The Widow’s Long-Lost Duke (Preview)

Chapter One

The porcelain figurine slipped from Eleanor’s trembling fingers. She watched, almost detached from her own body, as it tumbled through the air in a slow, inevitable descent. It shattered against the bare floorboards, the sound echoing loudly in her ears.

The man with the ledger didn’t even glance up from his meticulous cataloging. His quill scratched across the page with the same indifference he had shown when he’d taken her mother’s silver tea service, the painting that had hung above the mantle since she was a girl, and the delicate music box. 

That music box had been her only wedding gift worth keeping, though now she wondered if anything from that day had truly been worth preserving at all.

“That’s the last of the drawing room, Mrs. Whitcombe,” he said, his tone neither cruel nor kind. It was merely practical, as though he were discussing the weather rather than dismantling the remnants of what had once been meant to be a home. “We’ll move to the dining room next, unless you’ve any objections?”

Eleanor opened her mouth, then closed it again. She might have said, that yes, she had a great many objections. That she had known nothing of these debts, that her husband had kept his ledgers as carefully locked away as he had kept her. But the words died in her throat before they could take shape.

“I wasn’t aware my husband had accumulated such extensive debts,” she said finally, hating how small her voice sounded in the emptiness. “He never spoke of his affairs to me.”

The man looked up then, his expression softened just slightly around the edges, though his pen remained poised above the paper as if he feared she might physically prevent him from continuing his work. “I’m sorry for your troubles, madam, truly I am. But the creditors must be satisfied, you understand. The law is quite clear on the matter.”

“The law,” Eleanor repeated, and she couldn’t quite keep the bitterness from her voice. “Yes, I’m finding the law to be remarkably clear on a great many matters of late, none of which seem to favor widows.”

“Indeed, madam.” He shifted uncomfortably, clearly unaccustomed to conversation during his work. “If it’s any consolation, you’re far from the first lady to find herself in such circumstances.”

“How terribly reassuring,” she murmured. “To know that my husband’s recklessness is so very commonplace. One likes to think one’s misery is at least original.”

The assessor blinked at her, seemingly unsure whether she was making a jest or expressing genuine despair, and Eleanor found she hadn’t the energy to clarify which it might be. Perhaps it was both; perhaps misery and dark humor were the only companions left to her now that everything else had been cataloged and carted away.

She watched him disappear into the dining room, his footsteps echoing in a way they never had when the house had been full of furniture and servants and the illusion of a life well-lived. 

The house had been empty of servants for weeks now, sent away without the wages she couldn’t pay, their faces showing a mixture of pity and relief as they’d hurried out the door. Eleanor now found herself wandering through rooms that had never truly been hers, touching walls that had witnessed things she would spend the rest of her life trying to forget. 

She paused in the doorway of what had once been intended as a nursery, though it had never been furnished for that purpose, never filled with the laughter and chaos she had once imagined would overflow from every corner of her married life.

The sharp rap at the front door made her startle violently, her heart lurched into her throat with that old, familiar fear. For one terrible, irrational moment, she thought, despite everything, despite the funeral and the body in the ground, that Thomas had returned. 

But Thomas was dead. Dead and buried, she reminded herself, pressing a hand to her chest where her heart hammered against her ribs. He cannot come through that door. He cannot touch me. Not anymore. The living could not hurt her, at least not in the ways she had learned to fear.

Eleanor moved toward the door with hesitant steps, and when she pulled it open, she found herself staring at a face she had not seen in nine years. Lord Henry Ashford, Duke of Pembroke, stood on her threshold, tall and broad-shouldered with dark hair that fell across his forehead in a way that suggested he’d been running his hands through it. 

His eyes were a deep, rich brown, almost black in certain lights, framed by dark lashes that would have made any woman envious. He had the kind of strong, aristocratic features that belonged on ancient Roman coins, a straight nose, a firm jaw, and a mouth that looked as though it smiled easily, though at present it was set in lines of concern. 

He was impossibly handsome in a way that made her acutely aware of her threadbare mourning dress and the hollows beneath her cheekbones.

“Eleanor,” he said, and the sound of her Christian name in his voice made something crack in her chest. “I heard about Thomas. I wanted to come and offer my condolences.”

Behind her, the unmistakable crash of china being packed echoed through the hallway.

