“You don’t resent him for leaving?” he asked, trying to keep his tone neutral.
Eleanor looked at him with mild surprise. “Resent him? Why should I? He chose the path that would define his career, the start of his legacy. I wouldn’t have wanted him to sacrifice his dreams for my sake—that’s not love, it’s selfishness.”
The mature, sensible way she spoke about her first love only further aggravated Damien. This Walter had clearly captured something in Eleanor that she still treasured, a romantic ideal that made Damien feel oddly competitive with a memory.
“How very practical of you,” he managed.
Eleanor tilted her head, studying his face seemingly with growing amusement. “You sound almost disapproving. Would you have preferred that I spend years pining dramatically for what might have been?”
“No,” Damien said quickly, then paused. “A little less tender reflection might have been… less damaging to my male ego.”
Eleanor’s laugh was one of genuine delight. “Are you jealous of a memory, Your Grace?”
“Certainly not,” Damien replied with as much dignity as he could muster. “I simply think this Walter fellow showed remarkably poor judgment in leaving behind such an exceptional woman for the dubious pleasures of mapping mosquito-infested rivers.”
“How gallant of you,” Eleanor said, her eyes dancing with mirth. “Though I should point out that you yourself traveled extensively, albeit for a more dire purpose.”
Damien turned his gaze toward the window as the countryside rolled past. “I never wanted to travel, actually,” he said quietly, his voice carrying a wistful note. Eleanor’s teasingsmile faded. “Before Dominic’s troubles began, I had quite different plans for my life.”
“What sort of plans?” she asked softly.
“The tediously conventional sort,” Damien replied with a self-deprecating smile. “I wanted to settle at Westmore Hall, restore it to its former glory, take my place in Parliament. Marry a suitable woman and fill those empty rooms with children.” His voice grew softer still. “Lots of children. Enough to make the place feel alive again.”
“You wanted a large family. You didn’t want to be lonely.”
“No,” he admitted, then laughed quietly at himself. “Rather pathetic for a duke to confess such domestic aspirations, isn’t it? I should have been plotting grand political campaigns or continental adventures.”
“It’s not pathetic at all,” she said. Then her face softened. “You still could, you know. Have that family, that life.”
Something flickered in Damien’s chest—hope warring with uncertainty. Was she offering him that future, or merely suggesting he might find it elsewhere? The careful way she’d phrased it left him unsure, and the ambiguity was maddening.
“Could I?” Damien turned to meet her gaze, struggling to keep his voice even. “I’m two and thirty, Eleanor. My estate is in ruins, my brother is missing again, and I’m in a marriage of convenience with a woman who’s made it quite clear she has no interest in a real relationship.”
The words hung between them, loaded with implications neither seemed quite ready to address. They both stared out the window, instead of at each other, and pondered all the things they weren’t saying.
As the carriage swayed gently around another curve, bringing them closer to their destination, Damien wondered if this journey would reveal more uncomfortable truths than just the state of his ancestral estate.
The Ghosts of Home
Eleanor stepped fromthe carriage onto the weed-choked gravel drive, her practical traveling boots crunching softly on stones that had once been pristinely maintained. Before them loomed Westmore Hall, and the sight made her breath hitch—not with admiration, but with a profound sense of loss.
The grand Palladian mansion that should have been the crown jewel of the Westmore legacy stood like a wounded giant against the gray afternoon sky. Scaffolding clung to one wing where fire damage had left gaping holes in the roof, and several windows on the ground floor had been boarded over with rough planks. The formal gardens had surrendered to nature’s reclaim, with ivy creeping up the stone facade and weeds sprouting between the front steps.
Eleanor watched her husband’s face as he surveyed his ancestral home, and her heart clenched at the carefully controlled devastation in his expression. His jaw was rigid with suppressed emotion, his eyes moving over every broken window and sagging shutter with the countenance of a man cataloging his failures.
“The keys should still be under the third loose stone,” he said quietly, his voice carrying forced lightness as he climbed the front steps. “Astonishing that the front doors remain.”
Eleanor followed him up the cracked marble steps, noting how his shoulders straightened as if preparing for battle. When he found the hidden key and turned it in the lock, the heavy oak door opened with a groan that seemed to echo through empty halls beyond.
The entrance hall that greeted them was a monument to abandonment. Dust motes danced in shafts of afternoon light streaming through grimy windows, and their footsteps echoed hollowly on bare floors where expensive carpets had once muffled sound. The walls bore ghostly outlines where paintings had hung, and Eleanor could see the cleaner rectangles on wallpaper that spoke of furniture long since removed or sold.
“The library is through here,” Damien said, leading her down a corridor lined with empty niches that had once held sculpture. “Or rather, what’s left of it.”
The library proved to be one of the few rooms with any remaining furnishings—a massive desk too heavy to move easily, built-in bookshelves now mostly bare, and a large leather sofa that had seen better days but still appeared serviceable. A few wooden crates, some still bearing shipping labels, suggested recent efforts to either remove or store what few valuables remained.
Eleanor noted the way Damien’s eyes lingered on the empty shelves with something like grief. He moved to one of the tall windows, gazing out at gardens gone wild. “My father used to hold court in this room every morning. Local tenants would come with disputes, estate managers with reports, and he’d listen to each concern as though it were the most important matter in the world.”
Eleanor watched him carefully, recognizing the vulnerability beneath his casual tone.