Chapter 6
Edward returned to his study long after the house had settled into silence.
The corridors lay dark but for a handful of lamps, their light stretching thin across stone and shadow. He moved without haste, boots soundless, his presence as habitual and unnoticed as the cold that lingered in Ashford’s bones. The house slept as it always did—uneasily.
The study greeted him with familiar disorder.
Ledgers crowded the desk and side tables, some bound in cracked leather, others loose and inked with his own precise hand. Correspondence lay unopened beside reports awaiting signature.
The fire had burned low, embers glowing dully beneath ash, offering only the memory of warmth.
Edward closed the door behind him and stood still for a moment, one hand braced against the wood.
He had not meant to linger. He had not meant to watch her.
And yet the image returned with unwelcome clarity—the governess in the snow, hair unbound, laughter caught on her breath as though the cold itself had startled it from her. The ease of her movement. The absence of restraint.
He exhaled sharply and crossed the room.
Work. That was the answer. It always had been. Before the war, during it, after. Work did not demand feeling. It did not ask him to examine wounds best left closed.
He sat and opened a ledger with decisive force.
The numbers blurred almost at once.
Irritation flared. He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, jaw tightening. Deferred repairs. Neglected accounts. Tenant concerns requiring attention that he had not addressed.
Thomas would have known where to begin. Where to press. Where to yield.
Edward saw only failure, column after column.
He shoved the ledger aside and reached for another.
Still, his thoughts strayed.
Miss Fenton. Three-and-twenty.
The knowledge settled heavily, unwelcome in its persistence. Too young. Entirely inappropriate.
And yet—
He pushed back from the desk and reached blindly for a scrap of parchment. His fingers found the charcoal without conscious intent.
He had not meant to draw.
It simply happened.
The lines came easily. A turn of the shoulder. The fall of hair. Motion caught mid-spin, skirts lifted by air and laughter alike. Snow took shape around her in soft, instinctive strokes.
Edward froze.
The figure on the page stared back at him—not a perfect likeness, but unmistakable. Miss Fenton, rendered in motion and light, joy traced into the lines with an intimacy that tightened his chest.
“This is madness,” he muttered.
The war had taught him discipline. Eleanor had taught him devotion. And yet here he stood, alone in the dead of night, committing an act that felt perilously close to betrayal—if not of her, then of himself.
He snatched the parchment from the desk and crossed to the fire.
The embers flared briefly as he thrust the sketch into them, the charcoal lines darkening, curling, vanishing as flame consumed the image. He stood over it until nothing remained but ash.
Only then did he straighten, breath measured, pulse forced into steadiness.
A sharp knock cut through the silence.
Edward stiffened. “Enter.”
The door opened without ceremony.
“Still awake?”
Edward turned.
Lord Christopher Barrow—Viscount of Vexley—stepped inside with the easy confidence of a man who had never learned to fear displeasure. His coat bore the marks of travel, boots scuffed, expression alert and unapologetically curious.
“You look like hell,” Christopher added, shutting the door.
Edward snorted softly. “You always had a talent for tact.”
“And you,” Christopher said, surveying the ledgers, “for pretending exhaustion is a moral failing.”
Edward gestured toward the chair. “If you’ve come for a reason other than mockery, sit.”
Christopher did, exhaling. “Mrs. Channing informed me you were still buried under accounts at an hour no sane man should be awake.”
“She exaggerates.”
“Rarely.”
“The estate does not manage itself.”
“No,” Christopher agreed. “But it does have a habit of surviving. Even under less-than-perfect stewardship.”
Edward’s jaw tightened.
“I wasn’t referring to you,” Christopher added lightly. “Though you seem determined to take it that way.”
Silence settled between them, familiar and unstrained.
Christopher’s gaze sharpened. “You’re troubled.”
“Astute.”
“This is different,” Christopher said quietly. “You’ve worn grief like armor these past two years. Tonight, you look … frayed.”
Edward didn’t answer at once. Then, flatly, “The war leaves its marks.”
“Some visible,” Christopher said, glancing briefly at the scar on Edward’s brow. “Others less so.”
Edward looked away.
They spoke of Eleanor—briefly, guardedly. Of Julian. Of the impossible balance between discipline and tenderness.
And then, without quite knowing how it had happened, Edward said, “The new governess is … competent.”
Christopher paused. “That may be the least convincing thing you’ve ever said.”
Edward frowned. “I meant only—”
“You haven’t spoken of another woman in two years,” Christopher said mildly. “Not once.”
Something cold settled in Edward’s chest. “It is nothing.”
Christopher leaned back, studying him. “If you say so.”
The silence returned, sharper now.
“It is late,” Edward said abruptly.
Christopher rose, unoffended. At the door, he paused. “Be careful, Edward.”
“Of what?”
“Of pretending you’re untouchable.”
The door closed softly behind him.
Edward stood alone once more.
The fire had dimmed again. He returned to his desk and forced his attention back to the ledgers, though the numbers swam.
Snow. Laughter. A figure spinning where grief should have ruled.
He bent lower over the page, jaw set.
Some thoughts were best left unexamined. Some fires—once lit—were dangerous to acknowledge at all.
The latch clicked again.
Edward stiffened as the door opened without a knock.
