Albert grimaced, half in pain and half in memory. “That’s a bloody shame,” he said, voice dry as sand. “He was a bastard, but he kept the books in order.” His hand shot out, grabbing August’s sleeve. The grip was shockingly strong. “Don’t let them take it from you, boy. They’ll try. They always do.”
August bowed his head, jaw clenched against the ache in his chest. “I won’t, sir.”
Albert’s hand relaxed, but his eyes stayed open, roaming the room with confusion. “Where is my boy?” he asked, softer. “Where’s the little one—August? He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t see this.”
The words broke something in him. August felt the iron in his neck give, his shoulders curling forward as if to protect his heart. He let his eyes drop, staring at the trembling fingers that clung to his own.
Across the room, Eliza rose. She moved to stand at August’s side. She did not touch him at first, only watched the tableau: the dying man, the son losing his mooring.
Albert’s voice grew fretful. “Don’t let him in, I said! It’s not right. A child shouldn’t see this?—”
“It’s all right,” Eliza said, addressing the old man as if he were a child himself. “He’s not here. You’re safe.”
Albert calmed, the muscles in his face smoothing out. “That’s good,” he murmured, “that’s very good. Tell him I’m sorry. Tell him—” But he never finished.
His hand slackened and dropped, the blue veins luminous against the white sheet.
August bowed his head, and for the first time in his life, he did not bother to hide the evidence of grief. A single tear traced down his cheek, burning hot in the cold room. He did not wipe it away.
Eliza placed her hand on his shoulder, solid and real, and let it rest there.
They stood in silence for a long time, the only sound the pop of the dying fire and the slow tick of the clock. The world had gone very still.
When at last August straightened, he did not let go of his father’s hand. He looked down at the old man’s face, the lines now peaceful, and saw not a duke, not a legend, not a symbol, but only the man who had once taught him to ride a horse and to tell the truth, even when it was unbearable.
Eliza leaned in, her breath warm against his ear.
“He knows you’re here,” she whispered. “He always has.”
He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and let himself believe it.
Seventeen
“He proposed to me in the rain, you know,” said Dorothy, her voice so fragile it might have shattered had one of her daughters looked at her directly. “There was nothing remotely poetic about it. The sky was leaking, my bonnet was ruined, and your grandfather’s bull had just escaped into the orchard.” She dabbed her eyes, sniffling despite the miniature of Albert she clutched in one hand.
The Duke had passed away at dawn, proving to all of them that he had even less time than the physician predicted.
May, perched on the arm of the settee and clinging to her mother’s other hand, said, “You never told us that, Mama.”
April added, “She said yes of course. She had a particular fondness for ill-advised heroics.” She reached to adjust the shawl around her mother’s shoulders, tucking it with a tenderness that further tightened Eliza’s heart.
June leaned against the mantel, her stance a study in rebellion barely checked by grief. “Was this before or after Father tried to serenade you and ended up in the duck pond?”
Dorothy managed a laugh, brittle and wet. “After. By then I was well aware of his limitations as a suitor. If a man proposes while soaked to the bone, you may be assured he will not let small discomforts dissuade him from a project.” She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, careful not to smudge the painted face of her husband. “He said if I could love him drenched and shivering, I could love him through anything.”
The girls drew closer. Even June, who rarely permitted herself sentiment, reached to brush the hair from her mother’s cheek.
Across the rug, Lady Hartwell presided in a wing chair like a general surveying the wounded. She had not spoken since the girls entered the room and seemed determined not to cry in front of Dorothy, though her mouth had contracted into a straight line that spoke volumes.
Eliza sat at the edge of a second settee, hands folded in her lap. She watched the scene with a sense of trespass. In her own home, mourning had been a private matter—if one wept, it was done alone, and if one offered comfort, it was as formal as a black armband. Here, grief was a collective undertaking, messy and loud and wholly without shame. It made her uncomfortable, and yet she could not look away.
She watched May lean in, her forehead touching Dorothy’s, and heard her whisper, “He loved you so much, Mama. Hetalked about you at breakfast, every day.” The claim sounded exaggerated, but May was not a woman to lie on such matters.
Dorothy clutched May’s hand with surprising force. “He loved all of us. Even when he said otherwise.”
“Especially then,” said April, who had always been the family’s apologist.
Lady Hartwell stirred. “Your father was an admirable man, but he had a talent for the spectacularly wrong word at the worst possible moment.”