Chapter 21
The journey back to Ashford Hall took longer than Dorian would have preferred.
Every delay felt unnecessary, every conversation in town had stretched beyond its usefulness, and by the time the carriage finally turned through the estate gates late that afternoon, he found himself looking toward the house before they had even reached the drive.
Tristan noticed immediately.
“You could at least pretend you’re pleased to have spent some time away.”
“I am simply happy to be home.”
“I know. You looked at the front door before the horses stopped moving.”
Dorian ignored him. Unfortunately, that only seemed to amuse Tristan further.
The front doors opened before they reached the steps. Several servants emerged first, then Anne appeared behind them.
The sight of her elicited an immediate and deeply inconvenient sense of relief. She stood beneath the entrance archway in a simple blue day dress, one hand resting against the stone beside her as she looked down at the arriving carriage.
For a moment, she simply smiled. The expression transformed her face completely. Dorian found himself smiling back before he realized he was doing it.
“Well,” Tristan murmured beside him, “that answers my question.”
“What question?”
“I was wondering whether you would greet your wife before or after your first smile.”
Dorian stepped out of the carriage. “I hate you.”
“Frequently.”
Anne reached the bottom of the steps just as they approached.
“You survived,” she said.
“Barely.”
Her smile widened. “It was only three days.”
“It felt significantly longer.” The words slipped out before he could reconsider them.
Something softened briefly in her expression. “Was the town truly that terrible?”
“Far worse.”
“How tragic.”
“I suffered greatly!”
Anne laughed quietly, and the sound hit him with surprising force. She looked different than when he had left, not enough that anyone else would necessarily notice, but he did. There was color in her face and a confidence in the way she carried herself.
She also looked exhausted.
“Have you slept at all?” he asked.
Anne blinked. “That is an odd question.”
“It is a reasonable question.”
A faint flush crept into her cheeks.
Dorian folded his arms. “Anne.”
“I have been busy.”
“You look tired.”
“I am perfectly capable of deciding when to sleep. Besides, I have had company, and she rather likes keeping me awake.”
The exchange felt so natural that neither of them noticed the said company approaching until she spoke.
“Good Lord.”
Both turned to see her standing several feet away, watching them with open amusement.
“Now I understand everything.”
Anne immediately looked horrified. “Eleanor.”
“What?” Eleanor lifted her hands innocently. “I have never witnessed two people flirt so aggressively while pretending not to.”
“We are not flirting.”
“You absolutely are.”
Dorian laughed. Anne looked as though she wanted the ground to open beneath her feet and swallow her whole.
Eleanor turned toward him. “I should properly introduce myself before Anne decides murder is the only solution.”
Dorian bowed politely. “Duchess.”
“Duke.”
Her smile was warm, far warmer than the cautious politeness he had expected. Anne had clearly spoken well about him.
The realization stirred an oddly satisfying feeling. For reasons he could not entirely explain, it felt remarkably good to be home.
That night, the library was dark except for the fire and a handful of lamps. Dorian found Tristan exactly where he expected him to be, occupying one of the armchairs as though he had never once worried about whether he belonged somewhere.
Tristan glanced up. “There you are.”
“You are still awake.”
“So are you.”
Dorian poured himself a drink, and neither spoke for a moment. The fire crackled softly as the house settled around them.
Eventually, Tristan leaned forward in his chair. “The Duchess of Ashbourne likes you.”
Dorian sighed. “Why is that the first thing you have chosen to say to me?”
“Because it surprised me.”
“You truly think so highly of me.”
Dorian settled into the chair opposite him. His thoughts drifted briefly upstairs to Anne and the smile she had given him when he arrived.
“You are doing it again,” Tristan commented.
Dorian frowned. “Doing what?”
“Thinking about her.”
Dorian took a sip of his drink. “You have become obsessed with this subject.”
“No,” Tristan replied. “I have become fascinated by the fact that you still refuse to admit what is standing directly in front of you.”
Dorian did not answer.
Tristan studied him for a moment, then his expression lost some of its usual humor. “I have known you for fifteen years. I watched half the women in London try to capture your attention, and you looked at all of them.”
