Edward braced himself, but Isla stepped forward and placed the packet in his hands.
“You may,” she said.
Glenmore held them as though holding fire. He unfolded one with hands that were not as steady as before. His eyes scannedthe familiar script. His own words, from years when his hair was dark and his pride unbroken. When he reached the signature, something in his expression cracked.
“She kept them,” he whispered again, wonder and grief wrestling in his voice. “All these years …”
The bailiffs looked profoundly uncomfortable. One cleared his throat but Glenmore did seem to hear him. At last, he closed the letters and turned to Alistair.
“I will make you an offer,” he said hoarsely. “Not as a creditor. Not as a rival. But as a man who once loved your mother once. Who … who still does though I lost her.”
Alistair’s jaw tensed.
“I will take these,” Glenmore said, lifting the letters slightly, “in settlement of your debts.”
Silence fell like a dropped stone.
“You cannot mean that,” Alistair said, stunned.
“I do,” Glenmore said. “I want no money. No property. Only the right to pay my respects to her.”
“Absolutely not,” Alistair spat. “You think you can stroll into our family crypt and …”
“Alistair,” Isla said sharply.
He turned to her, incredulous.
But Isla stepped between them both, her voice lowering.
“If Mother cared for him once,” she said, “and he for her then let him look upon her grave. What harm does it do? What does it cost us?”
“It costs us dignity,” Alistair hissed. “It gives him—”
“It gives him closure,” Isla said. “And it frees Strathmore from ruin.”
Edward saw it then, the final blow that Isla’s compassion dealt to Glenmore. Her words were not sentimental. They were true. Glenmore’s feud had been fueled by a wound no one else had acknowledged. He had expected hatred. He had not expected grace. Glenmore lowered his head.
“Will you allow it?” he asked Isla softly, ignoring Alistair entirely.
Chapter 28
They reached Wexford under an overcast sky, the kind that pressed low upon the downs and made every window glimmer with a muted, pewter light. A month had passed since they left that same gravel sweep as near-strangers.
Now he and Isla rode side by side, close enough that their boots nearly brushed. Every mile south had felt like a quiet recomposing of a life he had once believed fixed and unyielding. Yet nothing prepared him for the sight awaiting them.
Lady Charlotte Pembroke stood on the front steps of Wexford Hall, gloved, poised, and humming with officious energy. Behind her, two footmen carried a porcelain vase he had never seen before, a ghastly thing painted with cherubs. Another was hauling an embroidered screen out of a crate. Isla reined in beside him and stared, aghast.
“Has she redecorated your entire entrance hall?” she murmured.
Edward felt a muscle twitch near his jaw. “It would seem she has attempted to.”
The Dowager Duchess swept out behind Charlotte, her face sharpening with astonishment as she caught sight of Isla. Shock rippled through her expression, then disappointment, then a brittle, disdainful composure.
“Edward,” she called. “I had not realized you intended to bring … your wife back.”
The tone made Isla’s spine stiffen. Edward felt her draw in a breath beside him. He dismounted, handed his reins to the groom, then turned squarely to his mother.
“She is Duchess of Wexford,” he said. “Her home is here.”
