Chapter 34
“You have not gone out in weeks.”
Hugo sprawled in the leather chair across from Edward’s desk, a glass of brandy dangling from his fingers. The afternoon light slanted through the study windows, catching the dust motes suspended in the air.
“I go out regularly.” Edward did not look up from his correspondence. “We attended the Ashworth ball last week, as you know, and the theater the week before.”
“That is not what I mean, and you know it.” Hugo swirled his brandy. “The tavern. The fights. You have not been in over a month.”
Edward set down his pen. He had not consciously stopped boxing.
Had not made a resolution or set a date.
He had simply stopped needing it. The restless energy that had once driven him to seek violence in basement taverns had quieted, replaced by something calmer. Something that felt like contentment.
“I have been otherwise occupied.”
Hugo’s grin was knowing. “Yes. I imagine you have.” He raised his glass in a mock toast. “Marriage suits you, Edward. I never thought I would say it, but here we are.”
Edward did not deny it. He could not. The evidence was written across his face, in the ease of his posture, in the smile that came more readily now than it ever had before.
Sophia had done this. Had reached past his defenses and found something worth saving. He still did not fully understand what she saw in him, what scraps of value she had discovered beneath the walls and the silence. But he would take those scraps and build them into something worthy of her.
Something she deserved.
That evening, Edward found Sophia in the library.
She was curled in the window seat, a book open in her lap, the fading light painting her features in shades of gold and amber. She looked up when he entered, her face brightening in a way that still surprised him, still made his chest feel too full.
“There you are.” She set aside her book. “I was thinking Hugo had kidnapped you.”
“He tried.” Edward crossed to the window seat and settled beside her. “I resisted.”
Sophia shifted to make room for him, her shoulder brushing against his. The contact was casual, familiar, the easy intimacy of two people who had learned to exist in each other’s space.
“You seem tense.” She studied his face. “Is something troubling you?”
Edward looked out the window at the garden below. The roses were blooming, late summer colors spilling across the manicured paths. He had walked those paths as a child, before everything had changed. Before his mother had vanished and his father had turned to stone.
“There are things I have not told you.” The words emerged slowly, dragged from somewhere deep. “About my family. About why I am the way I am.”
Sophia was quiet. She did not push, nor did she press. She simply waited, her hand finding his and holding on.
“My father was not always cold.” Edward began. “When I was very young, I remember him laughing. Playing with Leonard and me in the garden. Reading to us before bed.” He paused. “I remember my mother. Her smile. Her voice. The way she would sing when she thought no one was listening.”
“What happened?” Sophia’s voice was soft.
“I don’t know the full truth. I was ten years old, and the adults didn’t explain things to children.
” Edward’s jaw tightened. “What I know is that my parents’ marriage was not happy.
My father was demanding, critical, and impossible to please.
My mother tried, but nothing she did was ever enough.
He wanted perfection. She was merely human. ”
The memories surfaced, hazy and fragmented. His mother’s red-rimmed eyes at breakfast. His father’s bitter silences that could last for days. The way the house had felt like a battlefield, even when no shots were fired.
“One night, I heard them arguing.” Edward’s voice dropped.
“Louder than usual. My father accused her of… I did not understand at the time. Something about a letter. About someone she had been meeting.” He shook his head.
“I crept out of bed and hid at the top of the stairs. I saw my mother in the entrance hall wearing her traveling cloak. She had a valise in her hand.”
Sophia’s grip on his hand tightened.
“My father stood in the doorway of his study. He told her that if she left, she could never return. That he would erase her from our lives. That Leonard and I would forget she ever existed.” Edward closed his eyes.
“She looked up the stairs. I think she saw me. I think she knew I was watching. And then she opened the door and walked out into the night.”
“Oh, Edward.” Sophia’s voice was thick with emotion.
“She never came back.” He opened his eyes, staring at the roses below without seeing them.
“The next morning, my father gathered the servants and informed them that the duchess had died. That her name was never to be spoken again. That any portrait or reminder of her was to be removed and destroyed.”
“But she didn’t die.”
“I don’t know.” The admission burned. “There were rumors. That she drowned herself in the Thames. That she ran away with a lover. That my father had her killed and buried in secret.” He exhaled roughly.
“I spent years trying to find the truth. But my father had erased every trace of her so thoroughly that it was as though she had never existed at all.”
Sophia shifted closer, her shoulder pressing against his, offering warmth and solidarity without words.
“After she left, my father changed.” Edward continued.
“The man who had laughed and played with us disappeared. In his place, there was someone made of ice. He raised Leonard and me to believe that emotion was weakness. That love was a trap. That the only things that mattered were duty, legacy, and the Heatherwell name.”
