Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Greyson could only stare at the hat floating away into the shallows like a fallen soldier… his perfectly respectable, perfectly dignified, perfectly dry hat.
It was Cordelia who broke the stunned silence with an explosive, delighted cry. “Hazel has drowned the Duke’s hat!”
Matilda elbowed her so sharply she nearly toppled. “Cordelia.”
“What? She has! Look at it! The poor thing never stood a chance!”
Greyson felt the familiar spark of irritation. It blossomed into a tight coil in his chest, and a ready-made scowl formed out of instinct. It was absurd and mortifying. It was entirely unnecessary chaos.
But then, his eyes found Hazel. She was standing very still on the bank, staring at the water as though she had personally committed a crime against the aristocracy. Her lips were pressed together, trembling on the verge of a suppressed laugh.
She looked incandescent. A warm, palpable joy radiated off her, even in her mortification.
And Greyson felt something inside him yield to that joy.
Whatever she had done, whatever havoc she had wreaked, he knew, with startling clarity, that he could not stay angry at her, not when she looked at him with that mixture of guilt and stifled mirth, glowing like sunlight through the leaves.
“You know,” he said slowly, “you owe me a hat now.”
The tension snapped into laughter, relief and sparkling amusement.
Cordelia whooped with delight. “He’s fine! Oh, thank heavens, Hazel, he’s not about to exile you for crimes against millinery!”
Evelyn laughed behind her hand. Matilda sighed in visible relief.
Hazel’s eyes brightened with unmistakable gratitude. “I will buy you the most beautiful hat they have,” she declared solemnly.
Cordelia nearly fell over with excitement. “Yes! Something with feathers!”
Greyson was horrified. “Absolutely not.”
Matilda murmured, “Cordelia, no.”
“I think he would look lovely in blue plumes,” Cordelia insisted.
Hazel burst into a laugh she could no longer contain. It was warm and rich and utterly disarming. Greyson felt something inside him crack open in response, something he had believed long calcified.
He was… amused. His half-drowned hat bobbed pitifully in the water behind him, but for once, he found he did not care. He was enjoying this silliness, this absurdity… this moment. And it was all because of Hazel.
He couldn’t take his eyes off of her as she stood there, glowing in sunlight, laughing like she had been waiting her whole life for an excuse. That was his wife, who could coax life from the lifeless, warmth from the cold, and a smile, however small, from him.
Greyson cleared his throat, fighting the one still tugging at his mouth. “No feathers,” he said firmly.
Hazel nodded with mock gravity. “No feathers.”
Cordelia pouted dramatically. “This outing promised so much potential.”
Greyson gave her a look that suggested her potential ought to be reined in for the good of society. But Hazel’s laughter bubbled up again, and everything seemed well worth the sacrifice of a single hat, when a familiar voice carried across the grass.
“Well, well, well. I leave the four of you unsupervised for one afternoon, and you’ve managed to drown the Duke.”
Greyson closed his eyes. Jasper was all he needed now to witness everything. Hazel nearly choked on a laugh.
Cordelia spun around in delight. “We didn’t drown the Duke, Jasper… we drowned his hat!”
Jasper approached on horseback, draped in careless elegance. When he dismounted, he strode toward them with the swagger of a man who lived for such opportunities.
He stopped beside Greyson, peered into the shallows, and let out a deeply mournful sigh.
“Rest in peace, brave soldier,” Jasper intoned. “You died a hero.”
Greyson glared. “It is a hat.”
“A hat that served you faithfully,” Jasper countered. “Your favorite one, if I recall—”
“It was not my favorite.”
Hazel bit her lip, fighting laughter.
Jasper clasped a hand dramatically over his heart. “To lose a hat is tragedy enough. But to lose it in public? Devastating.”
Evelyn snorted. Matilda covered her face with her hand, fighting off another onslaught of laughter.
Jasper leaned closer to Greyson with a conspiratorial whisper, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Did Hazel throw it? Or did it leap to its freedom?”
Greyson gritted out. “It was the wind.”
“Entirely the wind,” Hazel added too quickly.
Jasper tilted his head. “Ah. A romantic hat, then. Drawn irresistibly to the water.”
Cordelia beamed. “I told you it had no chance!”
Jasper turned back to Greyson, utterly enjoying the scene. “My friend, you are taking this very well. Far better than the time your horse stepped on your boot and you declared war on footwear.”
Greyson stiffened. “That was years ago.”
“And we still talk about it,” Jasper said proudly.
Hazel laughed outright this time. Greyson’s annoyance crumpled the moment he heard it.
Jasper noticed. He definitely noticed.
He stared between the two of them, then adopted an expression of knowing glee that made Greyson instantly wary. “Ah,” Jasper murmured. “So that is how it is.”
Hazel stepped half behind Greyson. “Do not encourage him,” she whispered through a chuckle.
Jasper pressed a hand to his chest as though wounded. “Hazel, how dare you? I am perfectly encourageable.”
Evelyn laughed. “An understatement.”
Matilda nodded. “If Jasper had a motto, it would be more mischief, please.”
Cordelia added. “Or I see trouble, I follow.”
Jasper bowed dramatically. “Ladies, you flatter me.”
Greyson pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why are you here, Jasper?”
“Oh!” Jasper said brightly. “I came looking for my darling wife, of course. And imagine my delight to find you mid-catastrophe.”
“It was not a catastrophe,” Greyson muttered.
Jasper pointed at the floating hat. “Greyson. I can see the corpse.”
