“I had no time to send any.” William stripped off his gloves, his hands steady when nothing in him felt so. “My mother’s telegram mentioned… Victoria. I came as soon as I was able.”
His gaze swept the hall—bright flowers, no mourning, no hush of grief. “Why is the house…?” He faltered, searching for a word that would not make him a hypocrite.
“Mourning was… discouraged, my lord.” Hensley’s jaw tightened; William could see it cost him to speak. “Her ladyship said quiet would be more fitting.” His voice lowered. “The staff were told not to speak of the matter. I wrote to Lady Victoria’s family on your behalf. No reply came.”
“Of course it did not,” William said quietly, unsurprised.
He set his hat aside. “My mother?”
“In her rooms, sir. She has been unwell for some time.” He hesitated. “If you wish it, I will send word and ask whether she will receive you.”
“Ask,” William said.
Hensley inclined his head once and started up the staircase.
Only after the steward’s footsteps faded did William allow his gaze to drift down the corridors he once paced as a boy, the portraits lining them watching like indifferent gods—the stag in gilt, the ancestor in velvet—each one a silent witness to a life that tipped more often toward failure than triumph.
An old ache bloomed in his chest, dull at first, then sharp. Too many things here had been lost or broken within these walls—dreams, promises, and parts of himself he had never regained.
He inhaled four slow, steady breaths—a habit learned young in a house where composure mattered more than comfort.
He listened to the muted sounds of the manor—the faint clink of china somewhere deeper within, the distant whisper of a closing door—before silence reclaimed it all.
A few moments passed. Footsteps sounded overhead. Hensley descended and stopped on the last stair.
“Her ladyship will see you in her sitting room.”
William nodded once. “Thank you.” He passed Hensley on the stairs and continued upward to the second floor.
The family wing stretched ahead, vast and cold, the same gilded emptiness he remembered from his youth. His boots echoed softly as he walked.
He paused at his mother’s sitting room door, steadying himself, then lifted his hand and knocked.
“Enter,” came the reply—short, sharp, and unmistakably regal.
He found his mother—Lady Eleanor Ashford, Countess Dowager—installed in a high-backed chair near the fire, though warmth already filled the room. She was dressed not in mourning but in a dove-grey gown, a color that declared plainly that she would not wear black. A book lay unopened on her lap, her hand resting lightly on the cover—more posture than pastime.
She seemed smaller than he remembered, diminished somehow within the chair he once thought too grand for anyone. The faint tremor at her wrist told him that time had not spared her.
“William.” She said his name as if she were tasting iron. “You have come.”
He crossed to one of the chairs opposite hers and sat, his posture formal and deliberate. He did not make himself comfortable; this had never been a house that encouraged it.
“You sent for me,” he answered. “Or rather, you sent a telegram with news that left me no choice but to return.”
Her eyelids lowered, whether in annoyance or shame; it was difficult to tell. “You did not answer my letters. I could hardly presume upon your attention.”
His gaze shifted to the mantel, where a family portrait hung—painted when he was no more than twelve.
His father sat on a settee, every line of him composed for the weight of the Ashford name; his mother beside him, elegant and poised, her smile genteel but not warm. And there he stood before them—straight-backed in his first formal coat, eyes bright with the kind of hope that had not yet learned what duty would demand of him.
“I received a letter the same day as your telegram,” he said. “From Victoria.”
Eleanor’s fingers tightened on the book’s cover. “Indeed,” she said carefully.
“Did you know?”
“Know what?” The old hauteur rose, her instinctive armor.
