Chapter One
“I know,” Benjamin said quietly. “I would not trust me either.”
The grey cat regarded him from beneath the overgrown boxwood hedge, its eyes the pale green of old glass bottles. It did not blink. It did not move. It simply watched, as it had done every morning for the past three months, while the Duke of Thornwood knelt in the damp grass of his own garden like a man in quiet supplication.
The dish of kitchen scraps sat precisely where he always placed it—three feet from the hedge, angled so the cat could eat without turning its back upon the open lawn. Benjamin had learnt, through trial and error, that strays did not survive by carelessness. They survived by assuming everything that moved was a threat.
Sensible creature, he thought.More sensible than most.
The morning mist clung to the grounds of Thornwood Park, softening the edges of the world into something almost gentle. At this hour, before the household stirred, before the weight of correspondence and duty descended, Benjamin could almost forget what he was. What he had done. What he had failed to do.
Almost.
He rose slowly, his left leg protesting the movement with the familiar grinding ache that had become as constant as his own heartbeat. The surgeons had told him he was fortunate to keepthe leg at all. They had not mentioned that keeping it would mean feeling the ghost of fire each time the weather turned, nor that he would learn to predict rain with greater accuracy than any barometer, merely by the depth of his own discomfort.
Fortunate, he thought, and did not smile.
The cat’s ears flattened as he straightened to his full height. He was aware, distantly, that his height was among the many things that made people uneasy. Six feet and three inches of scarred, silent duke tended to clear a room more swiftly than a declaration of plague. He had ceased to mind. He had ceased to mind most things, in truth, save the small rituals that kept him anchored to something resembling purpose.
Feeding the cat was one such ritual.
“I shall leave you to it,” he told the animal, keeping his voice low and even. Strays startled at sudden sounds. So did soldiers, though he endeavoured not to dwell upon that. “Same time tomorrow.”
The cat did not acknowledge this. It simply waited, motionless as stone, until Benjamin had retreated a full twenty paces toward the house. Only then did it creep forward, belly low to the ground, and begin to eat.
He watched from the terrace. He always watched. There was something deeply satisfying in seeing a hungry creature fed, even one that would never trust him sufficiently to eat from his hand. Perhaps especially one that would never trust him. It felt honest, somehow. A transaction without pretence: he providedsustenance, the cat accepted it, and neither of them pretended the arrangement was anything more than it was.
If only all relationships were so simple.
The thought arrived unbidden, and he dismissed it with practised efficiency. There was no use in dwelling. There was never any use in dwelling.
“Your Grace appears contemplative this morning.”
Benjamin did not turn at the sound of his valet’s voice. Dawson had served him for eleven years—first as his batman during the war, now as the only servant permitted to address him without first being spoken to. The privilege had been earned in blood and silence, during nights when Benjamin had woken screaming and Dawson had simply sat beside him until the shaking subsided.
They did not discuss those nights. They did not discuss much of anything, in truth. But Dawson noticed things. He always noticed things.
“I was feeding the cat,” Benjamin said.
“I am aware, Your Grace. The kitchen has begun setting aside scraps expressly for that purpose. Mrs Holloway has taken to calling it ‘the Duke’s charity work.’”
A muscle twitched near Benjamin’s jaw. “Has she?”
“She means it kindly, I believe.” Dawson’s tone was perfectly neutral, which meant he was amused. “The staff find it… humanising.”
Humanising.As though he were some Gothic creature from a circulating library novel, requiring evidence of a soul. Then again, perhaps that was precisely what they thought. He had given them little reason to believe otherwise.
“The post has arrived,” Dawson continued when Benjamin did not respond. “There is a letter from Mr Thornton—”
“No.”
“Your Grace?”
“The solicitor’s name.” Benjamin turned at last, and Dawson’s expression flickered—only for an instant—at the full view of his face in the morning light. Eleven years, and the man still flinched. Benjamin did not blame him. He flinched at mirrors himself. “I dislike it. Find me another solicitor.”
“Your Grace, Mr Thornton has managed the Thornwood affairs for thirty years—”
“Then he has had an admirable career. Pension him off.”
