Martha brought Emmeline down halfway through, murmuring that Abigail had fallen asleep.
Afterward, Nathaniel retreated to his study. He poured a glass of brandy and sat before the fire, its embers glowing dimly as the evening stretched on. He weighed each thought carefully, trying to chart the right course forward—one that wouldn't send Abigail two steps back into the quiet, hollow place she had only just begun to leave.
Later, Martha found him still seated, brandy untouched.
"She wasn't sleeping," she said gently. "She just... slipped away again. Let the fog settle. Same way she used to, like at Greystone."
Nathaniel swallowed hard, nodding once.
"I was afraid of that," he said quietly.
Martha hesitated. "Will you let him come?"
"I have to," Nathaniel replied, voice low. "He'll be here in two days. She and Emmeline... he needs to see them."
He glanced down at the glass in his hand, then set it aside.
"I just keep thinking... if he really did come back for them, if he has a plan—then maybe..." He trailed off, brow furrowed. "Maybe he can bring her back to herself. Just enough. Long enough."
Martha said nothing. She simply laid a hand on his shoulder, gave it a light squeeze, and stepped away.
Nathaniel stayed by the fire until long after the last coal dimmed, chasing hope like smoke in the air.
Chapter 32
The clock had just struck three when Jasper stepped into the leased house he was calling home until further notice. The air inside was dry and warm from the fire the staff had kept burning, but it did nothing to thaw the knot behind his ribs.
He shrugged off his coat, passed it wordlessly to the waiting footman, and made his way through the front hall. Walking directly to the study — a handsome chamber tucked in the east wing, paneled in walnut and fitted with shelves of unread volumes and a wide desk of polished oak.
The house had come fully furnished, as most respectable leases did, and the study was well-appointed — a gentleman's room, made for letters and ledgers. It had everything he needed.
Still, when he sat down at the desk and laid his hands on the leather blotter, he was surprised by the small jolt of familiarity. It was worn at the corners — not his, not really, but well-used, well-loved by those who had once sat here day after day, perhaps writing letters of their own.
God, how could it only be three?
He had arrived at Bramblewick for noon. Spoke with Abigail. He had seen his daughter. And yet it felt as though the sun ought to have set hours ago — as if the weight of what had passed since midday had stretched time itself.
She had looked at him with a kind of measured calm — not cruelty, not anger — something worse. Distance.As though he were not the man who had once kissed the back of her gloved hand and whispered that she made the stars look common.
Her indifference, he realized, was earned. She had every reason to guard herself. But it wounded him, nonetheless.
And then, his daughter. That tiny miracle with Abigail's eyes and his dimpled chin—how easily she had grinned at him, drool clinging to her lip as she wrapped her damp little hand around his finger and held on. In the other, she clutched the rag doll he'd given her, looking up at him with perfect trust.
That—more than anything—nearly undid him.
He pulled a blank sheet of paper toward him and reached for the pen. He bent his head and began to write.
My dearest Abigail,
I do not know if you will read this. You would be justified if you did not.
But if you do — know that I will write again. And again.
Not to plead for forgiveness, though I ache for it. Not to persuade or pressure you. But because I need you to see me clearly — the man you once loved, who now feels like a stranger to you.
I am writing so you might come to know me again.
Not because I have changed, but because I have become unrecognizable to you — buried beneath the wreckage of my choices. And that may be the greatest grief of all: not that I failed you, but that in doing so, I made myself into someone you cannot even look at without distance.
