Chapter 15 #2
“You gave us what we needed.” Her voice was firm now, brooking no argument. “Space. Time. The freedom to find our footing without anyone watching our every move or judging how we grieved.” She met his eyes directly. “I am grateful for that, my lord. Truly.”
The formal address stung more than it should have. When had she started calling him ‘my lord’ again? During their correspondence, perhaps, when distance had made such formality safer.
“Tobias,” he said before he could stop himself. “Please. We’re family, after all.”
“Are we?” She tilted her head slightly, and for one terrible moment, he thought she might argue the point. Then her expression softened fractionally. “Yes. I suppose we are.”
The maid in the corner cleared her throat delicately. “Begging your pardon, my lady, but shall I take Master Henry for his afternoon rest?”
“Please, Mary. Thank you.”
Henry, predictably, objected to this interruption of his architectural pursuits with the vehemence of a barrister arguing before the House of Lords.
But Mary, clearly experienced in such matters, simply scooped him up and distracted him with promises of biscuits and stories.
He went willingly enough once food entered the equation, though he did turn back to wave enthusiastically at Tobias.
“Bye-bye, Papa! Come back soon!”
“I will, lad,” Tobias promised, his voice rough. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The words hung in the air with more weight than intended. When he looked back at Amelia, she was watching him with that same unreadable expression, her fingers twisted together in a gesture that suggested her composure cost more than she wanted to reveal.
“Walk with me?” he asked impulsively. “If you’ve time, that is. I should like to hear about all you’ve accomplished these past months. The gardens especially—you mentioned in your letters that you’d undertaken some restoration work.”
She hesitated just long enough to make him wonder if she might refuse. Then she nodded, that careful control still firmly in place.
“Of course. I should be happy to show you what we’ve done.”
They walked side by side down the corridor, maintaining a proper distance that felt like miles.
The house had indeed changed—subtly, but unmistakably.
Lighter curtains. Fresh flowers in vases on the hall tables.
Portraits rearranged so that Edward’s stern visage no longer dominated every wall.
Small alterations that collectively transformed the entire atmosphere from mausoleum to home.
“You’ve worked miracles,” he said as they descended the main staircase. “The house feels... it feels alive again.”
“It needed to be.” She trailed one hand along the banister, her gaze distant. “I needed it to be. I couldn’t bear another day in that oppressive darkness, pretending grief I didn’t entirely feel whilst the walls closed in around us.”
The confession startled him into stopping mid-step. She’d never spoken so openly before about her marriage, about Edward, about any of it.
She must have realized what she’d revealed, because colour flooded her cheeks and she looked away quickly. “Forgive me. That was... I shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t.” He caught her hand before she could retreat, then immediately released it as though burned. Touching her—even that brief, glancing contact—sent electricity racing through his veins. “Please. Don’t apologize for honesty. You’ve earned the right to speak truthfully about your own life.”
She looked at him then, really looked at him, and something in her expression made his heart skip a beat. Gratitude, yes. But beneath it, something else. Something that made his carefully constructed resolutions waver dangerously.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “Not many would be so understanding.”
“I knew Edward.” The words came out harsher than intended. “I know exactly what living with him must have entailed.”
They continued walking, the moment passing but leaving something altered in its wake.
The gardens, when they reached them, proved even more dramatically transformed than the house.
What had been Edward’s rigidly formal arrangements—symmetrical hedges and regimented flower beds that looked more like military formations than living things—had given way to something softer. Wilder. More beautiful by far.
“You did all this?” He stared at the riot of colour, the climbing roses cascading over newly installed trellises, the herb garden that hadn’t existed before.
“Mrs. Boldwood helped. And the gardeners, of course. But the design was mine.” Pride coloured her voice, warm and unmistakable.
“I remembered how gardens used to be at my father’s estate—before he died and we lost everything.
This was my attempt to recreate that feeling. That sense of... abundance. Of life.”
He wanted to tell her it was brilliant. Wanted to say that she’d taken his brother’s cold perfection and transformed it into something that made his chest ache with longing. But the words tangled on his tongue, emerging instead as, “It’s remarkable. You’re remarkable.”
