Greyson leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
“I will ensure she is comfortable,” he said softly. “This will be a marriage of convenience. Nothing more.”
He forced his voice steady.
“I can promise her that. And keep that promise.”
Greyson let his gaze settle on her empty expression, and unbidden, the memory rose, soft and sharp all at once.
Her last good day.
It had been nearly two months ago. They had been growing rarer even then, drifting farther apart like small islands swallowed by fog, but that day had been clear and bright.
She had been sitting in this same room, with sunlight warming her shoulders. And when he walked in, she had looked up at him. Her eyes had sharpened with recognition, and her face brightened with a smile so warm he had felt it pierce him like an arrow released from the past.
He had frozen in the doorway, stunned by the sudden return of her.
“Oh, my darling boy,” she had said, holding out her hand as though he were still ten and home from lessons. “Come here.”
He had gone to her without breathing.
Her fingers had been gentle as she reached up and cupped his cheek. “You look tired,” she had murmured, with a thumb brushing along his jaw in the affectionate way she had always done before the world had stolen her away. “You work too hard.”
He had closed his eyes, just for a moment, leaning into the touch he’d thought he’d lost forever.
“How handsome you’ve become,” she had whispered, her voice brimming with pride. “Just like your brother.”
He had swallowed the ache that rose at the mention. And for one precious hour, she had spoken to him lovingly and with all the familiarity of the mother who raised him. They had walked in the garden. She had linked her arm through his. She had laughed, even.
He remembered her laughter most of all: light, melodic, like something delicate fluttering back to life. And then… the fog had come back. It started taking her back slowly, but by evening, she was gone again, lost to the quiet, unreachable world where she had been living ever since.
Greyson blinked back into the present, the memory settling around him like ash. His mother was still sitting there alive and breathing, but unreachable. Now, she was merely the shell of the one person in the world he allowed himself to love.
Greyson sat with her in the stillness for several minutes more, letting the sound of her breathing anchor him. Her gaze never shifted from the garden, not for him, not for anything.
“You remember what the Thornhill balls used to be like,” he said gently, trying to hold onto something familiar. “The invitations. The flowers. The orchestra in the west hall…”
Her fingers tightened around her handkerchief. It was no more than a twitch, but enough to make him pause.
Encouraged, he went on. “Perhaps, if you are feeling stronger, Mrs. Atherton could help you prepare for my wedding ball. A new gown and your pearls.” His voice grew quieter. “And you could attend.”
He didn’t believe it. Not for a single moment. But saying it aloud placed it in the air like a fragile offering, a hope too delicate to hold but too painful to keep buried.
His mother did not move. But Greyson found himself desperately wishing that she could hear him, that she could come back just long enough to see him wed, even in formality, even in indifference, even in the hollow shape of a marriage he did not want and did not seek.
He leaned forward carefully and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Her skin was cool. As he pulled back, she did not react. Not a tilt of her head, not a flicker of her eyes, nothing revealed that she was there in the room with him.
Greyson swallowed hard, forcing down the ache that rose in his throat.
“I will visit again soon,” he said softly. “Rest, Mother.”
He stood, put his gloves back on with precise, practiced movements, and walked to the door. He paused only once, with his hand on the frame, looking back at the woman he loved more fiercely than anyone, yet who no longer seemed to know him.
“Goodbye,” he whispered.
Then he left the room, closing the door gently behind him, carrying both hope and grief like twin weights across his shoulders.
Chapter Six
