Chapter 34
They stayed in the townhouse for three days.
Three days of the house and the overgrown roses and the bedroom with the white sheets that they ruined and washed and ruined again.
Three days of breakfast in bed, tea in the garden, and Edward attempting to fix the garden path while Valeria sat on the step and gave unhelpful instructions and laughed at his swearing when he dropped a paving stone on his foot.
She learned him. Not the spy. Not the Hound.
But the man. She learned that he slept on his left side with one arm flung out.
That when he cooked, he hummed a Scottish tune he had learned as a boy, something about the sea and the shore and coming home.
That he could not abide dishonesty, but would tell the most elaborate lies to the cat from next door about where the fish went.
That he read slowly, mouthing the words, because books had come late to him and he still treated them with the reverent attention of a man who knew what it was to go without.
He learned her. Not the duchess. Not the widow.
But the woman beneath it all, the one Gordon had tried to bury.
She told him about her mother, Portia, who died giving birth to Caroline.
About her father, who never stopped being grateful for his wife and who carried the loss like a stone in his pocket, always there, always heavy, always a reminder of what he had been given and what he had lost. About Bridget’s quiet strength, John’s relentless humor, and Evan’s rigid propriety that masked a tenderness he would rather die than show.
He told her about the streets where he had grown up.
About the Queen, who was stern and fair, and who had given him a title because she could not give him back his childhood.
About Nathaniel, who wrote long letters full of advice Edward never took.
On the third morning, she found him in the garden, kneeling by the rose bed and pulling weeds.
His sleeves were rolled up, dirt staining his hands.
He looked up at her and smiled. The smile was open and unguarded, and it entirely transformed his face.
“We should go back,” she said. “Caroline will have organized a search party.”
“Yer sister would organize a search party if ye were five minutes late for tea.”
“That is true. But I also want to see the children. And I want them to see us. Together. The way we should have been from the beginning.”
“Aye,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
Thornhill was not the same as they had left it.
Caroline had been busy. The great hall had been scrubbed. The garden was trimmed. New curtains hung in the drawing room. And above the fireplace in the gallery, where Gordon’s portrait had hung for years, watching every room, there was a new frame. Empty. Waiting.
“For the portrait,” Caroline explained, patting her belly. “The one I painted. It’s still drying. But when it’s finished, it will go there. Where it belongs.”
Valeria looked at the empty frame, then at the spot where Gordon’s face had once watched her. The spot was clean. Bare. Free. Three years of his painted gaze gone, replaced by nothing, and the nothing felt like everything.
She turned to Edward. He was also looking at the empty frame, with an expression she had never seen before. Something soft. Something that looked like hope.
“Thank you,” she said to Caroline.
“Don’t thank me. Thank Richard. He nearly broke his back taking Gordon’s portrait down.
” Caroline pressed a hand to her belly and winced.
“Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I need to lie down.
Your nephew or niece has been kicking since dawn, and I am fairly certain they are doing it deliberately to spite me. ”
Richard appeared, offered his arm, and led her away. She was still giving instructions over her shoulder as they disappeared down the corridor. Valeria heard the words “flowers,” “unacceptable,” and “if anyone moves that vase, I will know.”
She and Edward stood alone in the drawing room, in the sunlight filtering through the windows.
“A fresh start,” he said.
“A fresh start,” she agreed.
They wrote letters that afternoon. Side by side at the desk in the study, sharing an inkpot because the house only had one that wasn’t dried out.
Edward wrote to Nathaniel. The letter was longer than the three words he had sent before, though not by much. He told his brother about the wedding. About George. About the woman he had married and the house with the blue door and the fact that he was, against all reasonable expectations, happy.
He wrote the word happy and looked at it for a long time. It looked strange on the page. He had not written it before. He was not sure he had said it aloud more than twice in his adult life.
Valeria told Bridget everything. She told her sister about the auction, the games, the storm, the man who carried her through the rain and painted flowers on Gordon’s portrait, and who had, after considerable stubbornness and several interventions by their siblings, finally admitted that he loved her.
She said she was happy, and her voice trembled over the word because the last time she had spoken to Bridget about her life, she had said she was well, which was a lie, and the difference between well and happy was the distance between surviving and living.
She wrote to her father. She had not written to him since the wedding announcement. The letter was short.
Dear Father,
I chose well. He is good. He is difficult and stubborn. He does not dress according to fashion, and his table manners are questionable. But he is good. And I am happy.
Your daughter, Valeria.
She sealed it and thought about the man who had sat in his study and worried about all five of his children, and who had never stopped blaming himself for not reaching her in time.
She hoped this letter would ease some of that weight.
She hoped he would read I chose well and understand what it meant.
Not that she had chosen a duke or a title or a fortune.
But that she had chosen a man who saw her.
That was all she had ever wanted—to be seen.
Edward looked up from his letter. “What are ye writing?”
“A letter to my father.”
“What does it say?”
“That you are difficult and stubborn, and your table manners are questionable.”
“That’s fair.” He paused. “Does it also say I’m handsome?”
“It does not.”
“Ye should add that.”
“I will not.”
“Ye wound me, Duchess.”
She smiled. He smiled back. And the study, which had been Gordon’s study, which had been the room where she had sat alone for three years, writing letters that were read and censored before they were sent, became something else.
Something warm. Something shared. Something that belonged to both of them.
Edward pulled her close and kissed her forehead. They stood together in the quiet room and looked at the empty wall and the future it held. A house without ghosts. A marriage without fear. A life that belonged to them.
“I need to write to Nathaniel,” he said after a moment.
“What will you tell him?”
“That his brother is happy.” He paused. “It will be a short letter. He’ll know what it means.”
She smiled. He smiled back. And for the first time in years, she felt like she was home.