“Lady Lily Ashford.”
And not a single person in the room hesitated.
Not a whisper.
Not a question.
Not a sideways glance.
She was Lady Lily, just as she had been since the day the Royal Warrant was sealed.
William’s throat tightened. Something dangerously close to tears gathered behind his eyes, absurd for a man of his age, perhaps—but he did not care.
Violet slipped her hand into his.
Thirteen years married, and her touch still steadied him.
“She’s beautiful,” Violet murmured.
“She always was,” he said, and his voice did not quite hold.
Lily began her descent, poised but flushed with excitement, her smile luminous.
Every step she took felt like time folding inward, years collapsing, revealing every moment he had lost and every moment he had been blessed enough to witness afterward.
Her first laugh in his arms.
Her first ride on a pony while clinging to his coat.
Her first time calling him Papa without hesitation.
The nights she fell asleep against his chest after long stories.
The mornings her black curls bounced into his study, begging for breakfast with him instead of her nanny.
The way she taught her younger sister to braid clovers into crowns.
The way she showed her little brothers how to find the best shells and bits of “treasure” whenever they visited the shore.
He had missed her birth.
Her first steps.
Her first words.
The grief of that would always be a quiet scar.
But all that followed—he never once took for granted.
For her lessons and triumphs and tears.
For scraped knees, sleepless nights, whispered doubts.
He had kept every promise he made that night thirteen years ago.
He had been a father every single day since.
At the foot of the staircase, Lily’s gaze lifted, and when she saw him, her smile widened into something bright and wholly unguarded.
