The Dowager Duchess glanced between him and Isla as though witnessing something distasteful. Then she reached for his arm and pulled him aside.
“You must listen,” she whispered fiercely. “You have had a month of reflection, good. Now, please, make the sensible choice. Annul this marriage while you still can.”
Edward stared at her.
“Mother,” he said in a level voice, “annulment is impossible.”
She paled.
“Impossible?” she breathed. “You … you have … already—?”
Isla, overhearing, flushed a shade so vivid he felt heat rise in his own neck. Edward cleared his throat.
“That is hardly your concern,” he said, though his mother’s expression made clear she thought it very much was.
Charlotte approached then, looking almost triumphant, until she realized neither Edward nor Isla were leaving. Her smile withered.
“I thought,” she said sweetly, “that after so much time away, the Duchess might prefer to reside elsewhere.”
Isla merely arched a brow. “You thought wrongly.”
Edward stepped between them before Charlotte’s claws emerged.
“Charlotte,” he said, “you are a guest here. Nothing more.”
Her face tightened. For the first time since he had known her, he saw something like panic behind her composure.
Good. It is time to put an end to secrets. All of them.
He led Isla down the west corridor with a purpose that startled even him. Dust rose beneath their boots, the air smelled faintly of mildew and long-shrouded things. At the end of the passage stood the locked double doors. Edward paused only long enough to draw a steadying breath.
“Are you ready?” Isla asked softly, “you have the key?”
“I do.” Edward said, then he raised his foot and kicked.
The first door shuddered but did not break. The second kick splintered the lower panel. The third sent both doors swinging inward with a groaning wail of old hinges, dust billowing like smoke around them. Isla coughed, waving away the cloud.
“Well,” she said, “that was certainly dramatic.”
“It was symbolic,” Edward muttered. “I am done hiding from ghosts.”
She slid her hand into his, warm and assuring, and together they crossed the threshold. His father’s wing smelled of paper and old leather, of hearths long cold. Chairs draped in sheets. Cabinets locked. A writing desk with a quill still in its holder as though its owner might return at any moment. Edward swallowed. He had feared this place for so long that walking into it felt like stepping into the hollowness of his own chest.
“Where do we start?” Isla asked gently.
“Here,” he said, moving toward the desk.
She followed without hesitation. For the next hour they opened trunks and drawers. With Isla beside him, the memories did not feel like weights. They felt survivable. He was beginning to sort a stack of letters when the wing’s silence shattered.
“What do you think you are doing?!”
Charlotte’s shrill voice echoed like a bird trapped in a tomb.
Edward turned. She stood by the fireplace, within which Edward had set a fire burning to warm the long cold of years. Charlotte held something small and leather-bound in her hand. She lifted it high over the empty grate like a priestess about to perform a sacrifice. The Dowager Duchess hovered behind her, white-faced and aghast.
“Edward,” Charlotte cried, “you must stop this woman. She is corrupting you! Look what she forced you to do, breaking into your father’s sanctum …”
“I broke the doors,” Edward said flatly. “Isla did nothing but walk beside me.”
