“It’s a start,” Marianne said gently, retaking her seat, her own legs suddenly unsteady.
“He kept the wolf.” Wonder coloured Catherine’s voice, fresh tears starting, but these seemed different—cleaner somehow. “I thought he’d leave it on the table. Or even hurl it at the wall.”
“Your brother is complicated, but he loves you. He’s just forgotten how to show it. Or perhaps he’s afraid to show it.”
“And you?” Catherine studied her with that gaze so like Adrian’s but without the shadows, not yet at least. “You love him? Truly? Even knowing what he is—what we are—this fractured, tempestuous family you’ve married into?”
“I do. Perhaps I love him because of all he carries, not despite it.”
“Even knowing the man he is? What he’s done? The stories from his past—”
“They’re exactly that. The past.”
Catherine reached across the table, covering Marianne’s hand with her own. Her fingers were cold, delicate, trembling slightly. “Then we’re allies in this. Sisters in truth. We’ll stand together in trying to piece this family back together.”
“I’d like that. I’ve never had a sister.”
“Well, now you have one who comes with considerable baggage and a tendency toward melodrama.”
“Perfect. I come with merchant blood and a habit of speaking truths people don’t want to hear. We’ll make quite a pair.”
They sat together in the morning sun that streamed through the tall windows, painting golden squares on the tablecloth, two women bound by love for a man who didn’t know how to accept it. But he’d kept the wolf. That had to mean something.
The rest of the day progressed with careful normalcy, or what passed for normal at Harrowmere. Adrian remained in his study, but the quality of his absence felt different—less like hiding, more like thinking. The door remained closed but not locked; Marianne knew because she’d checked, unable to resist testing this small change.
Catherine explored the house with Marianne as guide, rediscovering childhood haunts and exclaiming over changes. The nursery had been closed up but not emptied—its toys and books still waiting, patient relics of children who had long since outgrown them.
“Adrian used to read to me here,” Catherine said softly, touching a worn copy of fairy tales. “Every night, even when Father said he was too old for such nonsense. He’d do voices for all the characters—the giant with a great booming bass, the princess in ridiculous falsetto. He could make me laugh until my sides ached.”
“He still has that humour. It just comes out... differently now.”
“Darker. Sharper. Like everything about him.”
They moved through the portrait gallery, Catherine pointing out ancestors and their scandals—the uncle who’d gambled away three estates, the aunt who’d run off with a dancing master, the grandfather who’d built this monument to his own ego.
“We come from a long line of passionate disasters,” Catherine observed. “Perhaps it’s in the blood.”
“Then I’ll fit right in.”
***
As evening approached, Marianne found herself drawn back to the conservatory, breathing in the green scent of growing things mixed with the earthier notes of soil and moisture. The sun was setting, painting everything gold and amber through the glass walls, when she heard footsteps behind her—familiar footsteps she’d know anywhere.
“You shouldn’t have pushed,” Adrian said, his voice carrying across the humid space.
She didn’t turn, knowing he’d come to her when he was ready. “Someone had to.”
“It could have gone badly. Catherine is fragile—”
“Catherine is stronger than you think. You both are.”
He moved closer, and she felt the heat of him at her back, that familiar warmth that never failed to make her pulse quicken. His cologne mixed with the conservatory’s perfume, creating something uniquely theirs.
“You said you loved me.” The words were carefully neutral, but she heard the question underneath.
“I did.”
“You shouldn’t.”