Henry’s brow furrowed. “Is everything quite—”

“Spring cleaning!” Eleanor said brightly, far too brightly. Then, before she could think better of it, she stepped outside and pulled the door firmly shut behind her with perhaps more force than strictly necessary. The resulting slam made them both jump.

Henry blinked at her. “Spring… cleaning.”

“Yes. Very thorough spring cleaning. One must be thorough, mustn’t one? About cleaning. In the spring.” Good God, stop talking.

“In March,” Henry said slowly, as though testing the words for sense.

“The best time for it, I’m told. Gets all the…” she waved her hand vaguely, “the winter grime out. Dreadfully grimy, winter is.”

Another crash sounded from within the house, followed by what sounded distinctly like the word “blast.”

“Your servants are very… enthusiastic,” Henry observed.

“Oh, terribly enthusiastic. I can barely restrain them. They’re like rabid dogs with dusting cloths.” Eleanor wanted to sink into the ground. “That came out rather more violently than I intended.”

The corner of Henry’s mouth twitched. “One does worry about an overzealous staff.”

“Constantly. I worry constantly. In fact…” She seized on the idea like a drowning woman grabbing driftwood. “Would you walk with me? I find I’m rather desperately in need of fresh air. All that cleaning. Very dusty business, spring cleaning.”

Henry’s dark eyes searched her face, and she had the terrible suspicion he could see straight through her babbling to the mortifying truth beneath. “It’s rather cold for March,” he said gently. “Are you certain?”

“Quite,” Eleanor insisted, already wrapping her black shawl around her shoulders. “I’ve been cooped up inside for far too long. A walk would be lovely. Bracing. Healthful. All those things walks are supposed to be.”

“Then I should be honored.” He offered his arm, and after a moment’s hesitation, she took it.

They walked in silence down the gravel path, and Eleanor was all too aware of how thin her arm must feel through her sleeve, how Henry was surely comparing the woman beside him to the girl she’d once been. The early spring air bit cold against her cheeks, sharp enough to make her breath fog between them.

“Nine years,” Henry said finally. “I confess, I’d thought of coming sooner, but I wasn’t certain I’d be welcome.”

“Not welcome? Don’t be absurd. We were friends.”

“Were we?” Something flickered in his expression. “I recall being friends. Then one day you were engaged to Thomas Whitcombe, and the next you’d vanished entirely. Rather like a magic trick, except considerably less entertaining.”

Eleanor’s throat tightened. “I didn’t vanish. I simply… married.”

“Yes, but where? I came here once, you know. About two years after the wedding. Thomas said you were indisposed.”

You mean locked in my bedroom because he was convinced I’d try to run away with my childhood friend. “I was indisposed,” she said carefully. “Rather often indisposed, actually. I had a weak constitution.”

“You?” Henry stopped walking, turning to face her with frank disbelief written across his features. “The same girl who once climbed to the top of that massive oak behind the church and refused to come down for three hours? The one who jumped into the pond in December on a dare?”

Despite everything, Eleanor felt a smile tug at her lips. “You dared me to do that.”

“I was sixteen and stupid. You were thirteen and fearless. I was terrified you’d catch your death.”

“I nearly did. My father was furious.”

“Your father lectured me for twenty minutes about responsibility and reckless endangerment.” Henry’s expression softened. “I rather missed him after he passed. He was a good man.”

“He was,” Eleanor agreed quietly. The memory of her father, her gentle, scholarly father who’d raised her alone after her mother died, made her chest ache. He’d been gone before her marriage had shown its true colors—a mercy she was grateful for, though she’d have given anything to have his wisdom in the years after.

They walked on, and Eleanor found herself relaxing incrementally, the cold air clearing some of the fog from her mind.

“So,” Henry said, his tone light, “are you going to tell me what’s really happening back there, or shall we continue this elaborate fiction about spring cleaning?”

Eleanor’s stomach dropped. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Eleanor.” He stopped walking again, turning to face her. “In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never been a particularly good liar. Remember when you told your father you definitely were the one to let the chickens into the vicar’s study?”

