I remain, your obedient servant,
Elspeth Crane
Nathaniel read the letter twice, then a third time, his jaw tightening with each pass.
Troubling reports.A household in disarray.A guardian retreated from his responsibilities.
The words were carefully chosen—polite on the surface, but laden with accusation beneath. Elspeth Crane was not coming to visit. She was coming to inspect. To judge. To gather evidence for... what?
He did not want to think about what.
But he knew, with a cold certainty that settled in his stomach like a stone, that this visit was not innocent. Elspeth had never accepted his guardianship. She had argued against it at the reading of the will, had written letters to Edward’s solicitor challenging the decision, had made it clear that she believed the children belonged with family—with her—rather than with a bachelor uncle who had shown no particular aptitude for childcare.
She had been overruled. The will had been clear, the legal situation unambiguous. But Elspeth was not the sort of woman who accepted defeat gracefully.
And now she was coming.
Nathaniel set the letter down and pressed his hands flat against the desk, willing himself to think clearly. Thursday next. That gave him—he calculated quickly—five days to prepare. Five days to ensure that the household was in perfect order, thatthe children were on their best behaviour, that every aspect of Greystone Hall reflected the competent, caring guardianship he had been trying so hard to provide.
Five days to conceal any sign of the feelings he had so recently confessed to his children’s governess.
The thought struck him like a blow.
Serena. Sweet mercy, Serena.
If Elspeth was seeking evidence of impropriety, of unfitness, of anything that might bolster a challenge to his guardianship, the situation with Serena was precisely the sort of ammunition she would seize upon. A young and attractive governess. A bachelor guardian. Late-night visits to her bedchamber during a storm.
Nothing had occurred. Nothing improper, nothing that crossed the strict bounds of propriety—at least not in any tangible sense. But the feeling was there. The awareness. The connection. And if Elspeth possessed eyes in her head, she would see it: the way Nathaniel looked at Serena, the way Serena looked back, the charged silence that seemed to gather whenever they shared a room.
She would see it—and she would use it.
Nathaniel pushed back from his desk and began to pace, his thoughts racing through contingencies and half-formed plans. He needed to warn Serena. Needed to explain the situation, the danger, the absolute necessity of unimpeachable propriety during the Cranes’ visit. Needed to—
No. That was not enough.
He needed to do more than warn her. He needed to distance himself from her entirely, at least for as long as the Cranes remained. To treat her as nothing more than an employee. To confine every interaction to the strictly professional. To give Elspeth nothing—no glance, no tone, no moment—that might be twisted into suspicion.
The thought was unbearable. After everything that had passed between them—after his confession, her tears, the fragile hope that had begun, however tentatively, to take root—the prospect of retreating behind a wall of cold formality felt like a betrayal.
But what choice did he have?
The children. It always returned to the children. Ella, Samuel, Rosie—his responsibility, his to protect, his to keep safe. And if his feelings for Serena threatened their welfare, threatened his right to remain their guardian—
He could not risk it. He would not.
Even if it meant the sacrifice of the happiness they had only just begun to imagine.
***
Serena knew something was wrong the moment she saw Nathaniel’s face.
She had come to his study at his request, summoned by a brief note delivered by the butler. It stated only that he wished to speak with her on a matter of some urgency, and she had gone at once, her heart fluttering with a mixture of anticipation and unease.
The anticipation vanished the moment she crossed the threshold.
He stood by the window with his back to her, his posture rigid, every line of him drawn tight with tension. He did not turn at her entrance, did not acknowledge her presence with so much as a glance. The warmth that had marked their recent interactions—the softened looks, the quiet teasing, the subtle current that seemed always to pass between them—was wholly absent.
Something had changed. Something had gone terribly wrong.
