Chapter Nineteen
The air in Vienna was warm, sunlight pouring through the tall embassy windows with the brightness of late spring. Outside, carriages rattled along the cobbled streets, and somewhere, a violin drifted faintly from an open café.
Within, however, the air felt still—weighted by dust, ink, and the dull scrape of pen against paper.
William set aside the dispatch he’d been reviewing and rubbed the bridge of his nose. A small knock sounded at the door. The young clerk from the outer office stepped in, a small bundle of correspondence in hand.
“Your morning post, my lord,” he said, setting the letters neatly on the blotter.
Official seals, embassy reports—and, inevitably—two envelopes written in hands he knew too well.
His mother’s—elegant and precise.
Victoria’s—soft, slanted, and nearly pleading in its eagerness to be read.
The clerk lingered politely. “Will you require replies sent, my lord?”
William’s gaze rested on the envelopes. “No. Not today.”
“Very good, sir. Then I’ll see you in the morning.”
When the door closed again, silence reclaimed the room. William reached for the envelopes, turning them once between his gloved fingers before carrying them to the small iron grate beside the hearth. He touched a taper to the edge of one, then the other, and dropped them into the coals.
The flame caught slowly, curling the edges inward until the wax softened and the parchment folded in upon itself like a dying thing. He watched it burn without a flicker of feeling.
A knock came again—light, uncertain. “My lord?”
It was Harrington, one of the junior secretaries. A good-natured sort, always eager to please.
“The others are gathering at the gentlemen’s club on the Ringstrasse this evening,” he said, stepping just inside the door. “A small supper, and perhaps the theatre after. Would you care to join us?”
William looked up from his desk, the question hanging in the warm air between them.
“Thank you, no,” he said at last. “I have work to finish.”
Harrington hesitated. “Forgive me, sir, but you’ve had work to finish every night since you arrived.”
“Then you see my point,” William replied, his tone even but not unkind.
A flicker of sympathy crossed the young man’s face, but he only nodded and withdrew. The door closed softly, leaving William alone once more with the hum of the city beyond and the quiet crackle of burning paper.
He leaned back in his chair, staring at the slant of sunlight falling across the floorboards.
It was a good post—honourable, respectable, useful.
In the year since his arrival, he had carried out every task set before him, earned several commendations for his work abroad, and had even been summoned to London twice for private audience with the Queen.
He had given the Crown everything that remained of him.
And yet, some days, he could scarcely remember why.
The sharp scent of burned paper still lingered in the air. He pressed his fingers to his temple, and without intending to, his mind slipped backward—beyond the embassy’s stillness, beyond the warmth of late spring—to the morning he had left England behind.
***
The house had still been draped in black.
For the second morning in a row, rain fell in a steady, unbroken curtain, turning the stone steps slick and sending silver threads of water running toward the carriage yard. The air smelled of damp stone and rain-soaked earth.
He stood beside the carriage, gloved hands steady though his pulse was not, while his trunks were loaded and the horses stamped restlessly.
“William!”
His mother’s voice cut through the drizzle. She appeared on the steps, rain falling in relentless sheets and already darkening her black mourning gown, the fabric clinging where it soaked through, anger bright in her eyes.
“Where do you think you are going, William?” she demanded.
“You think you can simply disappear because you wish to? Desert everything because you feel poorly about your own choices? You owe me grandchildren! Do you hear me? I gave up love for this family—to do what was required of me—and you will do the same!”
Not bothering to answer her, he moved toward the carriage door.
Suddenly, behind him, she screamed,
“Do not walk away from me! You are the Earl of Ashford now—your duty is to continue this family’s lineage, to carry on the Ashford name!”
At her shouted words, he turned abruptly, rain running off his coat in dark rivers, his expression carved from stone.
“You wanted our reputation pristine—along with the money and the title, Mother,” he said quietly.
“You schemed and manipulated for it. Hear me now, Mother—and understand me. Keep it. Keep this house. It will be your palace—and your prison. I’ve made it clear to our other residences that you and Victoria are not to be received there, and none of our peers will welcome you—by my word. And I will never rescind it.”
Her face went pale. “You dare—”
“Yes,” he said simply. “I dare.”
A sob broke from the open doorway of the manor.
Victoria stood there, her mourning gown rumpled, her face blotched from crying. For one strange, fleeting moment, he almost believed her tears.
“I am your wife,” she whispered. “You can’t just leave.”
Whatever faint civility he had once managed toward her turned to ash.
“You are a wife in name only,” he said. “Everything you are, Victoria, exists in name alone—wife, Countess of Ashford. I warned you of that when you took the ring.”
“You would doom us all to ruin?” his mother hissed.
“The Ashford name is already ruined,” he replied. “And I mean to see it end with me.”
He stepped into the carriage. Behind him, Victoria’s voice rose to a shriek—“This isn’t what I was promised!”—and his mother’s furious cry echoed after it. But the door closed, the horses lurched forward, and the rain swallowed their voices.
He did not look back.
***
The memory dissolved, leaving only the ache.
He turned away from the window, his hand drifting to the inside pocket of his coat—where his pocketbook lay, the worn letter from Thomas Hayes folded carefully inside. Its edges had softened with time. He never read it anymore, yet he could not bring himself to part with it.
“You’re long gone, Violet Hayes,” he murmured. “God forgive me for not being a stronger man—for not being the man you deserved, for not keeping the promises I made to you.”
He pulled his hand away at last.
Reaching for the next dispatch, he dipped his pen.
The letters from home had burned to ash. Sunlight lay warm across the desk, at odds with the cold gathering in his chest.
Outside, the bells rang the hour—clear and bright against the spring air.
And William Ashford, Earl of Ashford, went on writing—dutiful, silent, and alone.