"Hm?..."
Eloise read the note again. Then once more.
*I read your frank impressions of me. — Ryan, whom you hate —*
She blinked at it slowly, her sleep-fogged mind turning it over. Ryan. There was only one Ryan here, which meant Ryan Thornton had come into this room, found something she'd written, and left her this.
She recognized his handwriting immediately—larger than most, sweeping and angular in the way that suited him, the hand of someone who had written orders and reports and dispatches, who had never seen any reason to make his letters smaller or softer than they wanted to be. She had complained about it once, that a man so infuriating had no business writing as well as he did.
*What did I do.*
Her gaze moved across the table. Something was missing. She stared at the space where it should have been, and then she was on her feet, patting down every surface, checking under the papers—
Gone. He had taken it.
She sat back down heavily.
*Of course he had.*
She remembered now. The argument about the tree—his casual announcement that if the garden budget ran over, he would simply cover it himself, as though that were a perfectly reasonable thing to say. As though a sergeant's salary were an inexhaustible resource. As though she hadn't sat beside her father as a child, watching him check figures, learning exactly what it cost to bring a mature tree across a distance and plant it properly.
She had her reasons. She always had her reasons. He simply hadn't asked.
*Who wouldn't know a large tree provides better shade*, he'd said, and walked away.
So she had come in here, still fuming, and picked up a pen to practice the place cards, and when she'd reached his name something in her hand had made its own decision.
*Ryan Wilgrave.* Smooth and even, the letters flowing the way they did when she wasn't thinking about them. She'd written it several times, pleased with how it looked, and then remembered the afternoon, and written *Ryan Thornton* in the crookedest script she could manage, and drawn the portrait for good measure.
And he had found all of it, read all of it, pocketed it, and left her a note in elegant handwriting to let her know.
"Take it if you want," she muttered, to no one. He'd certainly seen worse. He wouldn't show it around.
She found a ribbon, gathered her fallen hair back, and picked up the pen again.
There wasn't much left. Place cards for the banquet guests, and the seating arrangements—that was all. It should have taken an hour. It had haunted her past midnight because it did every year, seating arrangements being one of those problems that looked simple and wasn't. People who had sat pleasantly together last year had, in the intervening months, stopped speaking entirely. People who had been barely civil had become fast friends over a found child or a shared opinion of a novel. Every year she had to quietly ask around before the banquet, mapping the changed landscape of who could tolerate whom.
This year the changes were minor. The work should have gone quickly.
Eloise looked at the seating plan and sighed for what felt like the fortieth time today.
The problem was in the center. Ryan's name sat where the host's card belonged—and directly opposite, she had left two spaces empty since morning.
There were candidates. Several of the unmarried young women invited this year were perfectly suitable. Julia Ogilvy was the most natural choice—she had spoken to Ryan more than the others, and she was easy in conversation, which meant there would be no painful silences. Patricia Fielding was another possibility. Accomplished, well-read, composed. She had been at the Cambon event, had spoken to him then, and she and Julia were of an age and temperament that suited each other's company.
Eloise picked up Julia's card and set it opposite Ryan's name.
Then Patricia's, next to Julia's.
She looked at the arrangement.
*They would look well together*, she thought. *Julia and Ryan, particularly. Both of them—*
She became aware, a moment later, that she had moved both cards to the side without consciously deciding to.
She stared at her own hands.
Then she put her face down on the table.
The issue was not finding a suitable candidate. She could name three without effort. The issue, which she was becoming increasingly unable to pretend otherwise, was that she did not want to seat anyone there at all.
She sat back up.
Pressed her hands flat on the table.
Looked at the cards.
*This is ridiculous*, she told herself firmly. *He is the manager of this estate. The seat opposite the host is a practical matter. Someone has to sit there.*
She picked up Julia's card again.
Held it over the space.
Put it back down beside her own hand instead.
She sat in the candlelight for a long time, looking at the seating plan with the empty space in the center of it, and did not fill it in.