Dorian rolled his eyes. “Thank you for that glowing character reference.”
“I am making a point.”
“You always are.”
Tristan ignored him. “Do you know what the difference is this time? I have never seen you look at anyone the way you look at Anne.”
Neither man spoke for a moment. Then, Dorian looked down into his glass.
“What way is that?”
“Like losing her would matter.”
Dorian fell silent.
The silence that followed stretched longer than expected.
Ordinarily, Dorian would have laughed, deflected, changed the subject, or made some cutting remark designed to keep everyone at a comfortable distance from anything genuine.
Instead, he kept staring into his glass, the amber liquid catching the firelight as he slowly turned it between his fingers.
Tristan studied him carefully. “You know, the fact that you didn’t immediately argue with me is deeply concerning.”
A faint smile appeared and disappeared just as quickly. “I am aware.”
Tristan leaned back in his chair. “What are you afraid of? You could have a good life with her. Instead, you are brooding in the library at such a late hour. There has to be a good reason for that, or else you are a madman.”
Dorian let out a slow breath. For several moments, he seemed to consider deflecting again. Then, unexpectedly, he set the glass down.
“When my parents died,” he said quietly, “everyone focused on me.”
Tristan’s expression shifted immediately. The change in subject was abrupt enough that he understood at once where this conversation was heading.
Dorian kept his gaze fixed on the fire. “I was the heir, the future Duke, and so I was the one everyone worried about. Heaven knows I gave them plenty to worry about, but Lily… No one ever worried about Lily.”
The room grew quieter around them.
“After our parents were gone, she became the only person who truly mattered. Every decision I made was supposed to protect her. Every scandal I endured, every fight, every miserable investor meeting—everything was for her. I told myself that as long as Lily was happy, I could survive the rest.”
Tristan said nothing. Dorian rarely spoke about Lily. In fifteen years of friendship, he could count the number of times on one hand, and it had been easier that way for the most part.
“I thought she was happy,” Dorian continued. “I convinced myself she was. I spent years becoming exactly what society expected me to become.”
“The charming fool?” Tristan asked quietly.
Dorian let out a laugh. “Exactly. I kept everyone entertained so that everyone kept looking at me. It turned out remarkably effective. No one asks difficult questions if you are busy making them laugh.”
The fire crackled softly between them.
“And while I was doing that, I failed to notice what was happening to her. I missed things. Small things at first, then bigger ones. I kept telling myself I would talk to her the next day.”
Tristan lowered his eyes because he already knew how that ended.
“I always thought there would be more time,” Dorian rasped. “There was not.”
For a moment, neither man spoke.
“I was supposed to protect her. I knew everyone else’s secrets. I could walk into a ballroom and tell you who was lying, who was scheming, who was having an affair, who hated whom, and I somehow failed to see the person sitting across from me at the breakfast table every morning.”
“Dorian—”
“No, it is true. I was the one person who should have seen she was unhappy.”
The confession settled heavily between them.
“You were grieving too.”
“That does not change the outcome.”
Silence returned. Eventually, Dorian lifted his glass again, though he seemed more interested in the fire than the whiskey.
“I think that was when it started. When I decided to start avoiding people. Not physically. Clearly, I continued attending parties. But I stopped letting people matter. I convinced myself it was easier. Safer even, because if nobody mattered, they could not leave me. I know how irrational that sounds, but the truly ridiculous part is that I actually believed it worked.”
“Then Anne arrived,” Tristan offered with a faint smile.
Dorian smiled too, despite himself. “She was furious with me from the beginning. She argued with me constantly. Nothing I said impressed her. Nothing I did intimidated her. Every time I thought I had won an argument, she proved me wrong. Ashford felt dead before she came. The estate functioned, but it did not feel alive.”
His gaze drifted up briefly to the ceiling, toward the rooms above them where Anne was undoubtedly asleep.
“Now she walks into a room, and somehow everyone starts talking. The stablehands argue with her. The trainers pretend not to listen to her before immediately following her advice. The housekeeper has become completely devoted to her.”
