Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Hazel had not expected to miss her sisters quite so keenly.
These past days had been ones in which she had slept better, breathed better, and not once been forced to climb a staircase at a reckless pace because one of them had done something catastrophically foolish. And yet, as her carriage rattled toward Belvington Manor, an ache bloomed beneath her ribs.
Ridiculous, she told herself. Entirely sentimental.
But when she stepped out into the familiar garden and saw Patience and Chastity flying toward her as arrows loosed from a bow, her heart swelled all the same.
“Hazel!” Chastity nearly toppled her with enthusiasm. “You look… goodness, you look positively duchess-like!”
“That is because she is a duchess, silly,” Patience muttered, though her grin was every bit as bright.
Hazel laughed and hugged them both. “I have only been gone a short while, not a decade.”
“It has felt like a decade,” Chastity declared. “Mama has been quite unbearable.”
“We shall let Hazel sit before we terrify her with the details,” Patience advised, tugging her toward the tea table set beneath the blossoming pear tree.
Their mother was already seated in a picture of composed elegance, though her eyes glittered with something dangerously close to triumph.
“Hazel, my dear. I was beginning to wonder when you would visit. How are you settling into Callbury Mansion?”
“Well enough,” Hazel replied, taking her seat. “There is a great deal to learn, but nothing insurmountable.”
Chastity leaned forward eagerly. “Tell us everything. Is the house enormous? Does it echo? Do the servants look frightened when His Grace walks by?”
“Chastity,” Hazel warned.
Patience snorted. “Which means yes.”
Hazel hesitated. “He is… a very proper man.”
“That is one way of calling him terrifying,” Chastity whispered, earning a sharp look from their mother.
“Girls, do not be rude about your sister’s husband,” their mother said, though she herself looked curious. “But truly, Hazel, does he treat you well?”
Hazel startled slightly. That question was not one she often received.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “Better than I expected.”
Her mother hummed, sounding satisfied. “I suppose he would. A Duke must have standards, after all.”
And there it was, that old refrain: duty and appearances. Hazel had not realized how little she missed it until now.
Chastity launched into a tale about a disastrous embroidery lesson, and Patience added her own commentary, but Hazel found herself drifting. Their laughter felt the same, but the rhythm of the conversation tugged oddly at her. She ought to have felt at home. She wanted to feel at home.
Yet every time she opened her mouth to contribute, the moment slipped. They seemed to move around her, past her, as though she were both present and somehow set apart.
That was when her mother cut into the chatter. “Hazel, you must speak with the housekeeper before you leave. She has been entirely lost without your guidance.”
“I am certain she will manage,” Hazel replied lightly.
Her mother blinked at her. “Manage? Hazel, but you know she has always relied on you.”
“Yes,” Hazel said, more carefully this time, “and perhaps that is precisely the problem.”
Hazel was barely aware that she had let it slip. But now, it was too late to take it back. Chastity frowned. Patience stared at her teacup. Their mother stiffened.
Then, she forced a smile. “I only mean that she is perfectly capable, and my absence may encourage her to trust her own judgment.”
Her mother pursed her lips. “I see. Marriage has changed you.”
The words struck harder than Hazel expected. “I do not believe it has.”
“Oh, nonsense,” her mother said. “You are speaking of yourself, thinking of yourself… oh, do not look at me like that. It is not a criticism. I am merely pointing it out.”
“It does sound very much like one,” Patience murmured.
But their mother was already waving her hand. “Well, change or not, Hazel, your sisters still need you. Patience is undecided about her wardrobe for Thursday’s dinner, and Chastity has managed to offend Mrs. Fairfax again—”
“I did not offend her,” Chastity protested. “I merely suggested she might enjoy conversation if she tried participating in it!”
Hazel’s lips twitched despite herself. “Chastity, she is seventy-eight.”
“And?” Chastity said indignantly.
But Hazel felt that subtle shift inside her, like stepping into a room whose furniture had been rearranged. She loved them. She would always love them. Yet something in her no longer aligned the way it once had.
“Chastity,” she said gently, “you really must learn to show Mrs. Fairfax more respect.”
Chastity’s mouth fell open. “Respect? Hazel, she barely hears anything I say!”
“Precisely,” Hazel replied. “Which is why you ought not startle her with commentary about her conversational shortcomings. She is an elderly lady, one who has endured enough without being told to try participating.”
Patience let out a poorly disguised snort. Chastity glared at her, then back at Hazel. “Very well. I suppose I might try… slightly harder.”
Hazel folded her hands, straightening a little. “That would be a good beginning. But the truth is that both of you must do more than try slightly harder.”
Both sisters went very still. Their mother, who had been commenting on the neighbor’s hydrangeas, finally took notice.
Hazel pressed on before courage abandoned her. “You are grown now. You must decide what sort of young woman you wish to be, what you want from your lives, and then act accordingly. I cannot, nor should I, direct every step for you anymore.”
Chastity blinked rapidly. “Are you… scolding us?”
“I am advising you,” Hazel corrected. “It is high time you began thinking beyond mischief and momentary thrills. Decide what you want. Pursue it with purpose. And stop relying on me to keep you from consequences.”
Patience set her teacup down with unusual care. “We do not rely on you.”
Hazel gave her a long look.
Patience sighed. “All right, we rely on you a little.”
“And you should rely on your older sister,” their mother exclaimed, as if this were the most reasonable truth ever uttered.
“That is what elder daughters are for. You have always managed things beautifully. Why should that change now? Marriage ought not to transform a woman into a stranger to her own family.”
Hazel felt the shift inside her fully then, like a door that had been wedged open for years finally clicking shut.
“Mama,” she said quietly, “that is precisely what must change.”
