But Lady Eleanor had advised him to let her speak.
So he did.
Maribel turned back to the window. “Do you know what it is to hope again after you have learned hope is dangerous? My family’s scandal taught me that people are cruel. That reputation matters more than truth. That I could be cast aside by everyone I thought cared for me.” Her reflection in the glass was ghostly, insubstantial. “I rebuilt myself after that. Learned not to need anyone. And then Oliver—” Her voice broke. “And then Oliver needed me, and I could not refuse him. Could not protect myself from loving him because he was all I had left of Margaret.”
She pressed her palm against the glass. “You used that love, Your Grace. You saw how much I cared for him and you used it to keep me compliant. To ensure I would stay even when you made it clear I was nothing more than a glorified governess with a ring on her finger.”
“That is not—” Thaddeus stopped himself. She had asked him to listen. So he would listen.
Maribel turned to face him fully. “And Oliver. That beautiful, sensitive, grieving child. You sent him away. You looked at his pain and decided it was inconvenient, so you packaged him off to school where he could suffer out of sight.” Tears glistened in her eyes, but she blinked them back with fierce determination. “He had lost so much… and you failed him. I failed him…”
Tears formed in her eyes. Thaddeus felt his carefully maintained composure crumbling, felt the walls he had spent decades building collapse under the weight of what he had done.
“I love that boy,” Maribel continued. “I love him as though he were mine. And the thought of losing him—of never seeing him again, never holding him, never hearing him laugh—it terrifies me more than anything else in this world. But you...” She wiped angrily at her eyes. “I failed him because I was foolish, because I let you… Because I...” She closed her eyes, seemingly at a loss for what to say. “And you sent him off. Made it clear that Oliver and I were both... disposable.”
The silence that followed was immense. Thaddeus stood frozen, every word she had spoken circling in his mind like accusation made manifest.
“You did not fail him,” he whispered. “I did, but you… I do not blame you for running. I drove you away because I was afraid, but… You did not fail him.”
“Are you finished?” Maribel asked, her voice steady once more. “Have you said and heard enough?”
“I have heard you,” Thaddeus said quietly. “And you are right. About all of it.”
She blinked, clearly not expecting agreement.
“Except that you failed him. Or that you were a convenience. Because you have been… terribly inconvenient, Maribel.”
Maribel’s expression remained guarded, but she said nothing.
“That kiss in the library,” Thaddeus said. “It was real. More real than anything I had allowed myself to feel in years. And that terrified me. Because wanting you—needing you—meant risking loss. It meant allowing you to matter enough that losing you would destroy me.” He took a breath. “So I convinced myself that distance was protection. That if I kept you at arm’s length, if I refused to acknowledge what I felt, I could keep us both safe.”
“Safe from what?” Maribel’s voice was sharp. “From caring? From being human?”
“From grief.” The admission emerged raw. “My father loved my mother absolutely. And when she died, it destroyed him. I watched it happen. Watched him fall apart so completely that he became a shadow of himself. And I swore I would never allow that to happen to me. That I would never need anyone so much that losing them would break me.”
“So you threw me away instead.”
The words landed with devastating accuracy. Thaddeus felt his throat constrict.
“Yes,” he said simply. “I did.”
Maribel crossed her arms, her posture defensive. “And Oliver? What possible justification do you have for sending him away?”
“None.” Thaddeus forced himself to continue despite the shame burning in his chest. “I sent him to school because watching his pain reminded me of my own failure. Because every time he looked at me with those enormous eyes, I saw my inadequacy reflected back. And I could not—” His voice cracked. “I could not bear it. So I sent him away. Not because he needed education. But because I was a coward.”
The clock ticked. Rain continued its steady percussion against the windows.
“I treated you abominably,” Thaddeus said into the silence. “I made you feel disposable when you are anything but. I kissed you and then withdrew because I was afraid of wanting you. And I sent away a grieving child because I was terrified of loving him.” He paused. “There is no defence for any of it. No justification that makes it acceptable. I was wrong. Comprehensively, entirely wrong.”
Maribel stared at him, her expression unreadable.
“I came here,” Thaddeus continued, “not to ask for forgiveness. I have no right to that. I came because you deserved to hear me say, without qualification or defence, that I failed you. That I hurt you deliberately and repeatedly because I was too afraid to be vulnerable. And that I am sorry.”
“Sorry.” There was no emotion whatsoever in her voice. “You’re sorry.”
“Yes.”
“And what precisely do you expect that apology to accomplish, Your Grace? Do you imagine I will simply accept it and return to Blackwood? That Oliver and I will resume our places in your household as though nothing has happened?”
