She Bought a Broken Mountain Man at Auction. What He Did Next Shocked Everyone.

Chapter 3

She had been pretending to read the same letter for twenty minutes.

Edward knew this. He said nothing about it. Some things were too large for words, and he had learned in five years of marriage that silence between them was often more honest than speech. She would look up when she was ready. She would meet his eyes when she had composed herself. He could wait.

Their son Thomas was on the hearth rug, two years old, completely cheerful, attempting to convince the family wolfhound — a vast gray animal of extreme age and extremely limited enthusiasm — to participate in a game involving a wooden horse and a great deal of enthusiastic instruction from Thomas. The wolfhound lay like a furry mountain, blinking slowly, occasionally sighing with the profound weariness of a very old dog who had seen it all before. Thomas did not appear discouraged. He simply continued his one-sided negotiations with the confidence of a child who had not yet learned that the world did not always do what he wanted.

The valet finished and quietly left the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click. Edward crossed to Charlotte. She stood before he reached her, the letter still in her hand. They looked at each other for a moment without speaking. There was nothing left to say that had not already been said a hundred times in the past week.

He kissed her forehead. Her cheek. Then properly, letting his lips linger on hers.

She kept her hands flat at her sides because if she held on to him, she would not let go. He could see the effort it cost her, the way her fingers pressed against her own thighs, the slight tremor in her jaw.

He picked up Thomas. The boy grabbed Edward’s face with both hands and examined it with great seriousness, his small fingers pressing into Edward’s cheeks. Then he patted both cheeks approvingly, as if passing judgment, and went back to looking at the wolfhound. Edward held him for a long time, feeling the warmth of his small body, the smell of his hair — soap and childhood and everything worth fighting for.

Then he put him down.

Downstairs, his estate manager William Graves was overseeing the preparation of the carriage. William was thirty-six, lean and precise, educated at Cambridge alongside Edward, where they had been close friends for fifteen years. He managed Blackmore Hall with the kind of thoroughness that meant Edward never had to worry about it. He was loyal, reliable, trusted completely. Everything about him spoke of competence and quiet dedication.

The carriage was ready. Edward came down the main staircase, his boots echoing on the marble. The household staff were assembled in the entrance hall to see him off. The cook, her hands still dusted with flour. The housemaids in their crisp aprons. The footmen standing at attention. The housekeeper, Mrs. Peton, who had worked at the hall for thirty years and whose opinion of Edward was that he was the best of the Ashworths — and she had known four of them personally.

Edward thanked each of them by name, shaking hands, exchanging quiet words. He had been raised to believe that a man who did not know the names of the people who served him was not worth serving.

Charlotte walked him to the front steps, Thomas on her hip, the wolfhound at her heel. The morning air was cold and clean. The gravel crunched under Edward’s boots as he walked to the waiting carriage. He handed his traveling case up to the driver, climbed in, and turned back once.

Charlotte was on the top step, straight-backed, head high, Thomas waving at nothing in particular, the pale morning light catching in her copper hair. She raised her hand. He raised his.

The horses moved forward.

The carriage rolled down the oak-lined drive, past the ancient trees his grandfather had planted, past the fields and paddocks and stone walls that had stood for centuries. Blackmore Hall disappeared from view.

Charlotte stood on the steps until the sound of the wheels faded completely into the moorland silence. Then she looked at her son. Thomas was still waving, his small hand moving back and forth in the empty air. She pulled him close, turned, went inside, and closed the door on the last normal morning either of them would know for a very long time.