She looked at it for a long moment then back at him.
“Your Grace…”
“Mason,” he corrected her, then added, “Open it.”
She swallowed heavily at the permission to call him by his first name.Why now? Why?
Her fingers were clumsy on the ribbon, and her breath caught as she lifted the lid. Nestled inside was a glint of gold: a small, coin-sized compass on a delicate chain, its surface engraved with the faintest flourish around the edge. She lifted it carefully, the chain sliding like silk between her fingers, and stared at the little needle as it spun, searching, before settling north.
She looked up at him with her mouth slightly open. “It’s… beautiful.”
His eyes met hers, unwavering. “So you always find your way back.”
The words were so simple, so casual in tone… and yet they cracked something open in her. Back? Back where? Back to him?
She smiled, blushing. “You think I’ll get lost?”
He shrugged. “You’ve got a talent for it.”
She laughed and clutched the gift to her chest as if it might stop the ache blooming behind her ribs. He was looking at her like he wanted to say more. She felt it, that pause before something crucial. But the moment was stolen before it could settle.
The carriage door opened once more, and the Dowager Duchess climbed in, with her cheeks pink from the wind.
“Goodness, what a chill!” she declared, smoothing her skirts. “I told Cook to send up spiced cider when we return. Cordelia, my dear, you’re not being sent to your doom, only to collect what is rightfully yours!”
Cordelia hastily wiped her eyes and smiled far too brightly. “Yes, of course. How lucky I am… truly.”
Mason said nothing while she still held the compass in her palm, its tiny needle steady and sure. And she wondered whether it was possible to feel both found and utterly lost at the very same time.
Chapter Eighteen
“I’m afraid it’s not the news we were hoping for,” said Mr. Greeley, his spectacles slipping slightly down the bridge of his nose as he looked between Cordelia and Mason.
Cordelia blinked. “I… what?”
Mason stiffened beside her, but she barely noticed. Her eyes were fixed on the solicitor, her fingers tightening around the golden compass in her hand as though it might somehow help her navigate this moment, too.
Mr. Greeley cleared his throat. “It appears your guardian, Lord Vernon, has located an overlooked clause in your late father’s will. One that was, frankly, poorly worded. And… unfortunately… potentially binding.”
Cordelia stared blankly. “What kind of clause?”
The solicitor glanced down at the papers, flipping through them with the quiet precision of a man who had no desire to deliver such news but had no choice but to do so.
“There’s language that, if interpreted unfavorably, suggests your inheritance is released fully at six and twenty as previously thought, but only under the condition that your guardian believes you are ‘capable of managing the responsibility without undue influence or reckless decisions.’”
She sat back in her chair, the air seeming to rush from her lungs.
“That’s not fair,” she whispered, trying to steady her voice. “That’s not… He’s trying to steal it from me.”
“He is attempting to challenge your legal independence, yes,” Mr. Greeley said with a grave nod. “He believes he has a fighting chance, and I… regret to say he might not be entirely wrong.”
Cordelia’s heart dropped like a stone in her chest. All morning, she’d tried to push back the grief of goodbye with bright smiles and cake and jokes. All morning, she had held onto the shining thread of freedom, of possibility. And now… that thread was fraying.
Her hands trembled in her lap, and she pressed her palms into the folds of her skirt to hide it. “So, what happens now?”
“We fight him by any means necessary,” Mason said immediately.
Cordelia glanced at him. He was leaning forward with that fire in his eyes. He was the perfect picture of control, of a man ready to go to war. She, meanwhile, felt like she’d been cracked open.
