Chapter 30 #2
Edward watched from the drawing room window as Sophia ran to embrace her mother, the two of them laughing and talking over each other. Lady Brimsey cupped her daughter’s face, examining her with a mother’s critical eye, then nodded with apparent satisfaction.
When Lord Brimsey appeared in the doorway, his wife’s face transformed. The years fell away, and for a moment, Edward glimpsed the young woman she must have been when they first fell in love.
“Richard.” Lady Brimsey crossed to her husband and took his hands in hers. “You look well.”
“I feel well.” Lord Brimsey raised her hands to his lips. “Better now that you are here.”
They stood together, speaking in low voices, their bodies angled toward each other with the ease of long intimacy. Lady Brimsey laughed at something her husband said. Lord Brimsey smiled down at her with such open adoration that Edward had to look away.
This was what marriage could be. Not duty. Not obligation. Not the careful distance he and Sophia maintained. This was a partnership. Affection. Love that had weathered decades and emerged stronger.
He glanced at Sophia. She stood watching her parents with a soft smile, her eyes bright. As though sensing his gaze, she turned. Their eyes met.
She looked away first.
Dinner that evening was warm and chaotic in a way Edward had never experienced.
Oliver sat at the table with the adults, a concession Lord Brimsey had insisted upon.
The boy behaved better than expected, charming everyone with his stories and his earnest questions.
Lady Brimsey doted on him. Lord Brimsey asked his opinions on important matters like the superiority of chocolate pudding over treacle tart.
Edward found himself relaxing in a way he rarely did.
The Brimsey family welcomed him without pretense, without the careful maneuvering he was accustomed to in society.
They teased each other. They laughed. They spoke of memories and mishaps with the easy affection of people who genuinely enjoyed each other’s company.
After the main course, Lord Brimsey raised his glass.
“A toast.” He looked around the table, his gaze lingering on each face.
“To family. The one we are born into, and the one we choose.” His eyes found Edward.
“Your Grace, I know the circumstances that brought you to my daughter were not ideal. I know that my failures placed burdens on her that no young woman should bear.”
“Papa.” Sophia’s voice was soft with warning.
“Let me say this.” Lord Brimsey held up a hand.
“I have watched you today with my daughter, with this wonderful boy. And I have seen something that gives me hope.” He paused.
“Marriage can begin in many ways. Some begin with love. Some begin with necessity. But what matters is not where you start. It is where you choose to go.”
Edward felt the words settle into his chest, heavy with meaning.
“I spent thirty years loving a woman I did not deserve.” Lord Brimsey smiled at his wife. “And every day, I chose to try to be worthy of her. That is all any of us can do. Choose, every day, to show up. To try. To love.”
Lady Brimsey reached over and took her husband’s hand. Oliver watched with wide eyes, absorbing the moment without fully understanding it.
Edward looked at Sophia. She was staring at her plate, her cheeks flushed, her fingers tight around her fork.
“To family.” Lord Brimsey raised his glass higher. “And to the courage to build something worth keeping.”
They drank. The conversation resumed. But Edward could not shake the feeling that something had shifted, some wall had cracked, some truth had been spoken that he could not unhear.
Choose, every day, to show up. To try.
To love.
Was he brave enough to make that choice?
The household retired early, exhausted from travel and emotion.
Edward stood at the window of his guest chamber, staring out at the moonlit gardens. The manor was quiet around him, the country silence so different from the constant noise of London.
He thought of Lord Brimsey’s words. Of Sophia’s flushed cheeks. Of the way she had looked at him across the dinner table, uncertain and hopeful and guarded all at once.
He thought of his confession in her chambers. The desire he had admitted to. The wall he had thrown up between them the moment the words left his mouth.
He thought of Oliver, nestled against Lord Brimsey in the drawing room, listening to stories about Sophia as a child. The boy had fallen asleep with a smile on his face, surrounded by people who loved him simply for existing.
This was what family could be. What it should be.
And Sophia had given it to them. Had orchestrated this visit, had pushed him to connect with Oliver, had opened doors he had not known were closed.
Edward turned from the window. His gaze fell on the door that connected his chamber to the one next door.
Sophia’s chamber.
His feet carried him across the room before he could think better of it. His hand rose to knock.
He hesitated, his knuckles hovering an inch from the wood.
What was he doing? What did he intend to say? That her father’s words had broken something open inside him? That he wanted to stop running, stop hiding, stop pretending that this marriage was nothing more than a convenient arrangement?
He knocked.
The sound echoed in the quiet room. Edward waited, his heart pounding against his ribs, his breath caught in his throat.
He heard movement on the other side. Soft footsteps approaching.
The door opened.