The cottage was the kind of place that made one ache without understanding why. There was warmth here and peace and the quiet chaos of real life: flour smudges on aprons, sticky-fingered children climbing under chairs, half-finished embroidery draped over the arm of a chair like a forgotten thought.
This was a home built from love, not inheritance. It smelled of bread and babies and the kind of laughter that grew in the cracks left by sorrow, and Cordelia couldn’t help but think of her own mother’s seamless, satin-lined jewel box which suffocated her.
And now, Cordelia was somehow inside this home that was built by love.
She watched Isabelle with silent fascination. There was something almost rebelliously alive about her, an energy she wore like a crown, as if she had once been extinguished and refused to stay that way.
Isabelle laughed again as Thalia knocked over a cup of jam and attempted to mop it up with a bit of curtain. “We don’t do that with upholstery, darling,” she said, scooping the child into her arms, “even if we’re feeling helpful.”
Then Isabelle turned to Cordelia with a charmingly crooked smile. “So, you must have questions.”
Cordelia startled slightly. “Oh. I wouldn’t… Well, I do, but I don’t mean to pry.”
“It’s not prying if I hand you the door.”
Isabelle settled into the chair across from her, brushing crumbs from her skirts. “I used to be someone else.LadyIsabelle Abernathy. You may have read the name in some dusty society paper from ten years ago.”
Cordelia nodded, slowly. “You… you were said to have died.”
“I did,” Isabelle said simply. “Or rather, I was murdered… with ink in the announcement column.”
Cordelia’s breath caught.
Isabelle gave her a look of soft amusement. “My father couldn’t abide the thought of a viscount’s daughter marrying a man who worked with his hands. Robert is a carpenter, you see. He builds homes. He builtthisone, actually, for us.” She gestured toward the walls like she was showing off a castle.
Mason sat beside the hearth with one leg crossed, his gaze on the fire. He hadn’t spoken much since they entered. He didn’t even speak when Thalia had tried to feed him a strawberry with fingers still sticky from jam. He had just accepted it with a fond nod and then returned to watching the flames. He was too quiet.
“In order to choose my own happiness, I had to elope with Robert,” Isabelle continued, “and after that, I was never to attend a ball, never to send a letter, never to show my face in London, lest it reflect poorly on the family name.”
Cordelia’s fingers tightened around the teacup.
“They wanted everyone to believe I was dead,” Isabelle added, eyes softening. “But Mason wanted to tear it all down brick by brick.”
Cordelia’s eyes flicked to Mason again. He hadn’t moved.
“But instead,” Isabelle said gently, “he made a deal. For me, for Mama. He kept our secret as long as Papa let us live in peace.”
Live in peace.
Cordelia felt the memory of that afternoon crash back into her, days ago, in the library when she had attempted to organize Isabelle’s sketches. She had thought she was being helpful.
A tidy stack of drawings on the side table: watercolors of a cottage in different seasons, a pair of children playing in agarden, a dark-haired man lifting a baby in the air while a fair-haired woman laughed in the background. One drawing in particular had caught her attention: it showed the same cottage, unmistakably but with a date written in delicate ink at the bottom… a dateafterIsabelle had supposedly died.
She had begun to group them chronologically, unaware that she was rearranging a testament, not a portfolio. Now, she understood. They weren’t just drawings. They were defiance, a rebellion in brushstrokes. And Mason had been trying to protect that rebellion for over a decade, not by wielding it like a sword, but by shielding it like a flame in the wind.
Cordelia looked at him again, needing to see him, but his expression was unreadable as always. It was carved from stone and firelight. She hated that about him. She hated that he never gave away what he was thinking unless he wanted to. And right now, she desperately wanted to know what he was thinking.
Did he hate that she knew now? Was he angry she’d stumbled into this private world? That he hadn’t gotten the chance to prepare her or keep it safely his? Or… was he just afraid?
The idea of Mason Abernathy being afraid made something ache in her chest.
She turned back to Isabelle and offered sincere gratitude. “Thank you for trusting me.”
Isabelle reached across the table and took her hand.
“I think,” she said with a knowing smile, “Mason has always had a good instinct for people, even when he pretends he doesn’t.”
That was when Mason stood abruptly as the worn floorboards announced his movement.