She glanced at him sharply, wariness flickering across her features. “You needn’t flatter me, my lord.”
“I’m not—” He dragged a hand through his hair, frustrated by his own ineptitude. “Forgive me. I’m making a hash of this. What I meant to say is that you’ve clearly flourished here. Without me underfoot, managing your affairs and generally being a nuisance.”
“You were never a nuisance.” Her voice softened fractionally. “Unexpected, perhaps. Complicated, certainly. But never a nuisance.”
They walked in silence through the transformed gardens, and Tobias tried desperately to think of something—anything—to bridge this strange distance between them.
He’d imagined this moment so many times during his exile in London.
Had rehearsed speeches, planned declarations, convinced himself that upon seeing her again, everything would become clear.
Instead, he felt lost. Adrift in ways that had nothing to do with the gardens and everything to do with the woman beside him, who’d somehow become more herself in his absence and more unreachable because of it.
“You seem different,” he said at last, when the silence had stretched too long. “Stronger. More... settled, I suppose.”
“I am.” She stopped beside a rose bush, running her fingers over the petals with unconscious grace.
“The time alone—it gave me space to remember who I was before Edward. Before the marriage. Before I learned to make myself small enough to fit the life he required.” She looked up, meeting his eyes with unexpected directness.
“Thank you for that. For giving me the freedom to find myself again.”
The gratitude in her voice should have pleased him. Instead, it felt like a blade sliding between his ribs.
“Of course,” he managed. “It was the least I could do.”
“Was it?” Something flickered in her expression—there and gone too quickly to identify. “Most men in your position would have insisted on maintaining control. On ensuring the widow remained properly subdued and grateful for their benevolence.”
“I’m not most men.”
“No.” She held his gaze for a heartbeat longer. “You’re not.”
The words hung between them, heavy with meanings he couldn’t quite decipher. He opened his mouth to respond, to say something that might bridge this impossible gulf—
“My lady!” A footman appeared on the garden path, slightly out of breath. “Begging your pardon, but Mrs. Boldwood wishes to know if you’ll be dining in the morning room or the main dining hall this evening?”
Amelia’s expression shuttered closed again, that careful mask sliding back into place with practiced ease. “The dining hall, I think. We should mark Lord Tobias’s return appropriately.”
“Very good, my lady.”
When the footman departed, she turned back to Tobias with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Shall we say eight o’clock? I know you must wish to refresh yourself after your journey.”
“Eight o’clock,” he agreed, though what he actually wished was to stay here in the garden, to talk until the wall between them crumbled, until she looked at him again with something other than polite distance.
But she was already walking back toward the house, her spine straight and her stride purposeful, and he could do nothing but follow.
The evening found them seated across from each other in the dining hall—a room that had also undergone a subtle transformation in his absence.
Lighter colours. Fewer of Edward’s hunting trophies glaring down with dead glass eyes.
Candles placed strategically to create warmth rather than Edward’s preferred clinical brightness.
Amelia had changed into a gown of deep emerald for dinner, wich made her eyes luminous in the candlelight. Not quite out of mourning—the cut remained modest, the sleeves long—but no longer the unrelieved black she’d worn before. Half-mourning, he supposed. The compromise between grief and life.
She wore it beautifully.
“The estate accounts look excellent,” he said, attempting conversation as the first course was served. “You’ve managed everything with remarkable efficiency.”
“Mrs. Pemberton deserves most of the credit.” She took a delicate sip of wine. “She’s been invaluable in teaching me what I needed to know. As has Mr. Pemberton regarding the tenants and agricultural concerns.”
“Nevertheless. Taking on such responsibility whilst caring for a young child—it cannot have been easy.”
“It wasn’t.” She met his eyes directly. “But it was necessary. And in the end, rather satisfying. I’d never been allowed to manage anything of consequence before.
Edward preferred—” She stopped herself, that familiar wariness flickering across her features.
“Forgive me. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead. ”
“Edward preferred women who remained decorative and silent,” Tobias finished grimly. “I know. I lived with him for eighteen years before you ever met him, remember.”