“And what now?”
“Now, we wait. We have done everything that was possible from our side.”
Frances felt as if she had been stabbed in the heart with a knife. Still, she tried to compose herself for Christopher’s sake.
It was not his fault that they were in this situation, and he seemed to be doing everything he could.
“Come, let’s go to the drawing room. You need to rest for a moment.” He scooped her up in his arms effortlessly, carrying her down the hallway.
He set her gently on the plush sofa and pulled a soft, woolen blanket from the back, wrapping it around her shoulders. He knelt beside her, his hand tenderly brushing her hair back from her face.
They had a moment alone now. But it felt so incomplete and hollow without the children.
Frances looked at him and noticed how he seemed to have aged by years in just the span of a few hours.
That was when she realized that he needed someone to be there for him, too. It was unfair that he was carrying all of this burden on his own.
“You have done what you can,” she soothed. “I am sorry for putting too much pressure on you.”
Christopher seemed surprised by her words. “You are being far too kind.”
“And? You clearly deserve it.”
“I am not sure if I do,” he muttered darkly.
Frances knitted her eyebrows and forced him to look her in the eye. “What is it? You are being too hard on yourself.”
She searched his face, her eyes filled with concern.
He took a deep breath, his gaze dropping to the floor as if he couldn’t bear to meet her eyes. “This… all of this… it’s my fault. If I had been a better brother and protected Peter, none of this would have happened.”
Frances reached out, taking his hand in hers. “Christopher, you can’t blame yourself for what happened to Peter. You were just a child.”
Christopher shook his head, a bitter smile on his lips. “I was the elder brother. I should have looked after him, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
He sat down beside her, staring at the wall with a hollow expression. “My parents… they were never a good match. My father loved my mother deeply, but she only saw their marriage as a duty. When Peter was born, things got worse. She became even more distant and cold.”
Frances listened intently, squeezing his hand reassuringly. “Go on,” she encouraged softly.
Christopher sighed. “When I was seven, my parents separated. My father took me, and my mother took Peter. She was a tyrant, and even that might be a kind way to describe her.” His frown deepened. “She believed in strict discipline, and she wasn’t afraid to use force to get her way. She was abusive.”
Frances gasped, her heart aching for the young boy Christopher had been and for the brother he had lost. “Oh, Christopher…”
She never knew the details of his past, and now that he finally trusted her enough to let her know, her heart only ached for him even more.
“My father was strict, but he was never cruel,” Christopher continued, his voice hollow. “He tried to shield me from the worst of it, but he couldn’t protect Peter. I always thought that once I became Duke, I could fix things. I could bring Peter back, save him from our mother’s clutches. But when I finally inherited the dukedom, it was too late.”
“Why was it too late?”
“Peter had already run away with Lydia. He wrote to me, saying he had finally found happiness and he didn’t need me anymore.”
Tears welled up in Frances’s eyes as she listened, her heart breaking for the pain he had endured. “You couldn’t have known. You couldn’t have stopped him.”
Christopher’s expression hardened, and his jaw clenched tightly. “But how is that an excuse? It was my responsibility to ensure that my brother did not put himself in harm’s way. No matter what he wanted, I should have known better.”
Frances was at a loss for words. She did not know how to react, or what to say that would make him feel better.
There was depth behind his pain. It had been accumulating for years.
