Chapter Seven
Saturday morning arrived grey and softly raining—an echo of Celine’s unsettled mood.
She sat at breakfast, absently pushing eggs around her plate.
She’d barely slept; her mind kept replaying the previous evening—the brush of his lips on her hand, his admission at the foot of the stairs, the way he had said her name like it was something precious, dangerous, and entirely unguarded.
“The master requests your presence in his study at your earliest convenience, my lady,” Morrison intoned, materialising with his customary silence.
“Thank you, Morrison. I shall go at once.”
She found the Duke in his study, surrounded by ledgers, papers spread across his desk in what at first glance appeared to be disarray—but was, she suspected, some incomprehensible system known only to him.
He had shed his coat, rolled up his sleeves—revealing unexpectedly strong forearms—and an ink blot marred his right thumb, rendering him almost approachable.
“You came,” he said without looking up.
“You requested my presence.”
“I invited your participation. There’s a difference.” He indicated the chair beside him. “I’ve had Morrison bring the household accounts in addition to the estate books. I thought you might find them instructive.”
She seated herself, noting the subtle way he shifted a fraction farther away, maintaining his preferred distance. “Instructive in what sense?”
“Numbers don’t lie. They show truth without embellishment. They reveal patterns, motives, habits. They tell the real story, not the social one.” He handed her a ledger. “This is Rothwest House’s household expenditure for the past year. Tell me what you observe.”
She opened the book, letting her eyes skim the neat columns. At first, everything appeared conventional—wages, maintenance, food. Then patterns emerged.
“You increased the servants’ wages in January,” she observed. “By nearly twenty per cent.”
“Continue.”
“But you halved the entertainment budget. No balls, no dinners. Minimal social expenses.” She turned the page.
“You’ve spent a small fortune on books but almost nothing on clothing.
The stable costs are significant for someone who rarely rides out.
And there’s a recurring payment to ‘W.H.’ for unspecified services. ”
His eyebrow lifted. “Conclusions?”
She set down the ledger, studying him. “You pay your servants well to ensure loyalty and discretion. You avoid entertaining because you dislike society, not because of economy. The books are your indulgence. The stable costs are excessive because you’re maintaining horses you never use—likely inherited.
And W.H. is someone you support financially without overt acknowledgement. ”
His mouth curved. “Impressive. Incorrect regarding the horses, however.”
“Oh?”
“I ride every morning at dawn. The costs are high because I insist on proper care. A well-kept horse is predictable. A neglected one is dangerous.”
“Of course,” she murmured. “Control again.”
“Consistency,” he corrected. “And W.H.?”
“I won’t pry.”
“But you are curious.”
“Desperately.”
He actually laughed—a real laugh, short but genuine.
“William Harper. My father’s valet. He’s seventy-three, arthritic, and too proud to accept charity.
So I pay him a generous pension for ‘consulting services’ that consist of him telling me monthly that my father would be appalled by my cravat choices. ”
“That is… kind.”
“It is practical. He served my family for forty years. Loyalty deserves reward.”
She wanted to argue that it was kindness disguised as practicality, but she was learning to pick her battles. Instead, she asked, “Why are you showing me this?”
“You’re my wife. You should understand our financial position.”
“Our?”
“Yours as well.” He drew forward another ledger. “Your personal accounts—pin money, clothing allowance, discretionary household funds, and a sum for charitable endeavours.”
She scanned the figures—and gasped. “This is… excessive.”
“It is appropriate for the Countess of Rothwest.”
“I could live a year on what you’ve allocated for a month.”
“You could survive for a year. There is a difference between survival and living.”
He slid an older ledger across the desk. “This is more instructive. My father’s books. Twenty years past. Look at December.”
She opened it. The handwriting was aggressive, impatient. December was a frenzy of losses and gains—wild, uncontrolled.
“Gambling,” she whispered.
“Extensive. He lost thirty thousand pounds in a single night.”
“How did he cover it?”
“He didn’t.” The Duke’s voice had gone flat. “He took his own life instead. Here, in this study. And he left my mother to face the creditors, the scandal, and a thirteen-year-old son who found his body.”
The words hung in the air like ghosts. Celine reached out instinctively, her hand covering his where it rested on the desk.
“I’m sorry.”
“It was twenty years ago.”
“That doesn’t make it hurt less.”
He looked at their joined hands as if the sight puzzled him.
