April’s eyes widened. Something shifted in her expression—surprise then understanding then a hardening that made her look unnervingly like their mother.
August caught himself. Straightened. Folded his hands behind his back in a posture that communicated ducal composure or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. “That is—I am glad to hear she is well. She mentioned visiting Lady Hartwell. A fortnight’s rest, she said.”
“I did not see Eliza, but Aunt Martha told me she has been staying with her.” April pulled at her bonnet ribbons, yanking the thing off her head and tossing it onto the nearest chair with a force that suggested the bonnet had personally offended her. “Three days, August. She has been gone three days, and you are standing here looking like you have not slept or eaten since she left.”
“I have been occupied with estate business. The northern properties require?—”
“Do not.” April pointed a finger at him. “Do not give me estate business. I grew up in this family. I know what estate business looks like, and it does not look like this.” She gestured at him—all of him, from his rumpled cravat to his hollow eyes. “Did you argue? What did you do to her, August?”
He bristled. His jaw tightened, and something hot flared in his chest. “Why must you assume I am the one at fault?”
“Because I know you. Because you have spent your entire life keeping everyone at arm’s length while pretending to let them close. Because Eliza is the most sensible woman I have ever met, and sensible women do not flee their homes at dawn without excellent reason.”
The words struck bone.
“It is a complicated matter,” he managed.
“Then uncomplicate it.”
“April—”
“She is my friend, August. She is my sister. And I will not stand by while you and your stubborn pride drive away the best thing that has ever happened to you.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, her chin raised, her blue eyes bright with the particular fury that only a younger sistercould summon. Then she snatched her bonnet from the chair, jammed it back onto her head, and strode toward the door.
“Fix this,” she said over her shoulder. “Before it is too late.”
The front door opened and closed. The carriage wheels crunched on the gravel drive. And then silence, heavier than before, settled back over Wildmoore Hall like a shroud.
August moved to the window. The evening light was fading, turning the drive to gray and gold, and April’s carriage was already halfway to the gate. He watched it grow smaller, carrying his sister away from him and his mess.
His reflection stared back at him in the glass. Hollow-eyed. Haggard. A man who looked nothing like the Duke of Wildmoore and everything like someone who had lost something he did not know how to recover.
Fix this. Before it is too late.
He turned from the window and moved through the manor to the room he had avoided since Eliza left. Her sitting room. He had walked past the closed door a dozen times without stopping and allowing himself to enter the space where her absence would be most acute.
Now, his hand found the latch, and he pushed the door open.
The room smelled like her. Lavender and paper and something warm he had never been able to name. Her writing desk sat beneath the window, its surface neat save for a few sheets of stationery and the inkwell she preferred—the blue one, not the black, because she said blue ink made correspondence feel less like obligation.
Her books lined the shelf by the fireplace. A shawl draped over the arm of her chair. A half-finished piece of embroidery lay on the side table, the needle still threaded, as though she had set it down intending to return in a moment.
She left it all behind. She left everything behind except what fit in one valise.
His gaze moved along the shelf and stopped.
The duck.
It was small—barely the size of his palm—carved from light wood and painted in cheerful, slightly uneven strokes. She had won it at the village fair two months ago, a ridiculous little thing.
August picked it up now. The paint was slightly chipped where the beak met the head, and one eye was larger than the other, giving it a permanently startled expression. It weighed almost nothing.
His throat closed.
He sank into her chair—her chair, the one he had refused to sit in when she was here because it was hers, and he respected that boundary even when he wanted to cross it—and held the duck between both hands.
I miss her.