She marched straight to Ian's study and knocked.
"Come in." Cold, from the other side of the door.
Ian glanced up as she entered, and for a moment his face showed both surprise and irritation at his wife's sudden appearance in a room she had never once had reason to enter. She strode across the carpet and slapped the sheet of paper down on his desk in a manner so deliberately provoking that he had to ask.
"Why are you here?"
"I have something to discuss," Eloise said, smiling.
Inwardly she cursed him. Sleeping four hours, working sixteen, like some kind of Napoleon — which was precisely why his temper was so unbearable to everyone within a hundred paces of him.
Ian frowned. "We agreed not to disturb one another outside of breakfast unless it was something special." The irritation in his voice was thick enough to spread on bread.
"This," Eloise said calmly, "is something extremely special."
Arrogant jerk, she added privately, and pushed the sheet of gossip notes firmly across the desk toward him.
He picked it up and read it. She watched him recognise them — the ugly names, the nicknames, the whole crop of them, harvested and set down in her handwriting in a neat column.
He set the page down and asked, quite calmly:
"Do you expect me to care about your reputation as well?"
Exactly as predicted, she thought, smirking behind her teeth. This man really is a piece of work.
It was an off-hand remark, and it cut a great deal deeper than he knew. Eloise was furious enough to see red, and kept the smile exactly where it was, and silently damned him for his indifference to the fact that his own wife was being slandered in every drawing room in the capital.
"These rumours involve you just as much as me," she said. "The Grand Duke's name is on that list too. That makes it a shared responsibility."
He looked at her in silence.
"Go on," she said. "Try to deny it. Tell me you have no reason at all to care, and I'll take you at your word."
Ian sighed, closed his eyes wearily, and said, "Get to the point. What is it you want?"
She laughed, bitterly, because there it was. His wife was being gossiped about because of him, and he had not offered one word of apology, or of comfort, or even of acknowledgement.
Calm, she told herself, breathing in. Calm. Do not lunge across the desk. Do not punch him.
"No matter how beneficial this marriage may be," she said, "I can't go on living under this kind of humiliation."
Ian studied her. She could see him arriving at the conclusion that she must already have a solution in mind, and she saw the exact moment he decided he knew what it was, because he cut her off.
"If you're about to launch into some sappy speech demanding love or affection, stop right there."
Eloise felt genuinely, physically sick.
"Don't joke like that," she said, with open disgust. "It makes my skin crawl."
Ian looked taken aback. For the first time she saw him visibly flustered, and it was worth the trip on its own.
"Then what is it?"
She slapped the desk again.
"Your Grace," she said, with exaggerated formality, and waited until she had every scrap of his attention. Then she leaned in close to his face. "Have you ever heard the saying that rivers and mountains are easier to move than a person's nature?"
"I have."
"I don't believe in it," she said flatly. "Not one word of it. What do you think of that?"
Her eyes were full of challenge. He was plainly bewildered.
She leaned in closer still, close to his ear, and whispered her declaration of war.
"I'm telling you that I'm going to change you. Starting now."
They faced off across the desk, and there was no question at all who held the upper hand. Ian's jaw actually dropped.
"Change me? What did you just say?"
"You heard me correctly." She straightened up. "I genuinely intend to do the impossible."
He was so bewildered he had nothing to answer with, so she pressed the attack.
"You are in an unsalvageable condition, Your Grace. In two years you have turned me from the belle of society into a ghost."
Unsalvageable, out of his own wife's mouth. He was completely floored. Genuine culture shock, live, across a desk.
Eloise laughed coolly. "Don't take it too hard. I don't expect much from you as a person anyway. All I want is to salvage the last shred of dignity that comes with the title of Grand Duchess." She spread her hands. "Don't worry. I'll polish you up, reform you, and then disappear cleanly."
And clear the way, she added silently, for the woman who deserves this house.
"The empty shell," she recited. "The ghost. A piece of furniture. That's what I am, in every parlour in the capital. I've held my tongue all this time out of respect for the emperor and for my father. I can't bear it any longer."