Hazel stifled another laugh, and against every instinct of dignity he possessed, Greyson felt his irritation soften once more.
He shook his head, exhaling. “It is just a hat.”
Jasper gasped as though betrayed. “You have changed.”
Cordelia clapped. “Yes! Hasn’t he? I noticed it too!”
Matilda smiled warmly. “It suits him.”
Hazel looked at Greyson, and it was in that gaze that Greyson realized with sudden clarity that he was happy. It was ridiculous and impossible, but true.
…and also, dangerous.
Hazel could not sleep that night.
She had tried, but her thoughts fluttered like restless birds, circling around the afternoon’s laughter, Greyson’s almost-smile, Jasper’s awful teasing, and the warm, ridiculous tug she felt whenever she remembered Greyson’s expression as his hat drifted away like a noble martyr.
Stop thinking about him, she told herself sternly. But it didn’t help.
She turned over once, twice, and then a third time. There was no improvement in her ability to sleep. Finally, she sat up with a sigh.
If I cannot sleep, I might as well be useful.
She had finished reading the last book to Greyson’s mother yesterday. Hazel promised herself she would find a few new ones, something gentle but engaging, something that might coax the dowager back into conversation.
She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, lit her small candle, and padded barefoot to the door of her chamber. She opened it, then squealed in a tiny, high-pitched squeak that shot out of her before she could swallow it down.
Greyson was standing right in front of her chamber door, with his hand raised as if frozen mid-knock. A moment later, she noticed a stack of books tucked under his other arm, but as soon as she slapped both her hands over her mouth, the books tumbled from his grasp and scattered across the carpet.
“I…” He blinked hard, as though unable to process the situation. “You made a noise.”
Hazel pressed a hand to her racing heart. “You frightened me! What are you doing lurking outside my chamber?”
“I was not lurking,” Greyson said, looking affronted for a moment. “I was knocking… or attempting to. Before you,” he hesitated, searching for the right word, “squeaked at me.”
Hazel narrowed her eyes. “It was not a squeak.”
“It was absolutely a squeak.”
She gasped. “Greyson.”
Greyson bent to gather the fallen books so swiftly she had no opportunity to object.
Hazel dropped to her knees beside him, reaching for one.
Their hands brushed. She snatched hers back instantly, feeling that familiar heat blooming up her arms. Greyson froze as well, as if the brief touch had sent a shock straight through him.
He cleared his throat. “I… could not sleep.”
Hazel swallowed. “Neither could I.”
They both knelt there in the soft glow of her candle, surrounded by scattered books, looking at one another with something too new and too tender to name. They gathered the fallen books and rose.
“I brought these,” she heard him say, “from the west wing.”
Hazel blinked incredulously. “For your mother?”
“For her, yes.” His gaze dropped briefly to the spines. “They are ones she used to enjoy… before.”
Hazel’s chest warmed. He hid it so carefully she suspected he barely knew he was doing it, but behind every clipped word was tenderness.
“That was thoughtful,” Hazel said gently. “She will love them.”
He gave a single stiff nod, almost defensive in its brevity.
Hazel hesitated, then softened her voice. “You could take them to her yourself, you know.”
Greyson went absolutely still. He seemed as though a painful memory had taken hold of him and refused to let go.
Hazel’s breath caught. “Greyson?”
He did not look at her. His eyes remained fixed on the books, as if he could find steadiness in the neatness of their bindings.
After a moment, he said quietly, “No. I will… bring her some other ones.”
Hazel felt the truth land. He could not bear to take these to her, not because he didn’t care, but because he cared too much.
“That day… in the west wing, I… didn’t mean to pry,” she murmured.
“I know.” His voice was steadier now, but she could hear the strain beneath it. “I simply… cannot give her these.”
“Because they are special to her?” Hazel asked gently.
His jaw tightened. “Because they were special to both of us.”
Her heart squeezed. He finally lifted his gaze to hers, and in the candle’s warm glow, Hazel saw the grief he never let surface, the quiet fear of a son who had lost his entire family, and the tenderness of a man who had spent years refusing to soften.
Hazel stepped closer, not touching him, but close enough that her presence wrapped around the moment like a shawl.
“You love her very deeply,” she whispered.
Greyson’s breath hitched. “Yes.”
“Then she still has something to hold onto,” Hazel said. “Even if she cannot always show it.”
His eyes flicked to hers, startled by the certainty in her tone. And his next words caught her completely by surprise.
“I… am glad you are here… for her.”
It was not a grand confession. It was not emotional, not even fully deliberate. But Hazel felt warmth bloom in her chest all the same.
“I am glad too,” she said softly.
Greyson’s gaze lingered on her for a heartbeat longer, as if trying to understand something new and unsettling inside himself. The words hung between them, delicate as lace, fragile as breath.
“Here,” he offered her the books.
She reached out and accepted the books. “Thank you.”
Then, almost abruptly, he stepped back.
“Goodnight, Hazel,” he said.
Hazel felt the retreat into politeness, into safety. She understood it. It made the small, new ache beneath her ribs no less sharp.
“Goodnight, Greyson,” she whispered.
Greyson inclined his head in a gesture that was formal yet strangely intimate in the quiet corridor. He hesitated, as though something inside him tugged, begging him to stay. Then he turned.
When he disappeared around the corner, Hazel closed her chamber door gently behind her. She leaned back against it, with the books pressed to her chest.
She knew she should not feel this way, warm and breathless and flustered from a moment that had been nothing more than the exchange of books and a polite goodnight, yet she did.