Chapter 38
“You’ve been drinking your breakfast again.”
Cecilia stood in the doorway of Aaron’s study at nine in the morning, surveying the battlefield of empty decanters and untouched correspondence with the expression of a general planning siege warfare.
Morning light struggled through grimy windows, illuminating the slow decay of a room that had once represented order and control.
Aaron lifted his head from contemplation of yesterday’s ledgers, the numbers swimming before eyes that hadn’t focused properly in days. “The servants have standing orders not to disturb me.”
“The servants are terrified of you.” Cecilia swept into the room without invitation, her morning purple dress a splash of color in the brown monotony.
She threw open curtains with violent efficiency, each yank of fabric sending dust motes spiraling through suddenly brilliant air.
“Thornton actually blessed himself when he saw me this morning. The poor man thinks you’re attempting to pickle yourself from the inside out. ”
“An interesting preservation method.” Aaron reached for his glass, found it empty, and set it down carefully. Morning light revealed the stubble shadowing his jaw, the hollow beneath his cheekbones, the way his shirt hung loose where muscle had wasted.
Cecilia planted herself directly in front of his desk, hands braced on the mahogany surface. Her rings caught the light, sending rainbow fragments across scattered papers. “How much longer?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“How much longer will you sit in this tomb you’ve created, drowning in self-pity while that girl withers away across London?”
The words landed like blows. Aaron forced himself to meet her gaze, though the concern in her eyes burned worse than the brandy ever could. “She attended Lady Huffington’s poetry reading last night. Hardly withering.”
Cecilia’s eyebrows rose to impressive heights. “You had her followed?”
“I receive reports.” He turned toward the window, toward the garden where nothing grew anymore. The fountain stood silent, its basin filled with dead leaves no one had bothered to clear. “She wore emerald silk. Her brother escorted her. She refused Lord Bradenton’s attention quite properly.”
“She refuses everyone.” Cecilia circled the desk, placing herself between him and his escape route.
The morning light through the windows behind her created a halo effect, making her look like an avenging angel in purple silk.
“Lord Calderley, Mr. Sheridan, young Lord Ashford, now Bradenton. All perfectly suitable men who would make exemplary husbands.”
Each name felt like salt in wounds that wouldn’t heal. Aaron’s jaw clenched hard enough to ache. “Then she’s maintaining appropriate standards.”
“She’s dying inside, you fool.” The words emerged soft but devastating. “Just as you are.”
“I’m ensuring her freedom to find happiness elsewhere.”
The slap came without warning, sharp enough to snap his head sideways. The crack of palm against cheek echoed in the stillness. Aaron touched his face, genuinely shocked. In thirty-four years, no one had ever dared strike the Duke of Calborough.
“That’s for insulting my intelligence.” Cecilia’s voice vibrated with fury that seemed to make the very air tremble. “You think you’re being noble? You’re being a coward. Worse, you’re being boring about it.”
“I’m being realistic.” Aaron stood, needing the height advantage, though his aunt’s presence seemed to fill the room regardless of physical stature. “You know what Father was. What he did. What he was capable of.”
“I know Charles Morrison was a cruel, selfish man who viewed women as possessions.” She moved closer, her perfume too bright for the stale air, carrying memories of gardens that actually bloomed.
“I also know his son spent weeks searching for a wastrel brother who didn’t deserve it.
Who protected two vulnerable women without asking for anything in return?
Who fought five men in an alley to keep them safe? ”
“Basic decency doesn’t erase heredity.”
“No, but choices define character.” She gripped his shoulders, forcing him to face her.
Her hands felt bird-fragile but held surprising strength.
“You think you’re your father’s son? Charles would have bedded Louise that first night and discarded her within a month.
He would have used Emily’s vulnerability as leverage.
He would have left George to rot in whatever hole he’d crawled into. ”
Aaron tried to pull away, but her grip proved immovable. “Not destroying them doesn’t make me worthy of them.”
“You’re right.” A smile ghosted across her features, transforming her face from stern to almost impish. “You’re not perfect. You brood too much, drink too much, and your tendency toward dramatic self-sacrifice would make Achilles tell you to take a step back.”
Despite himself, Aaron felt his mouth twitch. The movement felt foreign, muscles remembering what they’d forgotten.
“But you know what else you are?” Cecilia released his shoulders, moving to the fireplace where cold ashes spoke of neglect.
“You’re a man who reads fairy tales to a six-year-old.
Who lets a dog destroy their garden because it makes a child laugh?
Who keeps paying for a governess he’ll never see because education matters more than his wounded pride? ”
She lifted the small, framed miniature from the mantel. Aaron’s mother looked out from it, young and luminous, cradling him as an infant, her expression caught between pride and awe.
“I had love once.” Cecilia’s voice gentled, carrying the weight of an old grief worn smooth by time. “My William. He died of fever three months after our wedding. Thirty-two years ago, and I still wake some mornings expecting to find him beside me.”
Aaron had rarely heard her speak of her brief marriage, the love that ended before it truly began.
“We waited, you see.” She set down the photograph with careful reverence.
“His family objected to the match. My dowry wasn’t sufficient.
We spent six months being sensible, letting them attempt to arrange something more suitable for him.
” Her fingers traced the frame’s edge. “Then he caught a fever and died within a week.”
She turned back to Aaron, tears making her eyes brilliant as diamonds.
“Do you know what I regret most? Not the marriage that his family opposed. Not the scandal of a rushed wedding. I regret every single day we wasted being careful. Every moment we didn’t claim because we were waiting for perfect circumstances that never came.”
