The next afternoon brought with it a discomfort that Godric could not shake, no matter how much he willed his mind to focus on the task at hand.
His staff moved through Hadleigh Manor with practiced efficiency, carrying trunks and boxes out to the carriages waiting in front of the house. The footmen worked quickly, their movements careful and deliberate as they removed all traces of the duke’s presence, thankfully keeping the urgency with which he had given the order in mind.
Godric stood in the entrance hall; his arms folded across his chest as he watched the process with a critical eye. When two footmen emerged carrying a large, sheet – covered frame between them, he tensed.
“Careful with that,” he snapped, his voice sharp enough to make both men freeze mid-step. “If so, much as a scratch appears on that painting, I will have your heads. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” they chorused fearfully, as they adjusted their grip and continued forward with greater caution.
Godric's gaze followed them until they disappeared through the front door, his jaw clenched tight. At last, the painting will be in his home, along with the others from his mother’s collection. He was thankful about that, at least, but still the weight of what this activity represented lingered heavily.
This was the last step. Once his belongings were removed from Hadleigh Manor, he would be formally severed from the Wightman family. From Cecil. From Nora. The finality of it settled over him like a thick shroud, slightly smothering him in its completeness.
It was strange, how empty his heart felt at the prospect of no longer crossing paths with either of them.
Godric had expected relief. He had anticipated the satisfaction of reclaiming his past independence, of no longer needing to keep up the exhausting pretence of friendship and civility. Instead, there was only a hollow ache that seemed to grow with each box that was carried past him.
Although he had expressed to Nora that his relationship with Cecil was merely a means to an end, he could not deny – not to himself, at least – that he had valued their friendship greatly. More than he had ever intended to.
Cecil had been different from the others.
After his parents' deaths, people had looked upon him with either pity or suspicion. Most children had refused to speak to him at all, as though the grief he carried were something contagious that might spread if they ventured too close. Their parents had whispered behind gloved hands, their eyes sliding away whenever he passed.
And the ones who had spoken to him – those who had shown him a little bit of attention were even worse.
“Oh look,” they’d jeer as they pointed at him, their young voices cruel in the way only children could be. “The cursed duke's son. That's why his parents died. He brought it on them.”
Even now, so many years later, Godric could recall the burning shame that had flooded through him at those words. He had bore a secret fear that perhaps they were right. That perhaps he had been the reason for his parents' deaths, that if he had never been born, they would still be alive.
But Cecil had been different.
Cecil Wightman, with his easy smile and his complete disregard for propriety, had walked right up to him during one particularly brutal encounter and declared – loudly enough for everyone to hear – that the other boys had marbles for brains if they thought they could speak so thoughtlessly about matters they knew nothing about.
“Your parents were murdered,” Cecil had said, his young face set with determination. “That makes you a victim, not a curse. And anyone who says otherwise is a damned fool.”
The other boys had backed down, cowed by Cecil's conviction, and Godric had felt something shift inside him. For the first time since that terrible night, he had been able to breathe properly. To exist in a space where someone saw him as simply himself, rather than as a tragedy to be pitied or blamed.
Their friendship had grown from that moment, steady and easy in a way that Godric had desperately needed. Cecil had never demanded explanations or forced confidences. He had simply been there, a constant presence that made the world feel slightly less hostile.
And Godric had repaid that loyalty by using him.
The thought sat bitter on his tongue. He had felt reluctant when Luther first suggested leveraging their friendship to gain access to Gregory Wightman. Some part of him – the part that still remembered what it felt like to be that frightened boy – had recoiled at the idea of turning something genuine into a tool for revenge.
But he had done it anyway. He had accepted the mantle of hatred against Gregory Wightman without thinking twice, without any regard for what it might mean for Cecil. Or for Nora.
Especially for Nora.
“Your Grace?”
Godric blinked, pulled from his thoughts by the hesitant voice of one of the footmen. The young man stood before him; his cap twisted between his hands.
“We are ready for departure, Your Grace. Everything has been loaded.”
“Good,” Godric said, his voice coming out rougher than he intended. “You may go ahead. I will follow shortly.”
The footman bowed and retreated, and after a moment – along with a much-needed deep breath – Godric walked towards the door.
He paused at the threshold, his hand resting against the doorframe as his gaze swept across the familiar space one final time. How many times had he stood in this very spot, waiting for Nora arrive? How many seconds had they spent together within these walls, unveiling their hearts to each other – him without meaning to?
