“Not once,” Eugenia said proudly. “But I enjoyed the practice.”
They continued through the upstairs hallway, viewing bedchambers, and Eugenia took her arm when they descended the servants’ stairs into the lower west wing.
As they passed the small salon, April said lightly, “Gregory and Loretta visited a few weeks ago.”
Eugenia gave her a glance, sharp and measuring. “And how did you find them?”
“I find Gregory rather charming,” April said, pausing by a tall window. “Loretta, however… We had some differences.”
“Indeed. I was quite fond of her once,” Eugenia replied, tapping her cane gently on the floor. “But over time, she grew into her ambitions. Deceptive little ways. I stopped inviting her altogether once I noticed how carefully she chose her company.”
April nodded slowly. “Do you think… Theo might have ever?—”
“Heavens, no!” Eugenia interrupted. “He tolerated her. That was all. My sister raised Theo to be polite, so he never declined her company. But fondness? Affection? Never.”
That answer eased something tight in April’s chest.
They exited through the rear doors into the garden, the morning sun already warming the stone steps. Tulip barked once and padded off into the rose bushes.
“Your gardens are much improved,” Eugenia said as they sat on a wrought iron bench beneath a blooming arch. “You’ve made this place your own.”
April gazed out over the trimmed hedges, the lemon trees, the neat rows of late-blooming violets.
“I only wanted it to feel like a home.”
Eugenia placed a gloved hand over hers. “And so it does. You are doing beautifully, April. And whatever ghosts linger here, I think you may just be the one to banish them.”
If only I could be sure which ghosts are still walking,April thought,and which ones have yet to rise.
Eugenia looked around the garden, her gaze drifting to the hothouse at the far end where sunlight glinted off the glass panes like old silver. “Caroline, Theo’s mother—rest her soul—adored her plants,” she said softly, a faint smile curling her lips.
“She defied every rule of propriety to tend those little flowers herself. Rare orchids, some of them. She had a special fondness for snowdrops. Once, she snuck out during a dinner party just to check whether her morning glories had opened.”
April’s brows lifted with quiet delight. “Did she?”
“She did. Your husband’s stubborn streak? That is all her doing.”
April smiled, imagining a much younger Theo running after his mother in the gardens. “Theo does not speak much of her.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Eugenia said, her eyes far off. “Her death carved him up. But she was a bright woman—soft-spoken, yes, but with a spine of steel. She loved all her children with the kind of devotion that terrifies you because you knew she’d tear the world apart if anything happened to them.”
April was quiet a moment, letting the image sink in. “Rebecca?” she prompted gently.
Eugenia’s expression shifted, her smile touched now by something deeper. “A firecracker. That girl was never still. Always running, climbing, shouting. She laughed like a banshee and sang like a songbird. Once, she rode a pony through the halls of Stone Hall, shrieking like an Amazon. She had a way of making everything feel like a story. Every game a battle, every teatime an event.”
April laughed softly. “She sounds impossible not to love.”
“She was,” Eugenia said, wistful now. “Her absence left a hole. One of the noisy kinds, if you understand me.”
“And Nathaniel?” April asked gently.
“Too small to know much of,” Eugenia replied. “But Theo adored him. Would carry him everywhere. He had this way of humming to him—some half-remembered lullaby that always worked. It was a tender thing, watching him become a brother.”
They sat in a moment of soft silence, the kind that didn’t need filling.
Then Eugenia let out a long breath and looked out toward the trees that ringed the garden. “I thank God Theo lived.”
April turned to her, curiosity stirred. “What do you mean?”
