Robert raised a brow. “Absolutely not.”
“Mm-hmm,” Mason said, leaning back with infuriating satisfaction. “Well, let me know when you’ve convinced yourself of that.”
Robert shook his head, smiling despite himself. That was when Mason glanced toward the window as the sky softened into the golden hush of the afternoon.
“Come,” he said suddenly, rising to his feet and brushing imaginary dust from his sleeves. “Let’s take a walk. Clear the air. Maybe stretch those brooding muscles you’re always using.”
Robert gave him a dry look. “I don’t brood.”
“You do, actually. Brood, sulk, glower… it’s practically your profession. Now, get up.”
Robert sighed but stood, reaching for his coat.
Mason’s tone shifted, quieter now. “We could walk up the hill.”
Robert stilled, his fingers pausing at the button of his coat.
“To the graves?” Mason added gently.
Robert looked away for a long moment, jaw tightening. He hadn’t been up there in months.
“Yes,” he said softly. “Yes, I think… I’d like that.”
Mason didn’t speak again. He only offered a nod and opened the door for him. They stepped out into the brisk air with the wind tugging faintly at their coats as they moved down the gravel path in silence.
There was something sacred in the way neither of them needed to speak. Mason had always known when to fill the silence and when to simply walk beside him. After all, Mason Cunningham, the Viscount of Huntley, had been his friend since childhood. Mason knew him better than he knew himself.
As they crested the familiar slope, the hill greeted them with wind and wildflowers, and in the distance, a small plot of white stone markers waited, nestled under the boughs of two old ash trees. Robert’s pace slowed. It never stopped hurting, but somehow, today, with Mason at his side, it felt a little less impossible.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
Mason only nodded. “Always.”
The grass beneath their boots softened as they reached the quiet hilltop where wind rustled through the tall reeds and the boughs of the ash trees murmured like a lullaby for the dead. Three simple headstones stood in a row, their edges worn by time but clean, lovingly tended. Robert stopped before them.
He let his eyes linger on each name.
Her Grace The Duchess of Aberon, born Cecily Mulligan.
Bernard Firming, 5thDuke of Aberon.
Julian Firming, the Marquess of Belvedere.
His mother. His father. His brother.
The stillness settled around him, like a silent, heavy embrace. Mason stood a few paces back, letting him have the moment to himself. Robert’s breath left him slowly, as if his lungs refused to fill too deeply in this place.
It had been so long ago, but time had done little to soften the blade of memory. Nine years old. That was all he had been. Just a boy with a scraped knee and a head full of stories about noble men and valiant heroes. Until the world taught him how fiction bled at the edges of reality.
The carriage had creaked beneath them as they turned off the main road. They had been returning from a summer visit to his grandmother’s estate. His mother was humming a lullaby softly under her breath. And then, shouts. Hooves. Chaos.
Then, his mother’s hand pressed on his shoulder, her voice calm but urgent. “Under the seat, Robby. Now. Don’t speak. Don’t come out, no matter what.”
He had obeyed. He always obeyed her.
He remembered the click of the hidden latch, the dusty velvet beneath him as he curled into a space barely big enough to fit him. He heard the carriage door thrown open. Voices. Angry, laughing, foreign. His mother’s scream. His father’s defiance. Julian’s terrified cry.
Then, silence.
