She skimmed forward:
April 28th. Edmund’s debts multiply. I could forgive the losses, but not the company he keeps. This estate will not be a watering hole for men who cannot pay their way. I tell the lawyer: contingency plan. We will see if the boy blinks.
She flipped to the final entry, dated days before Eugenia’s death:
July 6th. Edmund begged again. He promised to change. I laughed. Everything here belongs to the survivor, not the supplicant. He cursed me when I refused. Lydia Montague is the only kind of person who deserves this place.
Lydia read it aloud, her voice cracking once. She closed the diary, her hands trembling.
Maximilian's hand rested on her shoulder before guiding her to the desk. He found a dusty carafe ofsherry and a worn tumbler, poured a measure, and offered it to her. Their fingers brushed, heat against cold, lingering for a moment.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“You do not have to keep searching,” he said gently. "You found all you need to defend your inheritance."
“I feel compelled.” Lydia paced, her fingertips gliding over the spines of books as if drawing strength from the leather and paper. The room felt heavy with the weight of wars fought in ink—letters, journals, contracts—each one a weapon or a shield.
In the third cabinet, she found an unsealed letter addressed ‘To the Steward, in Trust.’ It bore Eugenia’s hurried handwriting. Lydia read aloud:
Know that I leave the estate to Lydia not for love, but for respect. I regret not saying it to her face, but she is better with knowledge than sentiment. Edmund is a fool. The staff must make peace with the new order. Be kind to the girl, if you can.
Postscript: If she reads this herself, tell her she was always my favorite, though I would never admit it in life.
Lydia clutched the page to her chest. Maximilian watched in silence, as if the world had narrowed to the span of her grief.
“She wanted certainty,” Lydia said at last. “No softness.”
“She wanted you to be stronger than the house,” Maximilian replied.
“Or just harder to kill.” The weak joke eased the tightness in her throat.
She spread the codicil, letter, and diary on the desk like plans for battle. “Do you think I can be what this place needs?”
“You already are,” he said simply.
This time, her laugh was genuine. She bent to her work, annotating margins and piecing life from ashes. As dusk transformed the room, Maximilian lit a candle. In the warm glow, the study softened into a sanctuary.
At last, Lydia closed the diary, pressing her palm flat against the desk until it left a mark on her skin. “I am ready to go.”
“Very well,” he replied.
She gathered her papers—codicil, letter, diary—and rose, the weight of them heavy in her hands, but they were hers.
They left together, the door shutting behind them with a sound more like a blessing than a verdict.
At the corridor’s bend, Lydia glanced back. Noghosts, only the sharp taste of expectation and the stubborn hope that she might prove equal to it.
Dusk consumed the house room by room, shadows swallowing color. Lydia sat at the desk, the evidence spread before her like a jury waiting for judgment: three letters, two versions of Eugenia’s intentions, and one diary, both damning and forgiving.
She stared until the words blurred and rearranged into verdicts that shifted with every blink.
Maximilian remained, moving through the study with calm. He lit each sconce and mantle candle, coaxing flame from reluctant wicks. The combined glow softened the cabinets and chased back the chill. When the last taper caught, he settled across from her, arms folded and gaze steady.
Only then did she speak. “What if I am wrong? What if it was only a game? What if I am nothing but a thief in her house?”
He folded his hands, calm. “At the risk of sounding like your aunt, you already know the answer.”
She scowled. “You sound more like an advisor than a duke.”
