“I remember hiding behind that desk,” Damien said, pointing to the massive piece of furniture, “listening to him solve problems with such confidence. I thought he knew everything, could fix anything.” His voice grew softer. “I used to imagine myself sitting in his chair someday, being the sort of father my children could admire the way I admired him.”
The wistful pain in his voice made Eleanor’s chest tight. She moved closer, drawn by an impulse to offer comfort she didn’t quite understand. “Show me the rest,” she said gently. “I’d like to see it through your eyes.”
Something shifted in Damien’s expression—surprise followed by something that looked like gratitude. “You’re certain? It’s rather depressing in its current state.”
“I’m certain.”
The tour that followed revealed both the grandeur Westmore Hall had once possessed and the heartbreak of its current condition. Damien led her through reception rooms stripped of their furnishings, up a grand staircase with several missing balusters, and along corridors where wallpaper peeled in long, dejected strips.
But as they walked, something remarkable happened. Instead of dwelling on the decay, Damien began to share memories that brought the empty rooms to life.
“This was the music room,” he said, opening the door to reveal a space dominated by a single piece of furniture—a magnificent grand piano, its ebony surface dulled with dust but otherwise intact. “Mother played beautifully. She used to give informal concerts for the neighborhood families, and Dominic and I would sneak to the top of the stairs to listen.” His smile grew mischievous. “Until the time Dom decided to improve theperformance by dropping paper airplanes from the gallery onto the guests below.”
Eleanor found herself smiling despite the melancholy atmosphere. “How old was he?”
“Six, I think. Old enough to aim them quite precisely at Mrs. Armstrong’s elaborate coiffure.” Damien laughed at the memory. “Mother was mortified, but I caught Father trying not to laugh behind his kerchief.”
They moved on to what had been the morning room, where French doors opened onto a terrace overlooking the ruins of formal gardens. “Dom and I used to have epic battles out there,” Damien said, gesturing toward the overgrown parterre. “Wooden swords, elaborate strategies involving the maze—which no longer exists, as you can see. I was always the knight, naturally, being older and therefore superior in all ways. Dom preferred to be the cunning villain who won through cleverness rather than strength.”
“Did he often succeed?”
“More often than I cared to admit at the time,” Damien said with fond exasperation. “The boy had a talent for finding my weaknesses and exploiting them ruthlessly. Still does, unfortunately.”
They climbed to the second floor, where the family bedchambers were located. Many of the rooms stood empty, their windows letting in autumn light that illuminated water stains and peeling paint. But when Damien opened the door to what had clearly been the master suite, Eleanor heard his sharp intake of breath.
The room retained no furniture except a portrait above the mantelpiece that drew Eleanor’s attention: a family scene showing a distinguished man with Damien’s strong jaw and green eyes, a beautiful woman with gentle features, and two boys who were unmistakably the Westmore brothers.
“They were good parents,” Damien said quietly, following her gaze. “Father was stern but fair, Mother was… she made everything feel safe. Even when Dom and I were at our most destructive, she never made us feel like burdens.” His voice cracked slightly. “I used to imagine bringing my own children here to meet their grandparents, showing them the portrait and telling them stories about the people they’d never know.”
Eleanor felt tears prick her eyes at the raw pain in his voice. Without thinking, she moved to stand beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. “Tell me about them.”
And he did. As they stood in that dusty, abandoned room, Damien painted pictures with words of parents who had filled this house with love and laughter. His father’s morning rides through the estate, checking on tenants and crops with the dedication of a man who understood his responsibilities. His mother’s charity work, her insistence that the boys accompany her when she visited sick tenants or delivered food to struggling families.
“She said we needed to understand that privilege came with obligation,” Damien explained. “That being born to comfort meant we owed something to those who weren’t so fortunate.”
“She sounds remarkable.”
“She was. And she would have loved seeing this place full of family again.” Damien’s gaze moved around the room, and Eleanor could see him imagining it restored, inhabited, alive with the voices of the children he’d dreamed of having.
The significance of what he was fighting to preserve suddenly became clear to Eleanor. This wasn’t just about money or property or aristocratic pride. This was about keeping alive the memory of people he’d loved, maintaining a legacy that represented the best of what his family had been. The weight of that responsibility, carried alone for so many years, must have been crushing.
“We’ll find a way,” she said quietly, the words emerging before she’d consciously decided to speak them. “To make it whole again.”
Damien turned to look at her, something vulnerable and hopeful flickering in his green eyes. “We?”
Eleanor felt her cheeks warm as she realized what he’d misunderstood. “I mean… that is, the financial arrangements we discussed. For the restoration work.”
“Of course, the financial arrangements,” Damien said softly, his focus returning to the portrait, but not before she saw a subtle change in his expression. Regret perhaps?
As the afternoon light began to fade through the grimy windows, Eleanor found herself wondering when her careful emotional distance had begun to crumble, and why the thought of helping him rebuild his dreams no longer seemed like merely a business proposition.
Damien stood inthe doorway of what had been his parents’ chamber, watching Eleanor’s face as she took in the stark emptiness of the room. Melancholy took root in his chest as he envisioned the kind of wife and mother Eleanor would make if she was willing. He cleared his throat awkwardly when her eyes met his.
“The footmen should have returned by now,” he said, abruptly. As if summoned by his words, the sound of hoofbeats on gravel echoed from the drive below.
They made their way back to the entrance hall, where John and William—the two footmen who’d ridden ahead to secure accommodations—stood looking distinctly uncomfortable. Their usually immaculate livery bore traces of mud, and theirexpressions suggested the afternoon hadn’t gone according to plan.
“Your Grace,” Thomas began with obvious reluctance, “I regret to inform you that suitable lodgings aren’t available in the village.”