“My mother salvaged what she could. Sold everything not entailed. Dismissed nearly everyone. Dragged us to the country estate. Spent three years paying off debts my father left behind.” He paused.
“She taught me that control wasn’t just important—it was survival. ”
“And then she died when you were sixteen,” Celine said softly.
He withdrew his hand, but not quickly. “Pneumonia. Brought on, they said, by sheer exhaustion. She quite literally worked herself to death mending the destruction he left.”
“And you’ve been protecting everything with iron control ever since.”
“I have been surviving ever since.” He stood, pacing to the window.
She followed him with her eyes. “Do you see now?” he asked quietly. “Why I cannot afford unpredictability? Why chaos—true chaos—terrifies me? I have witnessed what happens when order dissolves. People die. Families fall. Fortunes vanish like smoke.”
“Your father’s lack of control destroyed him,” she said gently. “But your absolute control is destroying you differently.”
He turned sharply. “I am very much alive.”
“Are you? When did you last do something purely for joy? Not purpose?”
“Joy is a luxury.”
“Joy is nourishment.”
“At least in my prison, no one dies.”
“No,” she said softly. “They simply never live.”
He was quiet for a long moment, and she thought she’d pushed too far. Then he said, “That locked study we passed during our tour...”
She stilled. “What about it?”
“It was my father’s private study. His ledgers. His debts. His secrets. I locked it the day after his funeral. I have not opened it since.”
“Twenty years?”
“Twenty.” He opened a drawer and withdrew an ornate key. “I had Morrison oil the lock yesterday.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“Because you were right. About the walls. About what they’re protecting. About it perhaps being time to see what, if anything, remains.”
He held out the key. She stared at it, understanding the significance of the gesture.
“You want me to open it?”
“I want us to open it. Together. But if I go in there alone, I’ll just lock it again. You’re unpredictable enough to prevent retreat.”
She took the key, the metal warm from his hand.
“When?”
“Now, if you’re willing. Before I lose my courage.”
They walked to the locked door in silence. The key resisted, then turned with a groaning complaint. The door opened into a darkness thick with dust, old paper, and something heavier—old grief, abandoned mistakes.
He reached past her and lit a lamp. His hand trembled.
The room was frozen in time. A glass with dried amber residue. Papers scattered. A dark stain in the carpet that no cleaning had erased.
“My word,” Celine breathed.
“He used my mother’s pearl-handled pistol,” the Duke said, almost conversationally. “A wedding gift from her father.”
She reached for his hand again. This time, he held on tightly.
“We do not have to—”
“Yes. I do.” He stepped inside, pulling her gently with him. “I’ve let this room haunt me long enough.”
They moved slowly, stopping at the desk.
A letter lay half-written, ink long dry.
“His farewell note,” the Duke said. “He never finished it.”
Celine read the first line: My dearest Elias, by the time you read this, I will have taken the coward’s way...
“Don’t,” he said sharply, turning it face-down. “I have read it enough times to know it by heart.”
He swallowed.
“He apologised. Explained his debts. Told me to be a better man than he was.” His voice roughened. “As if a thirteen-year-old needed that burden added to finding his father’s body.”
“You were a child. None of it was your responsibility.”
“Wasn’t it?” His jaw tightened. “I’m his son.
His heir. His mistakes became my inheritance as surely as the title.
” He lifted a ledger from the desk, turning pages with a grim, almost morbid fascination.
“Look at this. He recorded every loss—meticulously—perhaps believing that documenting his ruin made it somehow more palatable.”
Celine stepped beside him, reading over his shoulder. Spiral after spiral of figures. Desperate, jagged notations. Then—
“Wait,” she murmured. “Look at that one.”
“December fourteenth. The day before…”
“He won,” she said, tracing the sum with her fingertip. “He won fifteen thousand pounds—half of what he owed.”
The Duke stared at the entry. “I never knew. I assumed he’d lost everything that night.”
“He won—and it still wasn’t enough. Or perhaps…” She turned to the next page. “Perhaps he returned the next night to win the rest—and lost everything instead.”
“The gambler’s curse,” he said quietly. “Never knowing when to stop.”
They moved through the room slowly, uncovering more records—each another stone in the avalanche that had swallowed his father.
But there were other things too: letters from his mother filled with warmth; childish drawings labelled Papa, from Elias; a family portrait painted before the cracks began to show.
“You look like him,” Celine observed softly, studying the painted faces.