“Oliver enjoyed his lessons with the tutor today.”
“I am pleased to hear it.”
And so the minutes would crawl past, each exchange more hollow than the last, until Maribel could escape to her chambers and the blessed relief of solitude.
Between these fixed points, she carved out her own territory. The nursery became her domain—she rearranged it piece by piece, each small change a quiet act of rebellion against the rigid order Thaddeus prized. The library, too, she claimed, spending hours among its shelves whilst Oliver napped, pulling down volumes that looked as though they had not been touched in years.
It was during one such exploration that she found herself in an unfamiliar corridor.
She had been following the sound of birdsong—unusual, for the house seemed to swallow sound rather than carry it—and had taken a wrong turn somewhere past the portrait gallery. The passage stretched before her, narrower than those in the mainwing, its wallpaper faded to a colour that might once have been blue.
At its end stood a pair of double doors.
Maribel approached slowly, her footsteps muffled by a carpet worn thin with age. The doors themselves drew her attention: carved oak panels depicting roses and trailing ivy, craftsmanship that spoke of commission rather than convenience. Beautiful work, made more striking by neglect.
She tried the handle. Locked.
“Your Grace?”
It took a precious few seconds and one repetition before Maribel turned. She was not yet quite used to her new title. Mrs. Allen stood at the corridor’s entrance, her ring of keys glinting at her waist, her expression showing none of the curiosity that was heard in her tone.
“I seem to have wandered off course,” Maribel said. “These doors—where do they lead?”
The housekeeper’s hands twisted together at her apron. “The east wing, Your Grace.”
“And the east wing contains?”
An uncomfortable pause followed the question. Mrs. Allen glanced toward the locked doors, and something crossed her weathered face—old grief, perhaps, or the particular discomfort of servants asked to explain their master’s eccentricities.
“His Grace prefers it closed, Your Grace. It was the late Duchess’s domain—her bedchamber, her sitting room…” Another pause followed, this one heavier than the first. “He hasn’t opened it in years.”
Maribel looked back at the carved roses. His mother’s rooms, sealed away like a tomb. Much like her garden left to ruin.
“I see,” she said quietly. “Thank you, Mrs. Allen.”
The housekeeper made to turn, and the words escaped her lips before she could stop it.
“Mrs. Allen… If you don’t mind me asking, how long ago did the Duchess pass?”
Mrs. Allen shifted. Then sighed.
“Eight years ago, I believe Your Grace.”
She did not push further. But as she followed the housekeeper back toward the inhabited portions of the house, her mind kept returning to those doors. To the dust in their carvings, the tarnish on their handles, the years of silence they represented.
Eight years since the Duchess had died, and still her son could not bear to enter the rooms she had loved.
What kind of grief demanded such absolute avoidance? What kind of man built walls so high against his own heart?
The question troubled her more than she allowed herself to let on. Perhaps, she thought, it was because she had come to think of Thaddeus as cold and unfeeling.
Yet, any man who could grieve with such depth could not possibly be devoid of all feeling, could he?
“Might we go outside?”
Oliver’s voice and the tug of his hand on her sleeve pulled her from the sudden confusion of her thoughts.
“Please?” He turned to look at her, and the hope in his eyes reminded her so much of Margaret that her heart twisted. “Just for a little while? I’ve been inside for ages and ages.”
