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“What are you d-doing here?” she bit out.

“I, er…” A shadow of a sheepish grin crossed his dirt-and-soot-stained features. "I managed to splinter the shaft of my spade and required a substitute. It was then that I observed⁠—"

“Not here before m-me, I meant here in the north. James, I thought you w-were in London.”

His face dropped at her response, and he did not offer his usual charming smile. Instead he simply replied. “There were things I needed to do here.”

“Such as d-digging a foundation?”

“But this is not any foundation.”

Mariah sensed her brow furrowing, her curiosity overriding the cold and her self-preservation. “It is n-not?”

“Oh, no,” James went on, sounding much more like his old charming self, “For you see the lady who planned these tenements saw how the workers from Lancashire and their families had been living in their own filth and waste. So she asked for help from former soldiers and royal engineers, who knew enough to help her plan to create brick-lined drainage trenches at the root of her tenements, ensuring none of the people who lived within them would be forced to live in their own filth or waste.”

Mariah swallowed as she found herself intently observing Humphries, whose purposeful motions as a laborer offered a fleeting distraction from the odd thrill her husband’s words had kindled within her.

And yet the man knew her well enough not to push her at the moment.

“How d-did you know? About the plans?” At last, she looked away from Humphries, though she wished she had not. Her husband’s eyes bore into her, stripping away the many layers of wool she wore to keep warm on such a blustery day.

“I know you, Mariah. I know you do not believe I do, but when I made my amends to Harrison, he showed me the plans and I could see your hands at work. Your mind at work,” he added with meaning.

Mariah narrowed her eyes searching between the pale blue orbs before her. Something was different. But what could it be?

Then the truth of his words fully unfurled inside her mind, like the creak of a lock being released.

“You read my letters,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. Then, like a girl caught, she slapped her gloved hand over her mouth. How absolutely mortifying. Mariah glanced around frantically as if a carriage would roll by and offer her escape from the weight of this knowledge. Or just crush her so she could sink into the wet ground, never to appear again.

“Mariah.” He grabbed her forearm and she flinched. “I did not hurt you did I?”

The gentleness in his voice almost killed her. She could not be around him. And yet there was nowhere else she wished to be. Curse the man.

“You did n-not,” she admitted, unable to meet his eye. Now that she knew he had read her letters, she doubted if she would be able to look him in the eye ever again.

“I should have read them years ago. It was not my hand why I did not. It was my fault, but I swear to you, I did not know of them.”

He still gripped her forearm as she froze, her only movement her eyes as they darted between his, attempting to ascertain the truth of his statement. “You…d-did not know?”

A silent tremor passed through him, his throat working with a visible effort as his emerald silk cravat, ill-suited for this atmosphere, hung loose, exposing the fine golden hair across his chest. The meager sunlight that had attempted to peak through that day made the hair golden and…Mariah wrenched her gaze away as she turned.

“This changes n-nothing.” She began to pull away but James did not release his grip on her forearm.

“This changes everything.” His voice possessed a raw power as he forced her to look at him with the intensity of his voice. It made her toes curl in her boots.

From the way she had twisted to break away, he stood now at her back, his breath warm against the small amount of bare flesh exposed at the nape of her neck. “I see you, Mariah. I think I always have. I was blinded by my own selfishness. My belief that my dreams were bigger than yours or anyone else’s. But they aren’t…”

Her chest rose and fell in a labored rhythm, each breath a struggle against the frantic thrumming of a heart that seemed intent upon surrendering itself to the man standing just behind her. But her mind, that sensible sentinel, held her in caution.

“I c-can’t trust this,” she whispered. “I can’t trust…”

The word you died on her tongue as his fingers pulsed against her arm. She could almost feel his visceral pain at her words.

“I know how badly I have wronged you, Mariah, but I swear you will see that you can rely on me.”

At his last words, she turned around sharply but he was already looking back at the trenches. “But now you must go.”

“What?” She gasped, completely discombobulated.