Chapter 17
“The carriage is ready, Your Grace.”
It was Walton who spoke—his butler, and though it made no sense at all, Thaddeus felt rather betrayed by the man.
He could see her there. Maribel, standing in the centre of that vast marble expanse, her travelling cloak fastened at her throat, her hair pinned back, her face pale.
Two footmen carried her trunk past her—a single trunk, nothing more.
She was leaving as she had come, with almost nothing to show for the months she had spent here.
Good. That was as it should be. Clean. Uncomplicated.
He told himself that as he watched her turn toward the stairs leading to the nursery wing. He ignored the ache that settled in his chest.
She was going to say goodbye to Oliver.
Thaddeus hesitated as his eyes followed her. He should stop her. The boy was already too attached, and this farewell would only make tomorrow more difficult. When the carriage arrived to take the boy to Ashford Academy, he’d have to be calm and collected—not crying for his aunt.
But Thaddeus did not move.
He stood at the window and told himself he was being merciful. One final goodbye. Then it would be finished, and they could all move forward.
The sound of a door opening carried down from the nursery wing. Then, softer—barely audible from this distance—Oliver’s voice.
“But why are you leaving?”
Thaddeus’s hand tightened on the window frame.
He could not hear Maribel’s response. Could not see them from this angle.
But he could imagine it—the way she would kneel to the boy’s level, the way her voice would soften with that gentleness she reserved only for the child.
The way Oliver would look at her with those enormous dark eyes that held far too much pain for a five-year-old.
Sending him away was best for him. At school, surrounded by other boys, engaged in proper studies, Oliver would adjust. He would forget this chaos. He would learn that feelings were temporary, that structure was permanent, that order was the only true safety.
Thaddeus had learned it. Oliver would too.
The minutes stretched. Thaddeus remained at his post, watching the empty entrance hall, listening to the muffled sounds from above.
Mrs. Allen appeared below, directing two maids in some menial task.
She glanced up toward where he stood, and even from this distance, he saw the look on her weathered face.
She disapproved of the decisions he had made of late.
He looked away.
She did not understand. None of them did. They saw Maribel’s warmth and Oliver’s attachment and assumed that was enough. They did not see the danger in it—the inevitable loss that came from needing people too much, from allowing affection to compromise judgment.
His mother had loved his father that way.
Completely. Without reservation. And when she died, his father had fallen apart so thoroughly that he might as well have died with her.
Thaddeus had watched it happen—watched a man of strength and dignity crumble into nothing because he had allowed himself to need someone that desperately.
He would not make that mistake. And he would not allow Oliver to make it either. And it was none of their business.
Footsteps on the stairs drew his attention back to the entrance hall.
Maribel descended slowly, her hand on the banister, her posture.
Behind her, farther up the staircase, Oliver stood frozen in the nursery corridor.
His small figure was barely visible in the shadows, but Thaddeus could see the way he clutched something pale against his chest. A handkerchief, perhaps.
Maribel reached the bottom of the stairs and did not look back.
Good, Thaddeus thought. Better for the boy if she made it quick.
She crossed the entrance hall toward the door.
“Oh, Your Grace…” Lady Allen sounded rather emotional—not something he had heard from her before. “Are you certain…”
“Yes.” Maribel’s voice was clear—felt too clear, too certain. “It must be this way.”
Then Maribel walked to the door.
She paused at the threshold and turned, just once, to look back at the house.
Her gaze travelled up the staircase, past the portraits and the marble columns, and found him standing at the window above.
Their eyes met.
Thaddeus felt a sharp pain in his chest, one that spread all through his body. He could see her face clearly now, the way the pale morning light caught the angles of her features. She looked exhausted. Grief-worn. And yet…
There was something else in her eyes.
Pity, he realised and the pain disappeared—replaced by anger at once.
He straightened, his spine rigid, his expression schooling itself into neutrality. He would not be pitied. Especially not by her.
This was her choice. She was the one leaving.
Maribel held his gaze for another moment. Then she turned and walked out the door.
Thaddeus watched as she descended the steps. The driver handed her into the carriage. The door closed with a soft click that echoed across the courtyard.
The carriage lurched forward.
He remained at the window, watching as it rolled down the drive, past the fountain, past the ancient oaks. The morning light caught on the polished wood of the vehicle, making it gleam like something precious disappearing into the distance.
The carriage rounded the eastern bend, where the restored garden spread along the boundary wall. Even from here, Thaddeus could see the roses—crimson and pink, climbing the weathered stone in cascades of bloom. Lavender lined the paths. The bench sat waiting beneath its arch of clematis.
Maribel had done that. Brought his mother’s garden back from abandonment. He had not asked her to. Had not even known she was doing it until she presented it to him like a gift.
A gift he had barely acknowledged.
The carriage passed the garden and disappeared through the gates.
Gone.
Thaddeus exhaled slowly and turned from the window.
The house settled around him—the familiar creak of floorboards, the distant murmur of servants resuming their tasks, the steady tick of the clock in the entrance hall. Sounds that had always meant order. Control. Everything in its proper place.
Now they sounded like nothing.
He descended the stairs. Mrs. Allen stood near the base, her hands folded before her, her eyes downcast. She curtsied as he approached.
“Your Grace.”
“Mrs. Allen.” He paused, then added, “Ensure the nursery is prepared for departure tomorrow morning. The carriage for Ashford Academy will arrive at nine o’clock.”
Something passed across the housekeeper’s face—too quick for him to name. Then it was gone, replaced by professional courtesy.
“Of course, Your Grace. Shall I have the boy’s belongings packed?”
“Yes. The trunk sent ahead last week should suffice. Nothing excessive. The school provides most necessities.”
“Very good, Your Grace.”
