He thought of sharing his home. His silence. His carefully constructed solitude.
He thought of someone seeing him in those moments when the mask slipped—when the nightmares came, when the old guilt rose like bile, when he was nothing more than a broken man in a house too large for him, pretending at wholeness.
No.
The refusal rose at once—absolute and instinctive. For a moment, he allowed himself to rest within it, to imagine the matter settled by that single, resolute denial.
But the comfort was fleeting. The reality followed close behind, cold and inescapable. Refusal would not alter the terms of his father’s will. It would not preserve the estate. It would not shield the legacy entrusted to him across three centuries ofThornwood stewardship. And whatever else Benjamin might be, he was not so selfish as to permit his own cowardice to bring ruin upon his family’s inheritance.
The denial faded, leaving only inevitability in its wake.
He reached for a pen and paper.
***
The letter he composed was brief. His letters were always brief. He saw no merit in wasting words when fewer would suffice.
Mr Thornton,he wrote, then crossed it out. The solicitor would need to be informed, but Benjamin found he could not bear the name.
He began again.
To whom it may concern at the offices of Thornton & Associates:
I am in receipt of your letter regarding the marriage clause. Arrange a gathering at a country house of your choosing—not Thornwood—where I may be introduced to suitable candidates. I require a wife of practical disposition who will not expect romance, affection, or excessive conversation. Wealth and connections are immaterial. Discretion is essential.
I shall attend in a fortnight.
Thornwood
He read it twice, then sealed it before he could reconsider.
A wife of practical disposition.The phrase felt clinical. Cold. Precisely as he required it to be. He was not seeking a love match—the notion was almost laughable. He was seeking an arrangement. A partnership of convenience. Someone who would fulfil the legal requirements of matrimony without requiring him to be anything other than what he was: a scarred, silent, solitary man who preferred the company of stray cats to that of people.
Someone who will expect nothing,he thought.Someone who will not be disappointed when she discovers there is nothing left to give.
It was not, perhaps, the most romantic foundation upon which to build a marriage. But Benjamin had ceased believing in romance on the same night he had ceased believing in his own invincibility—in a burning field in Spain, surrounded by the screams of men who had trusted him to keep them safe.
Romance was for those who still possessed hope.
He had only duty. And duty, at least, was something he understood.
***
The afternoon brought rain, precisely as his leg had predicted. Benjamin stood at the window of his study, watching droplets streak down the glass, and thought of the cat.
It would be sheltering somewhere dry by now. Beneath the gardener’s shed, perhaps, or in the old dovecote that no one had used in years. Strays learnt quickly where to find safety. They were obliged to. The world was not kind to creatures without homes.
You are projecting, he told himself.It is a cat. It does not suffer existential crises.
Yet he could not entirely banish the image: a small grey body, hunched against the rain, alone in the dark.
You are also alone in the dark, some traitorous part of his mind whispered.The only difference is that your darkness is a choice.
He turned from the window.
Upon his desk, the sealed letter waited. Tomorrow, a rider would carry it to London. Within days, the arrangements would begin. Within a fortnight, he would be standing in some stranger’s drawing room, paraded before women who would assess his title and carefully avoid his face, and he would be required to choose one of them to share the remainder of his life.
Not share,he corrected himself.Coexist. There is a distinction.