“That was Margaret,” Eleanor protested automatically, then colored. “Your sister, I mean. Lady Margaret. I shouldn’t presume—”

“Margaret, who was twelve at the time and absolutely worshipped you,” Henry continued, a smile playing at his lips. “She confessed the whole thing within five minutes, but you’d already tried to take the blame. Rather badly, I might add. You kept touching your ear.”

Eleanor’s hand flew to her ear before she could stop herself.

Henry’s smile widened. “Just like that.”

“I don’t know what you’re implying.”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m stating, quite directly, that something is wrong, and you’re trying very hard to hide it.” His voice gentled. “I’m also stating that I’d like to help, if you’ll let me.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” Eleanor said, lifting her chin. “Everything is perfectly fine. Absolutely fine. Could not be more fine if I tried.”

“You just said ‘fine’ three times in one breath.”

“Because it’s true.”

“And you’re touching your ear again.”

Eleanor dropped her hand as if burned. “You’re imagining things.”

“Am I?” Henry’s dark eyes held hers, serious now. “Because from where I’m standing, you look as though you haven’t eaten properly in weeks, you’re practically jumping out of your skin with nerves, and you just told me your servants are like ‘rabid dogs with dusting cloths,’ which, while memorable, is not the sort of thing one says when everything is ‘fine.’”

“Perhaps I’ve simply developed an eccentric turn of phrase.”

“In nine years?”

“It’s been a very long nine years.”

The words came out more bitter than she’d intended, and she saw Henry’s expression shift, concern replacing the teasing warmth that had been there moments before.

“Eleanor…”

“Please don’t.” She held up a hand. “Whatever you’re about to say, whatever you’re thinking, just… don’t. I’m managing perfectly well.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“Then why won’t you look at me?”

She forced herself to meet his gaze, to hold it even though it made her want to weep. “I’m looking at you.”

“And lying to me.”

“I’m not.” She broke off, frustrated. “Why are you here, Henry? Really? It’s been nine years. You said it yourself. I disappeared. Why come now?”

Something flickered across his face, too quick for her to read. “Perhaps I missed having someone tell me elaborate lies about spring cleaning.”

Despite everything, Eleanor felt a laugh bubble up. “They weren’t that elaborate.”

“They were spectacularly elaborate. Rabid dogs, Eleanor. You compared your servants to rabid dogs.”

“I was grasping for metaphors.”

“Unsuccessfully.”

“Very unsuccessfully,” she admitted. They’d reached the edge of the garden now, where the path curved toward the overgrown wilderness that had once been her mother’s pride. “I was never very good at deception.”

“No,” Henry agreed. “You weren’t. Which is why I’m certain there’s something you’re not telling me.”

Eleanor wrapped her shawl more tightly around her shoulders, suddenly cold despite the weak spring sunshine. “There are a great many things I’m not telling you.”

“Then tell me something else. Anything. Tell me about these past nine years. Tell me about…” He hesitated. “Tell me if you were happy.”

The question hung between them, heavy with all the things neither of them was saying.

“That’s rather a complicated question,” Eleanor said finally.

“Is it?”

“Yes.” She turned to face him fully. “Were you happy, these past nine years?”

“That’s different.”

“Is it? You’re a duke now. You have Pembroke Hall, responsibilities, I’m sure a great many admirers.”

“I’d rather talk about you.”

“And I’d rather talk about you. We seem to be at an impasse.”

Henry laughed, a genuine sound that transformed his face. “You always were stubborn.”

“And you were always persistent.”

“Was I? I seem to recall you being the persistent one. You followed Margaret and me everywhere.”

“I was nine when we first met. You were twelve. Of course I followed you. You were fascinating.”

“I was obnoxious.”

“That too,” Eleanor agreed. “But fascinating nonetheless.”

They stood there, smiling at each other, and for a moment it was as though the nine years had never happened. They were simply Eleanor and Henry again, friends who’d grown up running wild through the countryside, who’d known each other’s secrets and dreams.

Then Eleanor shivered, and the spell broke.

“You’re cold,” Henry said immediately. “Here.” 

Before she could protest, he was shrugging out of his heavy, fur-lined greatcoat and draping it around her shoulders.

The warmth and the clean masculine scent of him clung to the fabric, and it was all suddenly too much. Eleanor felt tears prick at her eyes and blinked them back furiously.

“I can’t take your coat,” she protested. “You’ll freeze.”

