“Of course, Your Grace. Shall I have the boy’s belongings packed?”
“Yes. The trunk sent ahead last week should suffice. Nothing excessive. The school provides most necessities.”
“Very good, Your Grace.”
She curtsied again and moved away without meeting his eyes.
Thaddeus continued toward his study, aware—gradually, uncomfortably—of the way servants shifted as he passed. They bowed and curtsied as required, but there was something stiff in their movements now. A distance that he had not been aware of before Maribel came to fill this place with her chaos and her warmth.
A maid carrying linens pressed herself against the wall to let him pass, her gaze fixed firmly on the floor. A footman in the corridor turned and walked the other direction rather than cross his path.
They were avoiding him.
An irritation welled up in him. He was their employer. Their respect was a courtesy owed by station, not something earned or lost based on personal judgment.
He hastened his movements, keeping his gaze firmly ahead of him.
When finally, he reached his study and closed the door, it felt as though he had shut out the oppressive quiet of the house. Here, at least, everything remained exactly as it should be.
He crossed to the window.
The garden was visible from this angle—that splash of colour against the manicured green. Roses swaying in the breeze. Paths lined with lavender. Beautiful and alive and utterly wasted on a house where no one walked there anymore.
His mother would have loved it. Would have spent every morning there, tending the flowers, planning new arrangements, sitting on that bench with her embroidery and her quiet contentment.
But his mother was dead. Had been dead for eight years. And the garden she had loved had died with her, because maintaining it—looking at it, remembering her in it—had been more than his father could bear.
Thaddeus had understood that then. Understood the necessity of closing away the parts of life that held too much memory, too much feeling. Grief was chaos. Distance was survival.
He had built his entire adult life on that principle.
And it had worked. It had kept him safe, kept him functional, kept him from falling apart the way his father had.
So why did the house feel so empty now?
He turned from the window and sat at his desk. Work. There was always work. Ledgers to review, correspondence to answer, estate business that required his attention. He would occupy himself with tasks that demanded precision rather than emotion, and this hollow ache would pass.
It had to pass.
An hour later, he set down his pen and stared at the page before him.
He had written the same line three times. Each time, the words had come out wrong—letters transposed, meanings muddled. His hand was steady. His mind was not.
He pushed the papers aside and rose.
The clock on the mantel read half past eleven. Oliver would be in the nursery now, probably wondering where Maribel was and when she’d be back. Perhaps crying for her.
Tomorrow would fix that. He would learn structure. Order. Exactly what he had planned for the boy before…
No. He would not think of the before.
Thaddeus made his way upstairs.
The nursery door stood ajar. He pushed it open without knocking.
Oliver sat on the floor near the window, his wooden horse abandoned beside him. He held something pale in his hands—the handkerchief Maribel had given him, Thaddeus inferred. Blue silk with embroidered flowers. The boy’s fingers traced the stitching over and over, a repetitive motion that spoke of a desperate search for comfort.
“Oliver.”