She crossed back to him, taking his face between her hands with maternal tenderness that made his chest ache.
“Your mother wrote to me before you were born.” Her thumbs brushed his cheekbones, gentle as butterfly wings. “She knew she was dying. The physicians had told her the birth would likely kill her. But she wanted you to live, wanted it desperately.”
Aaron’s throat closed around words that wouldn’t come.
“She said she wanted you to know what real love felt like. Not the obsession Charles offered, that consuming possession that destroyed everything it touched. But something built on trust and choice and joy.” Cecilia’s voice cracked slightly.
“She would be heartbroken to see you choosing misery because you’re afraid of becoming someone you could never be. ”
“I don’t know how to not be afraid.” The admission scraped out raw, the first completely honest thing he’d said in weeks.
“Then be afraid and do it anyway.” Cecilia released him, stepping back.
“Fear is just another feeling, Aaron. It only controls you if you let it. Your father never felt fear because he never risked anything real. You’re terrified because you’re risking everything.
That terror is proof of your humanity, not your weakness. ”
She moved toward the door, her skirts rustling with purpose. At the threshold, she paused, one hand on the frame.
“Louise has made her position very clear.” Cecilia’s voice was steady, though it cost her something. “She will not live in the shadow of the dead. And I wonder whether you should ask yourself why you insist on doing so.”
She left without waiting for response, the door closing with quiet finality that somehow echoed louder than a slam.
Aaron stood alone in his study, surrounded by the debris of his self-destruction. The morning light illuminated every shameful detail: empty bottles lined like soldiers who’d lost their war, correspondence growing mold at the edges, the slow entropy of a life choosing death over the risk of living.
He moved to the window, staring out at gardens that had once bloomed with his mother’s favorite roses.
Emily had played there, building kingdoms from snow while Buttercup destroyed carefully maintained borders.
Louise had walked those paths each morning, her copper hair catching sunlight that seemed brighter when she stood in it.
Now only dead things remained, waiting for spring that would come whether or not he believed in it.
His reflection caught in the glass, superimposed over the barren landscape. Hollow eyes, sharp cheekbones, the face of a man who’d been feeding on his own misery like some villain in a poorly written novel.
What would Louise think if she saw him now?
The thought sent unexpected shame coursing through him.
Not the familiar shame of his father’s legacy, but something sharper, more immediate.
She had been brave enough to offer him everything, and he’d been too cowardly to accept it.
She had fought for their chance at happiness while he retreated behind walls of his own construction.
Aaron pressed his palms against the cold glass, feeling the chill seep into his bones.
Somewhere across London, Louise was probably helping Emily with morning lessons.
Making their meager funds stretch to cover necessities.
Refusing suitors who could offer her comfort and security because her heart remained loyal to a man who’d thrown her devotion back in her face.
His hands clenched into fists.
She was settling for shadows because he had been too much a coward to offer her sunlight.
She was withering in duty because he’d convinced himself nobility meant suffering.
She was alone because he’d chosen isolation over the terrifying possibility of happiness.
“No more.” The words emerged as a growl, surprising him with their vehemence.
Aaron turned from the window, seeing his study with sudden, shocking clarity. This wasn’t a noble sacrifice. This was slow suicide dressed in pretty justifications. He was becoming exactly what he’d feared most: a man who destroyed everything he touched, starting with himself.
He rang for Thornton with more force than necessary. The butler appeared with suspicious speed, as if he’d been hovering nearby.
“Your Grace?” Hope flickered in the older man’s eyes, quickly suppressed.
“Have someone clear this room.” Aaron gestured at the battlefield of bottles. “Every decanter, every glass. If I ask for brandy before noon again, you have my permission to lock the cabinet.”
Thornton’s expression transformed with poorly concealed relief. “Immediately, Your Grace.”
“And send word to my valet. I need to look presentable.” Aaron caught his reflection in a mirror, grimacing at the stranger staring back. “Actually presentable, not just clothed.”
“Of course, Your Grace. Might I inquire as to the occasion?”
Aaron paused at the threshold, feeling something shift inside him like ice beginning to crack after endless winter. For weeks, he’d moved through darkness so complete he’d forgotten light existed. Now, possibility flickered at the edges of his vision, terrifying and essential in equal measure.
“Redemption, Thornton.” The word tasted foreign on his tongue, sharp with hope he’d thought himself too damaged to feel. “Or at least an attempt.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” Thornton’s professional composure cracked enough to show genuine pleasure. “Shall I have cook prepare an actual breakfast? The kind one eats rather than drinks?”
“Yes.” Aaron’s stomach chose that moment to remind him that Brandy was not, in fact, a food group. “And Thornton? Send word to the household. Things are going to change.”
The butler bowed deeply. “It will be my very great pleasure, Your Grace.”
As Thornton bustled away, Aaron stood in the doorway between his study and the corridor, suspended between the man he’d been and the man he might yet become. Fear still coursed through his veins, familiar as blood. But beneath it, something else stirred. Not quite hope, but its predecessor.
The possibility that courage might weigh more than fear.
That love might prove stronger than legacy.
That a man could choose to be more than his worst assumptions about himself.
Aaron took a breath that felt like his first in weeks, tasting air that didn’t reek of brandy and self-pity. Somewhere across London, Louise was living half a life because he’d been too afraid to offer her a whole one.
That ended now.
Or at least, it would end as soon as he figured out how to win back a woman he’d pushed away with both hands.
The thought terrified him more than becoming his father ever had.
Good.
Terror meant he was finally risking something worth losing.