“I’m considerably hardier than you at present,” Henry said, and there was something in his voice that suggested he’d noticed exactly how thin she’d become, how the cold seemed to bother her. “Besides, I remember a certain young lady who once lent me her scarf when I’d forgotten mine. Fair is fair.”

“That was ages ago.”

“Sixteen years ago, to be precise. You were twelve. The scarf was pink with yellow daisies.”

Eleanor stared at him. “You remember that?”

“I remember,” Henry said quietly, “a great many things about you, Eleanor Whitcombe.”

They stood there in the cold March air, their breath mingling in white clouds between them, and for a long moment neither of them moved. Henry’s hands remained on the heavy cape where it draped across her shoulders, his fingers just barely brushing the fabric, and Eleanor found herself frozen in place. 

Caught between the urge to step closer and the desperate need to flee before he saw too much, understood too much, pitied her too much.

This close, she could see the faint lines at the corners of his dark eyes, the way his hair curled slightly at his temple where it had always curled when they were children, the small scar on his jaw that she didn’t remember from before. He was looking at her with such careful attention, as though she were something precious and fragile that might shatter at the slightest pressure, and the kindness in his gaze made her chest ache with a longing she’d thought she’d buried years ago.

He was always kind, she thought, memory after memory flooding back unbidden. Henry helping an elderly woman carry her market basket when they were no more than ten years old. Henry giving his coat to a shivering beggar outside the church. Henry staying up all night with his sister when she’d had nightmares, reading to her by candlelight until she fell asleep. 

He had always rushed to help, always put others before himself, always seen those in need and moved to ease their suffering without thought for himself. That was what she was to him now, wasn’t it? Another stranger in need. Another charity case. Another broken thing for him to try to fix.

The realization settled over her, and she took a small step backward, breaking the moment, breaking whatever spell had held them both still.

“Eleanor,” Henry said softly, and something in his voice made her want to weep. “I’m truly sorry for your loss. Thomas was… that is, I hope he…” He seemed to struggle with the words, as though trying to find something appropriate to say about a man he’d never particularly liked. “I hope you were happy together.”

Happy. The word was almost laughable. Eleanor opened her mouth, then closed it again, because what could she possibly say? That her marriage had been a nightmare from which she was only just waking? That Thomas’s death had brought the first true freedom she’d known in nine years? That she’d stood at his graveside and felt nothing but relief?

“Thank you,” she managed instead, the words scraping past the tightness in her throat. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Henry asked, and she could hear the genuine concern in his voice, the desire to help that was so inherently him. “Anything at all? If you’re in any difficulty, if there’s any way I might…”

“No,” Eleanor said quickly, perhaps too quickly. “No, everything is perfectly fine. I’m managing quite well. There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.”

She was touching her ear again. She dropped her hand.

Henry’s expression suggested he didn’t believe her for a moment, but to her immense relief, he didn’t press. Instead, he simply nodded slowly, his hands finally dropping away from the cape, and she felt the loss of that almost-touch like a physical thing.

“Well,” he said, and there was a note of reluctance in his voice, as though he were struggling with the urge to stay, to push, to demand answers she couldn’t give. “I suppose I should let you return to your… spring cleaning.”

Despite everything, Eleanor felt a small, desperate laugh escape. “Yes. My very thorough, very enthusiastic spring cleaning.”

“Indeed.” His mouth quirked in that almost-smile she remembered from childhood. “Keep the cape, please. Return it whenever you like. Or don’t return it at all. I have several others.”

“I couldn’t possibly—”

“Eleanor.” He said her name like a gentle command. “Keep it. Please.”

She wanted to argue, wanted to insist she didn’t need his charity or his pity or his impossibly warm cape that smelled of sandalwood and something indefinably him, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, she simply nodded, pulling the cape more tightly around herself.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Henry looked as though he wanted to say something else, something important, but after a moment, he simply bowed. “Good day, Eleanor. I hope… that is, I’m glad I came. It was good to see you again.”

“And you,” she said, though the words felt inadequate for everything she couldn’t say, everything she didn’t dare feel.

She watched him walk away, his tall figure disappearing down the path toward where his horse waited, and only when he was out of sight did she allow herself to turn back toward the house. The heavy cape settled around her shoulders like an embrace, warm and solid and safe in a way she hadn’t felt in so long she’d almost forgotten what safety felt like.