She curtsied again and moved away without meeting his eyes.
Thaddeus continued toward his study, aware—gradually, uncomfortably—of the way servants shifted as he passed.
They bowed and curtsied as required, but there was something stiff in their movements now.
A distance that he had not been aware of before Maribel came to fill this place with her chaos and her warmth.
A maid carrying linens pressed herself against the wall to let him pass, her gaze fixed firmly on the floor. A footman in the corridor turned and walked the other direction rather than cross his path.
They were avoiding him.
An irritation welled up in him. He was their employer. Their respect was a courtesy owed by station, not something earned or lost based on personal judgment.
He hastened his movements, keeping his gaze firmly ahead of him.
When finally, he reached his study and closed the door, it felt as though he had shut out the oppressive quiet of the house. Here, at least, everything remained exactly as it should be.
He crossed to the window.
The garden was visible from this angle—that splash of colour against the manicured green. Roses swaying in the breeze. Paths lined with lavender. Beautiful and alive and utterly wasted on a house where no one walked there anymore.
His mother would have loved it. Would have spent every morning there, tending the flowers, planning new arrangements, sitting on that bench with her embroidery and her quiet contentment.
But his mother was dead. Had been dead for eight years. And the garden she had loved had died with her, because maintaining it—looking at it, remembering her in it—had been more than his father could bear.
Thaddeus had understood that then. Understood the necessity of closing away the parts of life that held too much memory, too much feeling. Grief was chaos. Distance was survival.
He had built his entire adult life on that principle.
And it had worked. It had kept him safe, kept him functional, kept him from falling apart the way his father had.
So why did the house feel so empty now?
He turned from the window and sat at his desk. Work. There was always work. Ledgers to review, correspondence to answer, estate business that required his attention. He would occupy himself with tasks that demanded precision rather than emotion, and this hollow ache would pass.
It had to pass.
An hour later, he set down his pen and stared at the page before him.
He had written the same line three times. Each time, the words had come out wrong—letters transposed, meanings muddled. His hand was steady. His mind was not.
He pushed the papers aside and rose.
The clock on the mantel read half past eleven. Oliver would be in the nursery now, probably wondering where Maribel was and when she’d be back. Perhaps crying for her.
Tomorrow would fix that. He would learn structure. Order. Exactly what he had planned for the boy before…
No. He would not think of the before.
Thaddeus made his way upstairs.
The nursery door stood ajar. He pushed it open without knocking.
Oliver sat on the floor near the window, his wooden horse abandoned beside him.
He held something pale in his hands—the handkerchief Maribel had given him, Thaddeus inferred.
Blue silk with embroidered flowers. The boy’s fingers traced the stitching over and over, a repetitive motion that spoke of a desperate search for comfort.
“Oliver.”
The child did not look up.
Thaddeus stepped into the room. “Oliver, I am speaking to you.”
Finally, slowly, the boy raised his head. His eyes were red-rimmed and empty. Not angry. Not defiant. Just... vacant. As though some essential part of him had shut down entirely.
“She’s gone,” Oliver said. His voice was flat. “You made her leave.”
“She chose to leave,” Thaddeus corrected, his tone measured. “And tomorrow, you will be leaving as well. For school. Where you will learn proper discipline and—”
“I don’t want to go away to school.”
“What you want is immaterial. You are going.”
Oliver’s grip tightened on the handkerchief. “She said she loves me. She said that doesn’t change.”
“Yes. Well.” Thaddeus folded his arms. “People say many things. What matters is what they do. And what we will do is ensure you receive the education you require.”
“I don’t care about education.”
“You will care when you are older and understand that structure—”
“I just want her back!” The words burst from Oliver with sudden violence. “I want Mama! I want Papa! I want Maribel! I don’t want you, I don’t want school, I don’t want any of this!”
The boy was on his feet now, his small frame shaking, tears streaming down his face. “I hate you! I hate you, I hate you, I hate—”
“That is enough.”
Thaddeus’s voice cut through the tirade like a blade. Oliver stopped mid-breath, his mouth open, his eyes filled with angry tears and red blotches on his face.
Silence crashed down between them.
Thaddeus stared at the boy—this small, broken creature who had lost everything and was now losing what little remained.
Thaddeus swallowed as he became aware of a vast and terrible feeling trying to claw its way up from beneath the walls he had built, but he forced it back down with the discipline of long practice.
“You will pack your belongings,” he said quietly. “You will eat your meals. And tomorrow morning, you will board the carriage to Ashford Academy without complaint. Is that understood?”
Oliver’s chin trembled. “I want Maribel.”
“Lady Maribel is gone. She is not coming back. And we will respect her choice.”
“She loved me!” Oliver’s voice cracked. “She loved me, she loved me like mama and papa, and you don’t!”
Thaddeus could only stare at the boy. Of course he loved him, he wanted to say. But did he?
Of course he… cared for the boy. But love?
He could hardly remember what that was.
He swallowed dryly on a lump forming in his throat.
Tomorrow Oliver would be gone. The house would be empty. And Thaddeus would be exactly what he had always been—alone. Safe. Untouched by the chaos of feeling.
It was what he had wanted.
Wasn’t it?
He turned and walked to the door.
“Mrs. Allen will pack your things,” he said without looking back. “The carriage arrives at nine.”
He closed the door behind him and stood in the corridor.
From within the nursery came the sound of renewed weeping—muffled and exhausted and utterly devastating.
Thaddeus made his way downstairs and returned to his study.
He sat at his desk.
The clock ticked steadily. The house remained quiet. Beyond the window, the garden bloomed in colours his mother would have loved.
And Thaddeus Blackwood told himself, over and over, that he had done what was right.
It was better than admitting that everything had become a disaster that was out of control… and that he only had himself to blame.