Hazel’s knees ached slightly against the floor, but she hardly noticed. Hazel exhaled slowly, brushing a stray curl from her cheek. Something urged her to keep looking, not out of nosiness, but out of a strange, tender instinct she did not recognize yet.
She reached for the next trunk. Its latch was stiff, and she had to tug it twice before it yielded with a soft metallic sigh. Inside lay stacks of cloth-covered bundles, lighter than the ones before. Hazel lifted one carefully, unwrapping it layer by layer.
Books.
They were not grand tomes or leather-bound volumes like those in Greyson’s library. These were much simpler and worn. The wordbelovedcame to Hazel’s mind. Her finger brushed the first cover.
“The Corsair’s Enchanted Compass,” she read aloud. “The Captain’s Tempest Bride.” A small, startled laugh escaped her. “Oh.”
These were sea adventures, romantic escapades, whimsical tales of daring sailors, enchanted islands, secret maps and improbable rescues. The same kinds of books she had seen in Greyson’s mother’s morning room. They were of the same kind, sitting on that little shelf, worn by years of someone’s hands turning their pages again and again.
Hazel lifted one closer, pressing her fingertip to the faded lettering. These must have been hers, packed away when the west wing was abandoned, and moved out of sight when pain had made those memories too sharp to bear.
Hazel swallowed around the sudden tightness in her throat. How many afternoons had the Dowager Duchess sat with thesevery books, reading them aloud to her sons? How many times had two bright-eyed boys begged forjust one more chapter?
Hazel could almost see it: the candlelight, the soft laughter, the dog curled by their feet. She brushed her thumb gently along the cracked spine ofA Voyage of the Silver Tides, a volume the dowager might have once adored.
A thought came to her. Could she bring these? Would the Dowager remember them? Would they bring comfort? Would she find joy in hearing familiar stories once more?
Hazel lifted the book into her lap, cradling it with absurd tenderness.
“I wonder,” she whispered to the empty room, “if she would like these again.”
Perhaps these stories, once loved, could coax more light into her days. The thought filled Hazel’s chest with a quiet certainty. She wanted to help. She wanted to bring warmth back into a place that had known too much sorrow. Not out of any sense of duty, but because she cared, far more deeply than she ought to have.
She lifted the book once more, hugging it lightly against her chest, and stood. Yes. She would bring these to the Dowager. And she would read them to her, in hopes that it might bring a little more light into that quiet room.
Greyson was crossing the main hall when he heard something he had not heard in years.
A sound in the west wing.
He froze. No one went into the west wing; not the staff, not guests, and not even he.
He walked toward the corridor, following the light that spilled from one of the abandoned rooms. His heart lurched. He reached the doorway and stopped, for he saw Hazel, kneeling on the floor beside a half-opened trunk. She clutched a book to her chest.His mother’sbook. It was one of the very ones he and his brother had begged for night after night, until laughter and puppy paws filled the chamber.
Hazel looked up, and Greyson felt the ground tilt beneath him.
“Oh… Greyson.” She rose quickly, almost guiltily, smoothing her skirts. “I… didn’t mean to intrude. I only?—”
“What are you doing here?”
His voice was sharper than he intended, cutting across her explanation.
Hazel flinched ever so slightly. A pang shot through him. He didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but he couldn’t help it.
She lowered the book. “I… I was exploring. I didn’t realize anyone ever came here. The room wasn’t locked.”
Greyson stepped fully inside, fighting the swirl of emotion rising beneath his ribs. The painting leaned against the trunk.Theirbooks lay exposed. Memories he had spent years burying now breathed in the open air. Hazel stood in the middle of it, looking small, apologetic and uncertain.
He forced himself to speak. “This is your home. I do not mean to suggest otherwise.” He paused, and her shoulder relaxed a little. “But,”
he added, his voice roughened again, utterly without his control, “Some places are… not meant to be disturbed. If a room is closed, Hazel, then it is closed for a reason.”
She went still. Her hands tightened around the book’s spine. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t know. I would never have touched anything if I had understood.”
He swallowed hard. Because her apology was genuine, and it disarmed him completely. He should have reassured her. He should have stepped back, rebuilt the distance he had allowed to crumble between them. Instead, he saw her standing amidst the remnants of his childhood, watching him with sorrow in her eyes, and he felt exposed, as though she could see straight through him, all the way to the boy he once was, the boy wholaughed, clung to stories and slept beside his brother with a book beneath his pillow.
He tore his gaze away, running a hand over his jaw.
