The realization struck him again, unwelcome and insistent. He had not heard it—not truly heard it—in two years. Not since Eleanor’s hands had last moved across the keys, coaxing life from the instrument with a grace that felt effortless and unearned by the rest of the world.
And yet today—
It had been dreadful.
Uneven. Hesitant. Painfully amateur.
And still, it had stopped him mid-step.
Edward dragged a hand through his hair and began to pace.
He had known, the instant the sound reached him, that it was wrong. That it did not belong to any lesson he had sanctioned. That it violated the carefully ordered structure he had imposed upon Ashford in the wake of loss.
And yet his feet had carried him toward it before his mind had fully caught up.
The sound had pulled him.
Lured him, like a memory half-forgotten.
He stopped abruptly and stared down at the carpet, jaw tightening.
Julian had been laughing.
The image rose unbidden—his son’s face lit with something unguarded, something fleeting and rare. Not the sharp mischiefEdward had learned to expect. Not the defensive bravado. But laughter. Real laughter. The kind that reached the eyes before it could be smothered.
Edward closed his eyes. When was the last time he had heard that sound?
He searched his memory, turning over moments with increasing urgency. Julian as a smaller boy, perhaps. Before the war. Before illness had hollowed the house. Before silence had become the rule rather than the exception.
Nothing came.
The absence struck him like a physical blow.
He resumed pacing, anger sharpening into something more ominous—something too close to envy to be comfortable.
Charlotte Fenton.
The governess had stood between him and that moment, unbowed. Had spoken to him—challenged him—with a calm that bordered on audacity. No servant had ever done so. Not once. Not without fear. Not without apology.
He should have been furious. Instead, something unsettling had stirred beneath the anger.
Candor, he thought grimly. That was what it was. Unvarnished, unafraid candor. He had spent the better part of his life surrounded by men who deferred or flattered, by staff who obeyed and retreated, by society that smiled and whispered behind gloved hands.
Miss Fenton had done none of those things.
He turned sharply, stopping before one of the tall windows that overlooked the grounds. The gardens lay quiet beneath the winter sky, their paths pale with frost.
“She is a servant,” he muttered aloud.
The words rang hollow. She had not behaved like one. And worse—he had admired it.
The admission sat like a spark against dry tinder. Perilous. Ill-advised. Entirely inappropriate.
And yet—
Edward’s shoulders sagged as regret seeped in, slow and heavy.
He had been too harsh.
