Chapter 248: Deciding When

The conversation began because Eleanor was brushing her hair.

Ernest sat at the edge of the mattress in the quiet upstairs bedchamber of the Willowbrook lodge, his boots already set aside and his fingers working the silver buttons of his waistcoat. The oil lamp on the washstand threw a circle of warm amber light across the floorboards, catching the gleam of the looking glass where Eleanor stood in her white linen nightdress.

The evening had passed without incident. They had taken dinner on the veranda, walked the river trail until dusk, and argued briefly—and with immense dignity on both sides—over whether Ernest should be permitted to dismantle a rattling sash window using his pocketknife. Eleanor had prevailed, and the window remained unmolested.

Now the only sound in the house was the rhythmic whisper of the boar-bristle brush through her hair.

Ernest leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees, watching her through the glass. His hands had stopped at his cuffs.

Eleanor caught his eye in the reflection. She did not pause the stroke, but the corner of her mouth lifted. "What is it?"

Ernest looked down at his sleeve. "Nothing of consequence."

"You have been sitting entirely motionless for two minutes, Ernest. That is an enormous amount of consequence for you."

"I am merely reflecting."

"Not in that particular posture." She laid the silver-backed brush upon the marble top with a soft clatter and turned to face him, leaning back against the dresser with her hands resting flat against the edge. "What are you turning over in your mind?"

Ernest hesitated. His fingers toyed with the platinum band on his left hand—still a habit, three days in. "The park this afternoon."

Eleanor’s expression softened. "The young carter and his children?"

"Yes."

She studied him across the room, the teasing light fading from her eyes. "Our hypothetical three?"

"Yes."

"Not four?"

"No," Ernest said firmly. "We settled that at the pond."

Eleanor crossed the carpet, the linen hem of her hem whispering over the boards, and stopped before him. Her shadow fell over his knees. "And?"

"You said you wanted a family," Ernest said, looking up at her. "Not as a future contingency. Today."

"I do."

"So do I."

"I know that, Ernest."

A brief silence settled between them, broken only by the night breeze nudging the cedar eaves outside.

Eleanor tilted her head, her gray eyes narrowing slightly as she read his face. "Oh."

Ernest met her gaze. "Oh?"

"You are not thinking about the principle of it," she said slowly. "You are calculating the timeline."

"I am considering the question of when."

"How remarkably efficient of you, Baron."

"I am entirely serious, Eleanor."

"So am I." She sat down beside him on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped beneath their combined weight.

For a few moments, neither of them spoke. The conversation felt different now. Under the copper beech that afternoon, children had been a broad, sunlit idea—something that belonged to green grass, distant laughter, and decades stretched comfortably ahead. Sitting here in the dim bedroom, the subject felt immediate, intimate, and real.

Eleanor looked down at her lap, her thumb rubbing the edge of her wedding ring. "Do you wish to wait?"

Ernest considered the question carefully, turning it over as he would a structural drawing. "No."

Her head came up, a little surprised. "Not at all?"

"I don’t see a clear reason to."

"The new house on the southern ridge hasn’t even had its footings surveyed, Ernest."

"Oriel possesses twenty-four rooms in the family wing alone," he said plainly. "My parents will not be crowded, and neither will we."

"My medical studies," she said, watching his face closely.

"We settled that before I asked you to marry me. If you decide to attend the institute lectures in Helmarte, the household will accommodate it. If we have a child, we will accommodate both. We arrange the schedules to fit the life we want, Eleanor, not the other way around."

A faint, touched smile broke across her lips. "Your work."

"My work will expand until the day I die," Ernest said without hesitation. "There will always be another bridge to throw across a gorge. Another line to survey. Another parliamentary committee demanding testimony. If we wait until my desk is clear and the kingdom is tidy, we will be seventy years old and wondering why the house is so quiet."

Eleanor’s fingers reached out, sliding into his. "That is a very good argument."

"It is a practical one."

"And the three children?"

"You said you wanted three," he pointed out. "Three children require a certain degree of chronological spacing. If we do not begin, the timeline becomes compressed."

Eleanor let out a quiet laugh, resting her forehead against his shoulder. "Ernest. You cannot establish an engineering schedule for our nursery."

"I am merely pointing out the temporal realities."

"You are treating it like an expansion of the rolling mills."

"I am not."

"You were thinking in quarters."

"I was thinking in years, which is entirely reasonable."

He felt the low tremor of her laughter through her shoulder. She stayed against him for a moment, her breath warm through his shirt, before she lifted her head again.

"Do you want to wait, Eleanor?" he asked softly.

The amusement left her face, leaving only that quiet, direct honesty he loved most about her. "No," she said.

Ernest looked at her.

"I have spent enough of my life saying ’later,’" Eleanor said, her voice dropping. "When Henry needed his fees settled, my studies were later. When the estate accounts were tangled, my plans were later. When Lucas was small, everything was later. I don’t regret any of it, Ernest. But I am done putting my life on a high shelf to gather dust."

She looked straight into his eyes. "I want our family. With you."

Something tight and guarded in Ernest’s chest gave way completely. "Then we begin."

"We begin," she agreed, her lips curving with sudden, quiet mischief. "Though I expect you to maintain a dignified approach to the matter."

"I am always dignified."

"You are currently wearing an expression that suggests you have just signed a major freight contract."

"This is vastly more significant than freight, Eleanor."

"Good answer, Baron."

Ernest reached up, caught her face between his hands, and kissed her—slowly, deliberately, without any thought of schedules, ledgers, or what the morning would bring.