Inside, the house was even quieter than before. The assessor had finished his work and departed, taking with him the last of her possessions worth selling. Eleanor stood in the entrance hall, surrounded by empty spaces where furniture had once stood, and felt the weight of her solitude pressing down on her like a physical thing.

“Mrs. Whitcombe?”

She turned to find Peters, the last remaining servant, standing in the doorway with his hat in his hands and guilt written plainly across his weathered face.

“I’m ever so sorry, ma’am,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion, “but I can’t stay on without wages. My wife, you see, and the little ones.”

“I understand,” Eleanor said quickly, because she did understand, and she couldn’t bear to see this kind man apologize for needing to feed his family. “Please, Peters, don’t apologize. You’ve been nothing but loyal, and I’m grateful for everything you’ve done.”

“If there’s anything else I can do before I go…”

“No. Go home to your family. Please.”

He nodded, clearly relieved, and after one more apologetic look, he was gone, the front door closing behind him with a soft click that echoed through the empty house.

Eleanor stood alone in the silence, pulling Henry’s cape more tightly around her shoulders. It was the only thing of value she had left now, the only thing that felt warm and safe and real in a world that had become increasingly hollow and cold.

She sank down onto the bare floor where a settee had once stood, buried her face in the fur-lined fabric of the cape, and finally, finally allowed herself to weep.

The tears came in great, shuddering waves, nine years of grief and fear and loneliness pouring out of her all at once, and she didn’t try to stop them. There was no one left to hear her cry, no one left to see her break, no one left at all.

When the tears finally subsided, leaving her empty and exhausted, Eleanor lifted her head and looked around the bare room. Tomorrow, she would have to face her creditors. Tomorrow, she would have to figure out how to survive with nothing. Tomorrow, she would have to be strong.

But tonight, wrapped in Henry Ashford’s cape, she allowed herself to be exactly what she was—broken, desperate, and utterly, terrifyingly alone.

Chapter Two

Henry Ashford had always prided himself on being a rational man, one who approached life’s complications with cool logic and measured consideration. But as his horse carried him away from Eleanor’s estate and back toward Pembroke Hall, he found his thoughts in a state of uncommon disarray that would have alarmed his Cambridge tutors and amused his late father in equal measure.

Something was profoundly wrong with Eleanor Whitcombe. And she was lying about it with all the skill of a three-year-old caught with jam on her face.

Spring cleaning. He nearly laughed aloud at the memory, startling his mount. Spring cleaning, indeed. And he was the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The ride to Pembroke Hall took less than twenty minutes, the familiar landscape rolling past in shades of early spring green and muddy brown, and by the time Henry handed his horse off to the groom and mounted the front steps, he’d worked himself into a state of considerable agitation. Not anger, precisely, but rather a restless, gnawing concern that sat beneath his ribs like an ill-digested meal and refused to be dislodged by any amount of rational thought.

Eleanor had looked as though a strong wind might blow her away. Those circles beneath her eyes, the way her dress hung on her frame, the barely concealed panic when he’d heard that crash from inside.

“Oh, thank heavens you’ve returned.” His sister’s voice cut through his brooding before he’d even fully entered the drawing room. “I was beginning to think you’d been waylaid by bandits, though I suppose even bandits would have the good sense to avoid troubling a duke. They’re quite discerning that way, bandits. Very particular about their victims.”

Henry blinked at her. “Good afternoon to you as well, Margaret.”

Lady Margaret Ashford sat by the window with an embroidery hoop in her lap, though from the looks of the tangled mess of threads, she’d been spending more time staring out at the lawn than actually stitching anything resembling a pattern. 

She’d finally stopped wearing full mourning for her late husband, though a black armband still encircled her sleeve, a concession to propriety that Henry knew she maintained more for society’s sake than her own grief. Margaret’s marriage had been brief and, if Henry was any judge, not particularly happy, though his sister had never complained and he’d never pressed.

“You’ve been gone for hours,” Margaret continued, setting aside her embroidery with visible relief. “I was half convinced you’d accepted Lady Clara’s latest invitation to dine and simply forgotten to inform me, which would have been terribly rude of you but not entirely out of character. You’ve been rather absent-minded lately.”