“And Leonard?”
Edward’s throat tightened. “Leonard was different. He refused to become what our father wanted. He held onto warmth, onto hope, onto the belief that love was worth the risk.” A bitter smile crossed his face.
“I envied him. And I resented him. Because he was brave enough to feel, and I was too afraid.”
“When he met Jane…” Sophia prompted gently.
“When he met Jane, he was transformed.” Edward’s voice softened at the memory. “I had never seen him so happy. So alive. He spoke of her constantly. Made plans for their future. He was certain that if he could just introduce her to our father, make him see how wonderful she was…” He trailed off.
“It did not go well.”
“It was a disaster.” Edward’s jaw clenched.
“Jane’s family was not wealthy enough, not connected enough, not anything enough for the Duke of Heatherwell.
Our father forbade the match. When Leonard refused to comply, our father disowned him.
Threw him out of the house with nothing but the clothes on his back. ”
“And you?”
The question cut deep. Edward looked down at their joined hands, at Sophia’s fingers intertwined with his.
“I did nothing.” The words tasted like ash.
“I stood in the corner of that room and watched my father destroy my brother’s life, and I said nothing.
Did nothing. I was too afraid of becoming the next target.
Too afraid of losing my position, my inheritance, my place in a family that had already proven it could erase people without a second thought. ”
“You were young.” Sophia’s voice held no judgment. “You were afraid.”
“I was a coward.” Edward’s voice cracked. “Leonard left. He married Jane anyway and made a life for himself. A good life. A happy life. And I stayed behind, becoming exactly what our father wanted me to be. Cold. Controlled. Alone.”
He pulled his hand free and rose from the window seat, pacing to the fireplace. He could not look at her. Could not bear to see pity in her eyes.
“I tried to reach out. After our father died. I wrote to Leonard and asked him to come back to London to let me help him and Jane establish themselves properly.” He gripped the mantelpiece.
“He refused. Said he was happy where he was, that he did not need the Heatherwell name or the Heatherwell fortune. He had everything he needed.”
“He loved Jane,” Sophia said quietly. “He loved the life they had built together.”
“He did.” Edward’s voice broke. “And I could not understand it. I could not understand how he could be so content with so little, when I had everything and felt nothing.” He pressed his forehead against the cool marble.
“And then they died. And I was left with Oliver, and all I could think was that if I had tried harder, if I had fought for them, if I had defied our father the way Leonard did…”
He could not finish. The words tangled in his throat, choked by grief and guilt and years of unspoken regret.
Sophia crossed the room. He heard her footsteps, felt her presence behind him. And then her arms wrapped around his waist, her cheek pressing against his back.
“You cannot blame yourself for things that were beyond your control.” Her voice was fierce and tender all at once. “The carriage accident was not your fault. Leonard’s choices were not your fault. Your father’s cruelty was not your fault.”
“If I had brought them back to London—”
“Then they might have died in London instead.” She tightened her arms around him. “Or they might have been miserable, trapped in a world that looked down on Jane for her birth. You cannot know, Edward. You cannot rewrite history based on might-have-beens.”
He turned in her arms, facing her. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, her expression open and unguarded.
“Leonard told me some things.” She reached up and cupped his face in her hands. “About your father. About the way you were raised. But I didn’t know the full extent. I did not know about your mother, or about the night she left.” Her thumbs traced his cheekbones. “Thank you for telling me.”
“I did not want to become him.” Edward’s voice emerged rough.
“My father. I did not want my marriage to be what his was. Cold and bitter and destroying everyone it touched.” He closed his eyes.
“That is why I kept my distance and why I was so afraid to let you in. Because I thought that wanting you, needing you, would only lead to pain.”
“Edward.” Sophia waited until he opened his eyes. “You are not your father.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because you care.” Her voice was steady, certain.
“Because you try. Your father demanded perfection and gave nothing in return. You have spent weeks learning to open your heart, to connect with Oliver, to let me in despite how terrifying it must be.” She smiled, soft and sad.
“The very fact that you are afraid of becoming him proves that you never will.”
He stared at her, this woman who had seen his worst and chosen to stay. Who had listened to his darkest confessions and offered comfort instead of condemnation.
“I don’t deserve you.”
“Perhaps not.” Her smile turned mischievous. “But you are stuck with me, nonetheless.”
A laugh escaped him, unexpected and raw. He pulled her into his arms and held her tight, his face buried in her hair, his heart pounding against her ribs.
“Thank you.” He whispered the words against her temple. “For listening. For understanding. For being here.”
“Always.” She pressed a kiss to his jaw. “I will always be here.”
They stood together in the fading light, wrapped in each other’s arms, the weight of the past finally beginning to lift.