Could she risk it? Could she walk back into Blackwood and allow herself to hope again?
She did not know.
But the alternative—remaining here, safe and untouched and utterly alone—felt increasingly like a different kind of death.
The decision, when it finally came, arrived not through careful deliberation but through a single sentence in Mrs. Allen’s weekly report.
Young Master Oliver asked this morning if you were angry with him. His Grace assured him that your absence was not his fault, that you loved him and would return when you were ready. The boy seems comforted, though he continues to watch the drive each afternoon.
Maribel read the words and felt something crack open in her chest. She had been furious with Thaddeus for being selfish, but she was selfish too.
Oliver thought she was angry with him. Thought her absence was somehow his responsibility, his fault, another abandonment in a life that had already held far too many.
She could not—would not—let him believe that.
She rose from her writing desk and found Lady Eleanor in the morning room, reviewing household accounts.
“I need to return to Blackwood,” Maribel said without preamble. “Today, if possible.”
Eleanor set down her pen. “You are certain?”
“No.” Maribel’s hands trembled. “But Oliver needs to know he did nothing wrong. That I love him. That I would never abandon him willingly.” She drew a breath. “And I need to see for myself if Thaddeus’s change is real. If he can be the man he claims to want to be.”
Eleanor studied her for a long moment, then nodded. “I will have the carriage prepared. But Maribel—” She rose and took both of Maribel’s hands in hers. “—do not sacrifice yourself on the altar of that child’s happiness. You matter too. Your needs, your safety, your heart—they matter just as much as his. Do you understand?”
Maribel’s eyes burned with unshed tears. “I understand.”
“Good.” Eleanor squeezed her hands. “Then go. See if the Duke of Blackwood has finally learned what the rest of us have always known—that love is not control. It is trust. And trust must be earned. Please… do send my things? I will leave at once.”
Eleanor nodded once—a proud smile on her face—and Maribel turned with a coy grin, rushing to the carriage.
The journey to Blackwood took four hours.
Maribel spent them alternating between certainty and terror, her thoughts circling the same worn grooves. What if she arrived and discovered nothing had changed? What if Thaddeus’s apology had been merely words, his promises empty air?
What if she allowed herself to hope and was broken again?
The carriage rolled through increasingly familiar countryside. Autumn had deepened in the fortnight since she had left, painting the landscape in shades of amber and rust. The sky stretched pale and clear overhead, and the light that filtered through the windows carried the golden quality of late afternoon.
She had dressed carefully that morning—a travelling gown of deep sapphire blue, her hair pinned with deliberate simplicity. She wore her grandmother’s garnet pendant at her throat.Armour, of a sort. A reminder that she was not returning as a supplicant, but as a woman who knew her own worth.
The gates of Blackwood appeared ahead.
Maribel’s heart began to race. She pressed her palm against the window, watching as the estate came into view—that imposing facade of stone and glass, the manicured grounds, the fountain gleaming in the sunlight.
Home, some treacherous part of her whispered.
The carriage rolled up the drive, gravel crunching beneath the wheels. And then?—
Movement at the entrance. A small figure bursting through the door, running down the steps with complete disregard for propriety or safety.
Oliver.
The carriage had barely halted before he reached it, his hands grasping at the door, his face pressed against the window. Maribel saw tear tracks on his cheeks, saw the desperate hope in his eyes.
“Maribel! You came, you came, I knew you would come?—”
She opened the door before the footman could reach it and Oliver launched himself into her arms with such force that they both nearly fell. She caught him, held him tight, felt his small body trembling as he sobbed against her shoulder.