“I’ve been nowhere near Lady Clara Wentworth,” Henry said, perhaps more vehemently than the situation warranted. “And I resent the implication that I would forget to inform you of dinner plans. I’m perfectly capable of managing my social calendar.”

“Are you? Because Lady Clara seems quite convinced that you’ll be making her an offer any day now. She told Mrs. Pemberton, who told Lady Ashworth, who told me while we were at the modiste’s last Tuesday. Apparently, you’ve been most attentive.”

Henry felt a headache beginning to form behind his eyes. “I have been polite. There is a considerable difference between politeness and attention, and an even greater difference between attention and matrimonial intent.”

“You might want to explain that to Lady Clara. I don’t think she appreciates the distinction.” Margaret tilted her head, studying him with the unsettling perception that only older sisters seemed to possess. “Where have you been, if not courting Lady Clara? You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“The one you get when you’re brooding about something. Very ducal and stern. Father used to get the same expression when the tenants’ rents came up short.”

“I am not brooding,” Henry said, then immediately undermined this assertion by crossing to the window and staring broodingly out at the grounds. “I went to check on Eleanor Whitcombe.”

The silence that followed was so profound he could hear the clock on the mantle ticking.

“Eleanor Whitcombe,” Margaret repeated, her voice gone flat in a way that suggested Henry had just announced his intention to join a traveling circus. “Eleanor. You went to see Eleanor.”

“Yes. I heard about Thomas’s death and thought it proper to offer condolences.”

“How very proper of you.” Margaret’s tone could have frozen the Thames in July. “And how did you find our dear, departed friend? Still in possession of all her limbs? Her memory? Her ability to write letters or call on old friends?”

“Margaret…”

“Because those are the only acceptable excuses for abandoning one’s friends for nine years without so much as a word,” his sister continued, her voice rising with each syllable. “Amputation, amnesia, or a complete loss of literacy. Anything short of that is simply inexcusable.”

Henry turned to face her, surprised by the vehemence in her voice. “She was married. Married women have obligations.”

“Married women still have friends, Henry. Or they ought to.” Margaret stood abruptly, her embroidery hoop tumbling to the floor in a tangle of silk threads. “She was my friend first, you know. Long before you developed whatever ridiculous infatuation you nursed for her. We used to do everything together. She taught me how to climb trees and catch frogs and all sorts of wonderfully unladylike things that drove Mother to distraction. And then she married Thomas Whitcombe and vanished as thoroughly as if she’d sailed to the Americas.”

“I’m certain she had her reasons.”

“Oh, I’m certain she did. And I’m equally certain those reasons had everything to do with the fact that she’d rather marry some nobody gentleman than wait for a duke to get over his ridiculous scruples about age differences and social propriety.” Margaret’s eyes had gone bright with unshed tears, and Henry felt his chest constrict at the sight. “She rejected you, Henry. She rejected both of us. And now you want to go calling on her with condolences and pretty speeches as if the past nine years simply didn’t happen?”

“That’s not—Margaret, it’s more complicated than that.”

“Is it? Because from where I’m standing, it seems rather simple. She made her choice. She chose Thomas Whitcombe over the Ashfords, and she chose to cut us out of her life entirely. Why should we welcome her back now that it’s convenient for her?”

Henry crossed to his sister, taking her hands in his despite her attempt to pull away. “She was your friend, Meggie. Your dearest friend. Don’t you miss her?”

Margaret’s face crumpled slightly at the old childhood nickname, and for a moment she looked exactly as she had at fourteen, all wounded pride and confused hurt. 

“Every day,” she whispered. “I missed her every single day. When I married, I wanted her there. When my husband—when he died, I wanted to write to her, wanted her to come and sit with me and tell me it would be all right the way she used to when we were girls. But she wasn’t there. She was never there.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Margaret pulled her hands free, wrapping her arms around herself. “Because you still look at her as if she hung the moon and stars. You always did. Even when we were children, and she was just Eleanor Gladstone, the vicar’s daughter with leaves in her hair and mud on her hem.”

