Chapter 10 #2
The garden erupted into whispers.
“Did you see—” Eleanor breathed.
“Yes.”
“He defended the boy. Publicly. That wasn’t a performance, Maribel. That was real.”
“I know.”
Maribel watched Thaddeus disappear into the house. He’d just painted a target on his back for Oliver’s sake. Chosen protection over propriety.
“I need to—” She pulled free of Eleanor’s grip.
“Maribel, wait—”
But she was already moving.
She found him in the library. Of course. Men like Thaddeus always sought refuge among books.
He stood at the window, hands braced against the sill as though it alone kept him upright.
“I suspect the gossips will be occupied for weeks.”
He didn’t turn. Didn’t acknowledge her beyond a slight stiffening.
Maribel closed the door and crossed the room. “You defended him. In front of half of London, you defended Oliver.”
“He’s my ward. What else would you have me do?”
“Exactly what you did.” She stopped close enough to see his white-knuckled grip. “Though I didn’t expect it. You’ve maintained such careful distance. Then Hastings made one remark, and you—”
“He called the boy unsuitable.” Barely contained fury. “Suggested he was limited by circumstances beyond his control. As though a child’s worth could be measured by accidents of birth rather than—” He stopped.
“Rather than what?”
His hands tightened. “Rather than the person he is. Will become, if given half a chance.” He turned, and his expression stole her breath—naked, anguished. “Nicholas loved that boy. Loved him with everything he was. I will not allow society’s cruelty to define what Oliver can become.”
The words hung weighted with carefully contained grief.
“You loved Nicholas too,” Maribel said softly. “Like a brother.”
“Yes.”
“And Oliver reminds you of him. Of everything you lost.”
His throat worked. “Every day. Every time I look at that child, I see Nicholas. The way he tilts his head when thinking. His smile. The way he trusts you completely, like Nicholas trusted Margaret. It’s unbearable.”
“Yet you bear it anyway.”
“What choice do I have?” Bitter, defeated. “I promised Nicholas I’d keep his son safe. But I don’t know how to be what that child needs. I don’t know how to be warm when I’ve spent years building walls against the sort of attachment that leads to this—this consuming grief.”
Something cracked in Maribel’s chest. She stepped closer. “Keeping distance doesn’t protect you. Doesn’t protect him. It only ensures you both suffer alone.”
“If I let myself care too much, love him the way Nicholas did, and something happens—”
“Then you’ll grieve. As you’re already grieving, despite all your defences.” Her voice gentled. “You can’t prevent loss through emotional fortification. You can only ensure that when loss comes, you face it having lived and loved rather than merely walled yourself off in fear.”
Silence.
“I saw you,” she said quietly. “At Nicholas’s grave. The wildflowers. The way you spoke to him.”
He went rigid. “You shouldn’t have been there.”
“But I was. And I saw a man capable of extraordinary feeling despite every effort to convince himself otherwise.”
“Feeling is weakness.”
“Feeling is what makes us human.” She drew breath. “You left me a key. To the east wing. Why?”
His shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
“Then perhaps you should tell me.”
She ignored the bitterness. “I think you left it because some part of you recognises that sealing away the past hasn’t healed the wound. That opening those doors might let you breathe again.”
“Or it might destroy what little equilibrium I’ve managed to attain.”
“Is equilibrium truly what you have? Because you look like a man slowly suffocating under his own restraint.”
He turned, and the look in his eyes stole her breath—raw, desperate, hope warring with fear.
“What do you want from me, Maribel?”
The question hung between them.
What did she want? For him to lower his walls? Trust her with his grief? Look at her with something approaching warmth?
“I want you to stop punishing yourself for caring. For Oliver. For Nicholas’s memory. For—”
“For you?”
Soft as snow.
Her pulse hammered. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.” He moved closer—not touching, but near enough she felt his heat.
She stepped away from his intensity, her face flushed.
“This conversation is highly inappropriate.”
“We did away with propriety when you followed me here.” He stopped himself, jaw clenching. “You should go. Return to Eleanor. Pretend this never happened. Pretend we’re nothing more than two people bound by duty and a marriage neither wanted.”
