“I don’t know the full truth. I was ten years old, and the adults didn’t explain things to children.” Edward’s jaw tightened. “What I know is that my parents’ marriage was not happy. My father was demanding, critical, and impossible to please. My mother tried, but nothing she did was ever enough. He wanted perfection. She was merely human.”
The memories surfaced, hazy and fragmented. His mother’s red-rimmed eyes at breakfast. His father’s bitter silences that could last for days. The way the house had felt like a battlefield, even when no shots were fired.
“One night, I heard them arguing.” Edward’s voice dropped. “Louder than usual. My father accused her of… I did not understand at the time. Something about a letter. About someone she had been meeting.” He shook his head. “I crept out of bed and hid at the top of the stairs. I saw my mother in the entrance hall wearing her traveling cloak. She had a valise in her hand.”
Sophia’s grip on his hand tightened.
“My father stood in the doorway of his study. He told her that if she left, she could never return. That he would erase her from our lives. That Leonard and I would forget she ever existed.” Edward closed his eyes. “She looked up the stairs. I think shesaw me. I think she knew I was watching. And then she opened the door and walked out into the night.”
“Oh, Edward.” Sophia’s voice was thick with emotion.
“She never came back.” He opened his eyes, staring at the roses below without seeing them. “The next morning, my father gathered the servants and informed them that the duchess had died. That her name was never to be spoken again. That any portrait or reminder of her was to be removed and destroyed.”
“But she didn’t die.”
“I don’t know.” The admission burned. “There were rumors. That she drowned herself in the Thames. That she ran away with a lover. That my father had her killed and buried in secret.” He exhaled roughly. “I spent years trying to find the truth. But my father had erased every trace of her so thoroughly that it was as though she had never existed at all.”
Sophia shifted closer, her shoulder pressing against his, offering warmth and solidarity without words.
“After she left, my father changed.” Edward continued. “The man who had laughed and played with us disappeared. In his place, there was someone made of ice. He raised Leonard and me to believe that emotion was weakness. That love was a trap. That the only things that mattered were duty, legacy, and the Heatherwell name.”
“And Leonard?”
Edward’s throat tightened. “Leonard was different. He refused to become what our father wanted. He held onto warmth, onto hope, onto the belief that love was worth the risk.” A bitter smile crossed his face. “I envied him. And I resented him. Because he was brave enough to feel, and I was too afraid.”
“When he met Jane…” Sophia prompted gently.
“When he met Jane, he was transformed.” Edward’s voice softened at the memory. “I had never seen him so happy. So alive. He spoke of her constantly. Made plans for their future. He was certain that if he could just introduce her to our father, make him see how wonderful she was…” He trailed off.
“It did not go well.”
“It was a disaster.” Edward’s jaw clenched. “Jane’s family was not wealthy enough, not connected enough, not anything enough for the Duke of Heatherwell. Our father forbade the match. When Leonard refused to comply, our father disowned him. Threw him out of the house with nothing but the clothes on his back.”
“And you?”
The question cut deep. Edward looked down at their joined hands, at Sophia’s fingers intertwined with his.
“I did nothing.” The words tasted like ash. “I stood in the corner of that room and watched my father destroy my brother’s life, and I said nothing. Did nothing. I was too afraid of becoming the next target. Too afraid of losing my position, my inheritance, my place in a family that had already proven it could erase people without a second thought.”
“You were young.” Sophia’s voice held no judgment. “You were afraid.”
“I was a coward.” Edward’s voice cracked. “Leonard left. He married Jane anyway and made a life for himself. A good life. A happy life. And I stayed behind, becoming exactly what our father wanted me to be. Cold. Controlled. Alone.”
He pulled his hand free and rose from the window seat, pacing to the fireplace. He could not look at her. Could not bear to see pity in her eyes.
“I tried to reach out. After our father died. I wrote to Leonard and asked him to come back to London to let me help him and Jane establish themselves properly.” He gripped the mantelpiece. “He refused. Said he was happy where he was, that he did not need the Heatherwell name or the Heatherwell fortune. He had everything he needed.”
“He loved Jane,” Sophia said quietly. “He loved the life they had built together.”
“He did.” Edward’s voice broke. “And I could not understand it. I could not understand how he could be so content with solittle, when I had everything and felt nothing.” He pressed his forehead against the cool marble. “And then they died. And I was left with Oliver, and all I could think was that if I had tried harder, if I had fought for them, if I had defied our father the way Leonard did…”
He could not finish. The words tangled in his throat, choked by grief and guilt and years of unspoken regret.
Sophia crossed the room. He heard her footsteps, felt her presence behind him. And then her arms wrapped around his waist, her cheek pressing against his back.
“You cannot blame yourself for things that were beyond your control.” Her voice was fierce and tender all at once. “The carriage accident was not your fault. Leonard’s choices were not your fault. Your father’s cruelty was not your fault.”
“If I had brought them back to London?—”