“Her father was Richard Gladstone. He died when she was—”

“I know when he died, Henry. I was there at the funeral. Eleanor sobbed through the entire service and then helped serve the mourners at the wake as if nothing had happened, because that’s what Eleanor did. She soldiered on. And then, barely a year later, Thomas Whitcombe appeared with his pretty words and his quick courtship, and she married him before anyone could blink.”

Henry moved to the sideboard and poured himself a whisky he didn’t particularly want, just for something to do with his hands. “I want to send her something,” he said quietly. “Something from our childhood, perhaps. To express our sympathies properly. It’s only right.”

“Right?” Margaret laughed, a sharp, bitter sound he’d never heard from her before. “What’s right about it? She didn’t choose you then, Henry. She won’t choose you now. You should marry Lady Clara and have the heirs everyone expects you to produce and forget about Eleanor Whitcombe entirely.”

The words hit him with unexpected force, and Henry found himself staring into his brandy glass as if it might contain answers to questions he hadn’t yet learned to ask. “Lady Clara is perfectly pleasant…”

“She’s a viper in silk skirts, but pleasant enough if one enjoys that sort of thing.”

“…but I have no intention of offering for her.”

“Then whom do you intend to offer for?” Margaret demanded. “Because you’re thirty-four years old, Henry. Father died when he was fifty-two. You need an heir. You need a wife. And mooning over a woman who abandoned us for nine years is not going to produce either.”

“I am not mooning.”

“You are absolutely mooning. You’ve been mooning for years. It’s becoming quite pathetic.”

Henry set down his glass with more force than necessary. “That’s enough, Margaret.”

“Is it? Because I think we’re only just getting started.” His sister’s voice had gone cold now, icy with barely restrained emotion. “Marry Lady Clara. Have your heirs. Build your nursery and fill it with fat, happy babies who will never know what it’s like to be abandoned by someone they love. That’s what you should do. That’s what’s right and proper and exactly what a duke ought to do.”

“Margaret.”

But she was already moving toward the door, her spine rigid with hurt and anger. “I won’t stand in your way if you wish to renew your acquaintance with Eleanor. I won’t make a scene or cause difficulties. But don’t expect me to welcome her back with open arms, Henry. Some wounds don’t heal just because time has passed.”

She paused in the doorway, her back still to him. “She was the only friend who cared about me for myself,” Margaret said, her voice suddenly small and broken. “The only one who didn’t want to be my friend because I was rich or titled or connected. She liked me, just me, before any of that mattered. And then she left without a word and never looked back. Do you have any idea what that felt like?”

“Meggie.”

But she was gone, her footsteps echoing down the corridor, and Henry was left alone in the drawing room with his untouched brandy and the uncomfortable realization that his sister’s pain ran far deeper than he’d understood.

He stood there for a long moment, staring at nothing in particular, before setting down his glass and making his way to his study. The room was exactly as he’d left it that morning, all leather and dark wood and the faint smell of pipe tobacco that lingered despite the fact that he’d never taken up the habit. His father’s room, really, though Henry had occupied it for six years now and ought to have put his own stamp on it. Instead, he’d left everything exactly as it had been, as if changing the furniture might somehow dishonor his father’s memory.

The box was in the bottom drawer of his desk, beneath a stack of estate ledgers and correspondence he’d been meaning to sort through for the better part of a year. It was made of cherry wood, small and unassuming, with brass corners that had gone green with age and a tiny lock that had long since lost its key. Henry had carried this box with him to Eton, to Cambridge, through his Grand Tour, and back again, and its contents were worth more to him than half the treasures in Pembroke Hall’s considerably extensive collection.

He set it on the desk and opened the lid carefully, almost reverently, and the smell of old paper and dried flowers wafted up to meet him.

Inside lay the detritus of a childhood that seemed to belong to someone else entirely: a smooth river stone Eleanor had claimed looked exactly like a sleeping dragon, a dried oak leaf from the tree they’d all carved their initials into, a badly drawn sketch Margaret had made of the three of them when she was no more than eight, a rusty penknife Henry had used to build that disastrous tree fort that had collapsed within a week, a pressed wildflower whose name he’d long since forgotten.

And there, at the very bottom, carefully wrapped in a handkerchief that had once been white and was now ivory with age, lay a length of faded blue ribbon.

