Violet gave a faint smile. “We might, eventually. But not tonight.” She brushed a damp curl away from Maria’s cheek.
Maria swallowed hard, tears slipping silently down her chin. Violet guided her further inside, past the candlelit staircase and toward the drawing room.
“Sit,” Violet said, steering her gently toward the nearest chair. “I’ll fetch tea. And you will drink it, no arguments.”
Maria nodded, though her gaze drifted to the fire. Violet returned with a blanket draped over one arm and set a steaming cup in front of her. She didn’t ask again what had happened. Instead, she sat beside Maria, close enough that their shoulders touched.
For a long while, neither spoke. The only sounds were the faint crackle of the fire and the clock ticking softly from the hall.
When Violet finally did speak, her voice was almost maternal. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me tonight, Maria. You need only rest.”
“You’re too kind to me.”
“Nonsense,” Violet said, smoothing a wrinkle from the blanket. “Kindness is what family is for. Tomorrow, if you wish, you can tell me everything. Or nothing at all. Either will do.”
Maria’s eyes filled again. She wanted to speak, but the words wouldn’t form.
Violet reached for her hand and gave it a small squeeze. “You are safe here. That’s all that matters tonight.”
Maria nodded.
When Nicholas finally appeared, Violet only shook her head once, a quiet warning. “Tomorrow,” she mouthed.
Nicholas looked from his wife to his sister, and though confusion lined his face, he said nothing. He stepped forward and rested a hand on Maria’s shoulder and then turned away, leaving them to their quiet.
Maria stared into the fire until her vision blurred. The warmth began to seep back into her fingers, and the exhaustion she had held at bay descended like a heavy fog.
Violet stayed until Maria’s breathing slowed, until her tears dried. Then she whispered, “You’ll be all right, my dear. Just not tonight.”
And Maria, for the first time since leaving the estate, allowed herself to believe it.
CHAPTER 24
“Is this what you wanted?”
Stephen was standing in front of his father's portrait, as he often did. But this time, he could not help but argue with it.
“Is this the victory? A house full of rules and one man to keep them?”
The old face did not move. How could it? That, somehow, made the fury worse.
“She left. And I could not stop her.”
He imagined the voice he had known all his life: If you could not stop her, you did not try hard enough. If you could not convince her, you were weak.
“I tried,” he said, and then corrected himself with a bitter little laugh. “No. I told the truth. About the vow. I told her in time to harm her most.”
He pushed away from the mantel and paced once, twice, and stopped in front of the canvas again and lifted his chin like a man called to answer for himself.
“She said we could be a ‘sweet family,’” he said quietly. “She said it as if the words were a warm room we could step into together. And I put my foot in the doorway and told her no. In your name.”
The fire flared and settled. The old man’s cheek caught the light and then lost it. Stephen felt, absurdly, that even the flames colluded.
“You still haunt this room,” he said. “You still sit between me and anything that might soften me. Even dead, you do not stop talking.”
He tried to look away and found he could not. His anger and his grief bent his neck back toward the frame.
“Say I break it,” he murmured. “Say I throw the vow into the fire. What then? I become what you wanted anyway, a man who takes what he wants and justifies it later? I turn my love into a weapon to win her back? I beg and promise and call it courage, and in ten years I look up and discover that I have stared my way into your features.”