“And if I don’t wish to pretend?”
He went still. His eyes searched her face with intensity that made her flush despite the chill.
“Then we’re both in considerably more trouble than I anticipated.”
The library door swung open.
Eleanor stood there, expression caught between exasperation and alarm. “Forgive the intrusion. Lady Whitmore has requested Lady Blackwood’s presence. Some matter regarding the incident in the garden.”
“Well,” Eleanor whispered with a glimmer of a smile as they left a seething Thaddeus in the library. “For all who believe this marriage is born of convenience, you just provided much fodder.”
The woman sounded positively gleeful, and Maribel looked at her aghast. “But… but it is convenience. We merely…”
“Oh, pish,” Eleanor interrupted. “You would much rather have them speculate about your marriage than about the boy’s suitability and future, would you not?”
There was nothing Maribel could do but nod.
She didn’t see Thaddeus again before the party ended.
Maribel returned to Blackwood just as twilight surrendered to darkness. Mrs. Allen waited with Oliver dancing impatiently at her side.
“Maribel!” He launched himself at her. “You were gone ages! Were there cakes?”
She gathered him close, breathing in soap and boy and unconditional affection. “Far too many cakes.”
“Did you bring me one?”
“I didn’t think of it. Shall I commission Cook to make something special tomorrow?”
His face brightened. “With icing?”
“What use is cake without icing?”
Mrs. Allen cleared her throat. “His Grace returned an hour past, my lady. He asked that you attend him in his study.”
The flutter in Maribel’s chest had nothing to do with anxiety.
“Thank you.” She set Oliver down. “Run to the nursery. I’ll come read shortly.”
“Promise?”
“Have I ever broken a promise?”
He considered this theatrically before shaking his head, then raced upstairs.
Maribel stood in the entrance hall, heart beating too fast, hands smoothing over her skirts.
The study waited.
She moved through corridors with measured steps, rehearsing opening remarks. But when she reached the door, all planning dissolved.
It stood open.
Thaddeus sat at his desk, staring at something in his hands—something small, precious enough to command complete attention.
She knocked softly.
He looked up, vulnerability in his expression. Quickly—too quickly—the mask fell back. He set down what he’d been holding.
“Lady Blackwood. Thank you for coming. I wished to discuss this afternoon.”
She entered. “You needn’t apologise for defending Oliver.”
“I wasn’t intending to apologise. I wished to ensure Hastings’s remarks hadn’t distressed you. You left rather precipitously.”
“I left to find you.”
The admission hung between them.
Thaddeus rose. Maribel’s eyes were drawn to the object on his desk—a miniature portrait in gold. A smaller copy of the same portrait she had seen in the east wing.
His mother.
“The key I gave you,” he said abruptly. “You haven’t used it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to wait. Until you were ready. Until you could—”
“Until I could open them with you?”
Soft. Almost tentative.
She looked at him—truly looked—and saw not the Duke with his rigid control, but simply a man. Wounded, grieving, trying desperately to find his way back to wholeness.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He held her gaze. Then crossed to where she stood, stopping close enough that she had to tilt her head back.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “If you’re willing. I’ll show you my mother’s rooms tomorrow.”
Not a command. Not quite a request.
An offering. A first step toward trust.
“I would be honoured.”
He nodded. Perhaps she glimpsed relief in his eyes.
Then he stepped back, restoring distance. “You should see to Oliver. He’s been asking for you.”
Gentle but unmistakable dismissal.
Maribel curtsied—absurd, formal—and turned toward the door.
“Maribel.”
She stopped and turned back. There was something in his voice that was—as Eleanor would have called it—beyond indifference.
When she looked back, he was watching her with an expression she couldn’t decipher.
“Thank you. For what you said. In the library. I’ve been considering it.”
She didn’t trust herself to speak. Could only nod and slip into the corridor.
As she climbed toward the nursery, Maribel pressed her hand against her chest where her heart beat its wild, treacherous rhythm.
Tomorrow, she feared, the walls might begin to crumble.