Liam strode in as though he owned the room, the house, and perhaps the very air. He wore a coat cut a shade too fashionable for a winter spent on an estate, his cravat tied with that effortless arrogance of a man who had never had to fight for anything more difficult than admiration.
“My dear cousin,” Liam drawled, eyeing the ledgers. “If devotion were measured in ink stains, you’d already be canonized.”
“It’s late,” Edward said.
“And yet you are awake.” Liam shut the door behind him and smiled as though this were a private entertainment arranged for his benefit. “Which means either you’ve discovered a hidden pleasure in accounts—or Ashford is nearer ruin than you’ve admitted.”
Edward’s jaw tightened. “If you have come to gossip, you will leave disappointed.”
“I came for contracts,” Liam said, unbothered. “And to visit my family. That is still allowed, I hope, though it sounds dreadfully old-fashioned.”
Edward gestured toward the sideboard where a neat stack of papers had been left earlier, tied with ribbon. “There.”
Liam crossed the room, lifted them, and made a show of weighing them in his hands as though evaluating whether they were worthy of his time. “You do keep a tidy household, Averleigh. You always did.” His eyes glittered. “I suppose the title chose its man after all.”
Edward’s gaze sharpened. “Say what you mean.”
Liam’s smile widened, teeth flashing briefly in the firelight. “Oh, nothing cruel. Only that it continues to amuse me that you work yourself into an early grave for a dukedom that might very easily have belonged to me.”
Edward sat very still.
“Half-joking,” Liam added, lifting one shoulder. “You know I enjoy provoking you. It is one of the few pleasures you still permit yourself.”
Edward’s voice, when it came, was flat. “If you had inherited, you would have sold Ashford within a month.”
Liam laughed, the sound bright and careless. “And you would have called it wise stewardship. Think of the freedom. No tenants. No repairs. No endless lists of people who expect you to solve their lives simply because your name sits above theirs on paper.”
Edward leaned back slowly. “I did not ask for it.”
Liam’s expression shifted for the briefest moment—something like understanding, quickly masked beneath amusement.
“No,” Liam agreed, softer. “You didn’t.”
The quiet lingered only a breath before Liam shrugged it away and glanced toward the desk again.
“So,” he said lightly, “do you mean to attend the Winter Solstice Ball? I had hoped you might finally spare yourself the ordeal and allow the ton to gossip without you for once.”
Edward’s jaw tightened. “I have no intention of attending.”
Liam arched a brow. “A miracle.”
“It is not hosted here,” Edward continued coolly. “And I see no reason to present myself as a spectacle.”
“For the sake of appearances, then?” Liam asked, bored already. “Or is it some private penance I’m meant to admire?”
Edward did not answer at once.
The Winter Solstice Ball was a tradition—yes. An obligation passed between families like a well-worn coin. A reminder that certain names still belonged where they always had. That lineage, order, and expectation remained intact, regardless of grief.
Eleanor had loved such evenings. Not for the pageantry, but for the music. The warmth. The idea that darkness could be met with light if one chose to invite it.
Edward had never shared that belief.
“Speaking of appearances,” Edward said at last, setting his pen down with deliberate precision, “you will attend.”
Liam blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.” Edward’s gaze held his cousin’s. “You will not spend the evening disappearing into a gentlemen’s club while the county takes note of who is—and is not—present.”
Liam laughed, genuinely amused. “Do you mean to appoint me your ambassador now?”
“I mean to warn you.”
“Oh, this is rich.” Liam’s smile widened. “Edward Thornton, defender of reputations.”
Edward did not smile. “Reputation tarnishes easily. It not only stains the man who earns it. It stains the families attached to him.”
That gave Liam pause—only a flicker, but enough.
“Do you fear my behavior will reflect upon you,” Liam asked lightly, “or upon Ashford?”
“Upon the family,” Edward said flatly. “Upon the name.”
Liam studied him for a moment longer, then tipped his head. “How dutiful.”
“It is not duty that concerns me,” Edward replied, his voice colder now. “It is consequence.”
Liam’s grin returned—smaller this time, sharper. “Very well. You needn’t worry. I have no intention of missing the Solstice ball for any woman—questionable or otherwise.”
Edward’s gaze flicked briefly to him. “That is not what I—”
But Liam had already turned, the contracts tucked beneath his arm.
He paused at the door. “You should try attending one of these events yourself someday, Edward. They prefer their dukes visible. Less … funerary.”
Edward’s expression hardened. “Goodnight, Liam.”
Liam gave a lazy salute and strode out, the door closing softly behind him.
Silence rushed back in.
Edward remained seated, his gaze drifting inevitably to Eleanor’s portrait.
The painter had captured her gently amused. Her eyes were bright with something he could never quite name. They did not change. They did not dim. They simply watched.
His throat tightened.
Grief was not an account to be balanced. It did not lessen with time.
He rose and crossed the room, stopping before the portrait, bitterness rising—not at her, but at the world that had taken her and left him standing in her place.
“I tried,” he said quietly.
She did not answer.
At last, Edward returned to his desk, dipped his pen, and wrote—because ink obeyed rules that grief never would.
And wondered, without allowing the thought a voice, whether the ache would ever fade. Or if he would only grow more practiced at carrying it.