“As most sensible people would.”
Dorian’s smile grew. “Everything feels different when she’s near me. The house feels different. The estate feels different. Somehow, she became part of every room without anyone noticing it happening.” His voice lowered. “Ashford feels alive again, and she is the reason for that.”
The admission settled between them.
Neither man spoke for several moments. Until Tristan folded his arms and gave him a look.
“You love her.”
This time, Dorian did not argue at all.
The fire crackled softly between them, casting shifting shadows over the library walls. He stared into the flames, one hand wrapped loosely around his glass, while Tristan watched him with an unusual somber expression.
It was perhaps the first time all evening he looked entirely serious.
“You know,” he said quietly, “for someone who spent years pretending not to care about anything, you’ve become remarkably transparent.”
Dorian let out a faint laugh. “I dislike this conversation.”
“You dislike every conversation that requires honesty.”
Dorian glanced toward him.
Tristan straightened slightly. “Do you know what I find interesting? You act as though the danger is falling in love with her. Dorian, the danger has already happened.”
“What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you are treating this like some future problem. As though one day you might wake up and discover you have become attached to your wife. You are already attached, you fool.”
Dorian opened his mouth, paused, and closed it again. “I dislike it when you look pleased with yourself.”
“I am rarely more pleased than I am right now.”
Dorian rubbed a hand over his face.
“The real danger is not loving Anne,” Tristan continued. “The real danger is waiting so long to admit it that you convince yourself there is still time.”
Dorian’s chest tightened because he knew exactly what his friend meant. There was always time until there wasn’t. He had spent years living with that lesson, years carrying it.
“You could not save Lily from what happened,” Tristan said, as if he had read his thoughts. “You know that, even if you refuse to forgive yourself for it.”
Dorian looked away, refusing to acknowledge the truth.
“But Anne is here,” Tristan continued. “She is alive. She cares about you. God knows why, but she does. Every person in this house can see it.”
Dorian laughed softly. “Except me, apparently, but what if I am right? What if I have imagined things that are not there? I will look like a fool for not understanding, and it will push her away entirely.”
Tristan stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing.
Dorian frowned at him. “I fail to see what is amusing.”
“It is more than merely amusing. It is astonishing. Dorian, that woman looks at you as though you personally hung the moon for her.”
Dorian snorted. “That is absurd.”
“It would be,” Tristan relented, “if I had not watched her do it.”
Dorian stared into his glass. The warmth of the whiskey had long since faded. His thoughts drifted upstairs again, to the floor above them.
To Anne.
He thought of her standing on the front steps when he had arrived home, the way she had challenged him, had laughed with him. The way Ashford itself seemed brighter simply because she moved through it.
A slow realization settled over him. It was entirely undeniable. Every road led back to her. His every thought began and ended with her. Every part of Ashford he loved most now carried her presence somewhere inside it.
Tristan rose from his seat at last, setting his empty glass on the nearby table. “I think I shall leave you alone with that revelation.”
Dorian barely heard him.
Tristan paused in the doorway and smiled. “For what it is worth, I have never seen you happier. I can only hope that you realize what you have before you make the same mistake again.”
The door closed behind him a moment later, and silence settled over the library once more.
Dorian remained where he was.
The fire burned lower. The whiskey glass sat beside him. Somewhere above, Anne was sleeping peacefully, entirely unaware that she had become the center of every certainty and every fear he possessed.
For years, he had convinced himself that loving someone deeply was dangerous and that attachment led only to loss, which meant that distance was safer.
That night, for the first time, those arguments felt hollow.
Because despite every wall he had built, despite every promise he had made to himself after Lily’s death, despite every effort to remain untouched by anything that could hurt him again, Anne had somehow crossed every barrier without either of them noticing.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes briefly. The truth was terrifying in its simplicity. All he had wanted was to secure his family name and to outrun the shadow that had been cast over his estate for years. He was not asking for a blaze, just a small amount of light.
And somewhere along the way, without realizing it, he had fallen hopelessly in love with his wife.