Ian sat listening in silence, his expression thoughtful, like a man on the edge of admitting something.
"This isn't only my problem," she went on. "It concerns both our honour. It doesn't matter how much royal blood runs in your veins or how highly the emperor favours you. Honour still matters."
His proud expression came back down over his face like a shutter. "A few rumours about our marriage cannot tarnish my honour."
"I'm a human being too," Eloise said. "Hearing those words hurts, whether you like it or not." She pointed a finger straight at him. "And even if you shut your eyes and cover your ears, those rumours will still find their way to you. They always do."
Then she laid out the ultimatum, clean and clear.
"One year. The deadline for this is exactly one year. After that I'll leave you alone for good."
"And if nothing changes?"
"If your reputation hasn't changed after a year, I'll give up and settle everything myself."
He looked puzzled. "Settle it how?"
"It means I'll live out the rest of my days as quietly as a dead woman," she said simply.
Then she pulled out a second sheet of paper and set it beside the first.
"Or, alternatively, we could simply get a divorce."
Ian went very still. "Divorce," he repeated.
"All you need is someone else to fill the role of wife," Eloise said. "If you have other options, I'm more than willing to step aside — provided the replacement is capable. After we part ways I'm sure you could find someone far better suited to you than I am."
The image rose behind her eyes, unbidden and glorious: Diana in a wedding dress, standing in this house, beautiful enough to make the walls apologise.
"I don't want to spend the rest of my life carrying that label," she finished. "So I hope you'll cooperate."
Ian looked down at the document on the desk. His fingers brushed the edge of the paper and stopped there.
However much this sounded like a declaration of war, he was realising, he had absolutely nothing to lose from it.
"Do you have any concrete plan," he said, "for the coming year?"
His tone was as serious as a teacher quizzing a troublesome student on last week's lesson.
"I'll be handling the planning from now on," Eloise said. "But first, two requests. To seal the agreement."
"Two."
"The first: you must treat me properly. Like an actual wife. At least in public."
Ian's mouth thinned, but he said nothing.
"The second: we set aside a fixed amount of time every week to meet. A training session."
He frowned. "What good would spending time together actually do? Wouldn't a person change naturally, if left alone?"
"Of course not." She said it with such flatness that he blinked. "Real change requires proper, structured guidance."
She was already calculating in her head — the schedule, the order of lessons, the hands-on discipline required to reform her dear husband's twisted way of thinking before the heroine ever set foot in the capital.
"To be blunt, Your Grace, the current version of you is a lost cause. Think of these meetings as a remedial class. Attendance mandatory."
He was clearly on the verge of objecting. She cut him off before he had the first word out.
"Does this face look like someone with time to spare for jokes?"
In the end Ian agreed to the one-year time frame, reasoning — she could see him reasoning it — that whether or not his reputation changed, everything would simply settle back into what it had always been once the year was up.
Eloise smiled brightly and agreed to seal the deal, while celebrating privately and thoroughly. After all this, she was going to walk away with a clean divorce, exactly as she wanted it.
She pulled out a schedule and looked it over. Weekends and evenings made the most sense. Ian eyed the paper wearily, as though she were arranging an important shareholders' meeting he had no memory of consenting to.
She tutted. "The weekend feels much too short. I'll take both full days."
"Both."
"Naturally, if you have other plans, you only need to give me three days' notice and I'll adjust."
"That would eat up far too much time."
Eloise turned the threat straight back on him. "If you don't like it, I'll happily sit here and read the entire rumour list aloud to you. One item at a time. Until you're thoroughly sick of it."
Cornered, he caved, and haggled her down to a single day of the weekend.
She smiled to herself. He acted tough, this man, but he was actually quite easy to steer. She sealed the deal briskly, arranged to meet him on the weekend, and left with a triumphant smile, because her real target from the very start had only ever been one day.
A true masterclass in negotiation. Ask for ten, and be handed five.
At the door, she made sure to leave the sheet of gossip notes behind on his desk as a parting gift.
"Do pull that out and read it whenever you're bored, Your Grace," she said. "It's very entertaining. You'll really feel the sting of life."