Henry lifted it out slowly, the silk soft and worn beneath his fingers, and remembered with perfect clarity the day it had fallen from Eleanor’s hair. They’d been running through the woods behind St. Michael’s church, all three of them, Margaret shrieking with laughter as she tried to catch up, Eleanor’s black hair streaming behind her like a banner, and then suddenly the ribbon had come loose and tumbled to the ground and Henry had stooped to pick it up without thinking.

He’d meant to give it back. Of course, he’d meant to give it back. But Eleanor had been sixteen and laughing and so impossibly alive in the summer sunlight, and Henry had been nineteen and home from Cambridge and suddenly, painfully aware that what he felt for his childhood friend was no longer entirely appropriate or brotherly. So he’d pocketed the ribbon like a besotted fool and told himself he’d return it later, and then later had become never, and the ribbon had lived in this box for fifteen years, a small, secret talisman of feelings he’d never quite managed to outgrow.

“Pathetic,” he muttered to himself, but he didn’t put the ribbon back. Instead, he wound it carefully around his fingers, the faded blue silk catching the lamplight, and thought about Eleanor’s eyes, which had always been the exact same shade before time and circumstance had drained the color from them.

She’d looked at him today as if he were a stranger. No, worse than a stranger. She’d looked at him as if he were another problem to be managed, another difficulty to be navigated, another person who might see too much and demand explanations she wasn’t prepared to give.

Spring cleaning. The lie had been so transparent it was almost insulting. Did she truly think he was so changed from the boy who’d known her well enough to read every shift in her expression, every nervous gesture, every tell that gave away her thoughts as clearly as if she’d spoken them aloud?

She was in trouble. Serious trouble, from the looks of things. And she was too proud or too frightened or too stubborn to ask for help, which was so quintessentially Eleanor that Henry felt something in his chest twist with a familiar, painful fondness.

“You always were impossibly stubborn,” he said to the empty room, to the ribbon in his hands, to the ghost of the girl who’d once been his dearest friend and something more, something he’d never quite found the courage to name. “Even when we were children, you’d rather eat nails than admit you needed help.”

The ribbon caught the light again, blue as forget-me-nots, blue as summer skies, blue as Eleanor’s eyes had been before the world had taught her to be afraid.

Henry made a decision.

He couldn’t force Eleanor to accept his help; she’d made that abundantly clear with her desperate insistence that everything was fine. But he could find out what was really happening behind the carefully maintained façade. He could investigate quietly, discreetly, without causing her embarrassment or alarm. And then, when he knew the full scope of whatever difficulty she faced, he could determine the best way to assist her, whether she wanted his assistance or not.

It was meddling, certainly. Perhaps even presumptuous. But Henry had stood by nine years ago and watched Eleanor marry Thomas Whitcombe, had convinced himself it wasn’t his place to interfere, that her happiness was paramount even if it meant losing her forever. He’d been noble and proper and everything a gentleman ought to be.

And he’d regretted it every day since.

He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

Henry rewrapped the ribbon in its handkerchief and placed it carefully back in the box, then closed the lid with a soft click that sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet study. Tomorrow, he would call on his solicitor, Nathaniel Greer, and make some careful inquiries about Thomas Whitcombe’s affairs. Not because he was interfering—certainly not—but simply because it was the responsible thing to do, the neighborly thing, the sort of thing any concerned friend might do under similar circumstances.

The fact that his pulse quickened at the thought of having a legitimate reason to see Eleanor again had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Nothing at all.

Henry was just returning the box to its drawer when he heard raised voices in the entrance hall, one of them unmistakably belonging to his butler, Harrison, and the other to someone he absolutely did not have time for.

“I don’t care if His Grace is indisposed, busy, or hosting the entire House of Lords for tea,” Lady Clara Wentworth’s voice rang through Pembroke Hall with all the subtlety of a cavalry charge. “I will see him immediately, and you will announce me at once, or I shall announce myself—and I assure you, my good man, you will find the latter option far more disruptive to the household’s peace.”

Henry closed his eyes briefly and offered a silent prayer for patience to a deity he wasn’t entirely certain was listening.

Twenty tedious minutes later—minutes spent deflecting Clara’s pointed questions about Eleanor and parrying her hints about future engagements—Henry finally extracted himself. It was going to be a very long afternoon. 

His business in London with Nathaniel Greer couldn’t wait another hour.