find Mr. Shepard standing in the threshold, spectacles low on his nose, a stack of correspondence resting loosely in one hand.
There was no urgency in his posture. No judgment. Only the faint crease of curiosity and that familiar, quiet patience Mr. Blyth had long come to depend upon.
"Yes, Mr. Shepard?" he asked, his voice softer than usual. He cleared his throat and straightened in his chair. "What can I do for you?"
Shepard didn't move at first. He remained in the doorway, letters hanging like an afterthought, gaze steady beneath the rim of his glasses. After a moment, he said—not with the usual formality of a clerk awaiting orders, but with something older, steadier:
"If I might speak plainly, sir."
Mr. Blyth blinked, caught off guard by the shift in tone. He straightened further, collecting his composure like a coat hastily shrugged back into place.
"Of course," he said. "Go on."
Shepard nodded once, as if he'd already decided. He stepped just inside, resting lightly against the inner frame. When he spoke again, his voice was even—but held a kind of careful gravity, like someone setting something down, not casting it away.
"People'll always think something," he said. "One way or another. They'll think it if you speak. Think it if you stay quiet. They'll think it when you walk a path you chose, and when you walk one that was chosen for you."
He paused, glanced briefly at the envelopes in his hand, then continued.
"Some of us spend our lives trying to manage what people think. Some of us avoid people altogether so we don't have to know what they think. But either way... the thinking still happens."
His gaze lifted again, steady and unreadable—but not unkind.
"So. It's worth deciding which part matters to you."
That was all. No elaboration, no nudge to clarify his meaning—just a quiet offering, shaped by experience and laid down with care. Then, as if nothing unusual had passed between them, he held out the day's mail.
Mr. Blyth took it, but his eyes lingered on Mr. Shepard's face a moment longer, the weight of the words still settling around him. Slowly, a small, unguarded smile touched the corners of his mouth—one that rarely made it past his thoughts.
"Thank you, Mr. Shepard," he said softly. "I'll take that to heart."
Shepard offered a single nod—more acknowledgment than approval—then turned and stepped back into the hall. The door clicked shut behind him. Not abrupt, not heavy. Just... final enough.
And then the room was still again.
After a moment, Mr. Blyth rose and wandered back toward the window. The bench, still faintly warm from earlier, welcomed him with the same quiet ease. The breeze slipped in through the sash, curling against his collar as if no time had passed at all.
He sat—not with the loose stillness of before, but with a more measured posture. Thoughtful. Tethered. One elbow found its familiar place on the sill, his gaze drifting out onto the street below.
The town had settled into its afternoon rhythm. A cart rattled by with bundled linen. Children's laughter rang out in the distance. The sun, now edging lower, cast the rooftops in a mellow gold and pulled long, softened shadows across the lane.
He watched them move—watched the dust shift, the windows glint, the lives of others unfold with the ease of habit and the comfort of certainty.
He told himself he wouldn't think about it. Wouldn't think about him.
Wouldn't replay the slow pass of a thumb or the meaning tucked behind a smile. Wouldn't let silence become memory. Wouldn't let memory feel like a touch.
And for a time—perhaps ten minutes, perhaps none—he didn't. Or at least, he tried.
And as the light turned warmer and the curtain stirred with the changing wind, Mr. Blyth remained at the window. Still. Quiet. Trying, with all the gentle resistance he could manage, not to name what had already taken root inside him.