Her mother blinked at her, looking utterly affronted. “Must? Hazel, I hardly think—”
Hazel lifted a hand, and for once her mother actually fell silent.
“Mama,” she repeated, still gentle and completely in control of herself and her words, “you are asking me to abandon the very life I have just begun, simply to continue the duties you placed on me as a girl.”
Her mother straightened in her chair. “Placed on you? Hazel, do not be absurd. You took to responsibility naturally. You have always been sensible, far more sensible than your sisters.”
“We are sitting right here,” Chastity muttered, but neither adult seemed to hear her.
Hazel breathed in slowly. “I took responsibility because no one else would. Because someone had to keep this family from falling into chaos. Because you and Papa chose to step back, and once you stepped back, you never stepped forward again.”
A stunned silence fell across the table.
Her mother’s eyes widened, not with understanding but with shock. “Hazel! How dare you imply I neglected my own children!”
“I am not implying anything,” Hazel replied. “I am stating what happened.”
Her mother’s cheeks flushed. “I will not sit here and be accused—”
“I am not accusing you, Mama.” Hazel leaned forward just slightly. “I am explaining why I cannot continue carrying burdens that were never meant to be mine alone.”
Patience and Chastity exchanged helpless glances.
Their mother pressed an offended hand to her chest. “You make it sound as though we chained you to your sisters as punishment.”
Hazel shook her head. “No. But when I took over your role, you let me. And when I kept taking on your role, you kept thanking me by assuming I always would. You placed every quarrel, every mischief, even every household concern,” her eyes flicked pointedly to the housekeeper peering through the window, “squarely onto my shoulders, even today.”
Her mother followed her gaze, stiffening. “Well, the housekeeper is accustomed to you. She trusts you.”
“She should trust you, but mostly, she should trust herself,” Hazel said. “And so should my sisters. They cannot grow if I never step aside.”
Her mother’s voice trembled with indignation. “You speak as though your own family has wronged you.”
Hazel swallowed the guilt rising like a tide. It was instinctive and born of years of smoothing ruffled feelings and avoiding disharmony. But she kept going.
“I speak,” she said softly, “as someone who has been tired for a very long time, as someone who has loved all of you fiercely, but who has been allowed to do so at her own expense.”
Her mother was speechless now. Chastity reached for Hazel’s hand. Patience did the same.
Hazel gave their fingers a small squeeze. “I will always care for you. But not in the same way as before. You must begin solving your own problems, taking charge of your own futures. That is the only way you will ever stand without me.”
Her mother finally found her voice, although it sounded faint and brittle. “I do not understand how you can say such things.”
Hazel felt the guilt twist again, but beneath it, something steadier stood firm. “Because they needed to be said, because otherwise nothing will ever change, and I want all of us to be better for it.”
Lady Belvington’s lips parted, but no words came.
Hazel realized then that the truth, which had been long avoided, finally reached her mother.
It had not been cruel, only honest. And though guilt murmured inside her, Hazel recognized it now for what it was: the echo of a role she no longer wished to play.
Hazel stood first. It felt strange, leaving without first having the plates cleared, without gathering her sisters or making a list of instructions for the housekeeper.
“I should be going,” she said.
Her mother stiffened. “So soon?”
“Yes,” Hazel replied gently. “I believe it is best.”
Lady Belvington did not rise. She merely adjusted her shawl and looked away toward the flowering hedges. “Very well, then. You know where the door is.”
The words pricked at Hazel’s heart, but she did not let them pierce. Perhaps Mama needed time. Hazel had had years to understand her burden, while her mother had been given ten minutes.
Chastity stood at once, and Patience a half-second after her. “We will walk you out,” Patience announced, casting a pointed glance at their mother, who did not move.
Hazel offered no comment. It was enough to acknowledge the ache quietly, without giving it power.
The walk through the garden felt longer than it ever had. The bright chatter of birds, the sweet scent of pear blossoms, the familiar gravel path, everything was as she remembered it, and yet she felt like a guest moving through someone else’s memory.
Chastity linked their arms tightly. “Hazel… we are sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Hazel replied at once.
Patience shook her head. “No. We relied on you far too much. We thought… well, I suppose we never thought at all. It was just what we always did.”
Chastity’s voice softened. “But we will do better.”
Hazel smiled. “No one expects perfection, my dears. Only effort.”
Chastity nodded, and as she did so, her chin wobbled a little. “You shall have that.”
Patience reached out and adjusted Hazel’s cloak collar, a gesture so motherly that Hazel almost laughed at the irony. “Will you visit again soon?”
“Yes,” Hazel said. “Hopefully with no emergencies involved.”
All three released soft, rueful laughs. At the carriage steps, the ache in Hazel’s chest pulled tight.
She suddenly saw them not as the exasperating girls she had spent half her life chasing after, but as young women blinking uncertainly into a future they had never before been asked to shape themselves.
“I love you,” Hazel told them, and they threw themselves at her in two warm, clinging embraces.
Hazel held them both, letting herself feel everything: the grief of letting go, the pride in their promise to try and the dawning relief of knowing she no longer had to be everything to everyone.
When they stepped back, Chastity wiped her eyes. “You really are different.”
Hazel nodded. “Perhaps. But I am still your sister.”
“And we are still yours,” Patience said.
Hazel climbed into the carriage, and the footman closed the door. Through the window, she saw her sisters standing side by side. They had no mother behind them and no guiding hand pushing them forward. It was just the two of them, watching her go, a little frightened but trying to be brave.
She lifted her hand in farewell. They lifted theirs in return.
As the carriage rolled away, Hazel leaned back against the seat. Relief unfurled through her like a deep breath finally released. Yet beneath it, she could feel the ache of change, of love reshaped and of roles relinquished.
But she did not regret one moment of it, for now, her path belonged to her.