The Duke Never Touched His Bride and Vanished Every Night for Thirty Days — But When Cecilia Forced Open the Locked Room Beside His, She Found No Mistress, Only a War Her Husband Had Never Escaped

 PART 6

“Your Grace! My apologies!”

Thomas stood in the doorway clutching the day’s post, flushed with the mortification of a man who has clearly interrupted something. Nathaniel stepped back instantly, clearing his throat, straightening his waistcoat. The mask of aristocratic composure slid back into place — though the tips of his ears stayed distinctly red. Cecilia looked down at the ledger, cheeks burning, trying to steady her breath.

“What is it, Thomas?”

“A letter from London. Arrived by special courier.” Thomas crossed the room and handed over a sealed parchment. “It bears the crest of the War Office.”

The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees in a single second.

Nathaniel stared at the heavy red wax, stamped with the royal coat of arms. His jaw clenched. The relaxed, confident man who had just touched her cheek was gone, replaced by a rigid soldier bracing for impact.

Cecilia stood. Whatever fragile peace the afternoon had built shattered at the sound of that seal cracking — a sound, she thought absurdly, like a breaking bone.

Nathaniel slid his thumb under the flap and read standing, perfectly still, in the center of the library. She watched his hands. The fine tremor that had been absent for nearly three weeks returned, starting in his left index finger, spreading fast to his wrist, until the parchment rattled audibly against his cuff.

He finished. Folded it in half, then in quarters, pressing the creases with excruciating, mechanical precision.

“Nathaniel.” Softly.

He didn’t answer. He walked to the cold hearth, dropped the folded square onto the soot-stained brick, and turned for the door.

Cecilia moved faster. She stepped directly into his path.

“Do not walk away from me.” Not a plea. A command. “What is in the letter?”

His eyes looked right through her — the pale blue clouded, distant, the warmth of him already draining away. He was detaching, pulling the heavy armor of his own trauma back over his shoulders in real time.

“A bureaucratic formality. Nothing that concerns you.”

“You are a terrible liar.” She reached past him, skirts brushing his boots, and picked the folded parchment off the hearth.

“Put that down, Cecilia.” Low. Dangerous. The voice that made estate managers tremble.

She ignored it. Unfolded the page. It was a summons — a legal petition, not a military order. A widow named Mrs. Mary Hayes of Yorkshire had applied to the Crown for a pension. Her son, Private Philip Hayes, was listed as missing in action at Waterloo. Without a commanding officer’s sworn testimony confirming his death in the line of duty, the Crown deemed him a deserter.

His mother would receive nothing. She was facing the workhouse.

To secure the pension, the Duke of Ashborne was required to appear at Whitehall and formally testify to the exact circumstances of Private Hayes’s death. He would have to put the burning barn on the official record. He would have to stand in a room full of men and say, aloud, that he had listened to the boy die.

Cecilia lowered the letter slowly. Nathaniel stood at the desk, back to her, hands gripping the mahogany edge so hard his knuckles had gone stark white, breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches.

“I cannot do it.” The admission tore loose, raw and bleeding. “I’ll give the woman money. A thousand pounds tomorrow. I’ll buy her a house. I’ll secure her future. But I cannot go to London. I cannot sit in a room and speak his name.”

“A thousand pounds will not clear his name of desertion, Nathaniel.” She walked closer. “It will not give his mother peace. She needs to know he didn’t run.”

“He didn’t run!” He spun, the violence of the movement sending a stack of ledgers crashing to the floor. “He was pinned under a beam. The roof came down on him. I know he didn’t run.” He stepped back, chest heaving, eyes darting around the sunlit room as if hunting for an escape rope. The walls were closing in on him, visibly, in real time.

“I cannot go back there,” he choked. “If I speak it aloud — if I make it real — the fire comes back. It takes me under. I will not survive it this time, Cecilia. I will lose my mind completely.”

He turned and bolted for the door — heading, she understood instantly, for the east wing. For the padded room. For the chains he’d sworn he would never wear again.

“Nathaniel!”

She ran. She caught his arm just as he wrenched the library door open, the force of his momentum nearly pulling her off her feet. She dug in her heels and held on with a bruising grip.

“Let go of me.”

“No!” She slammed the door shut with her free hand and put her back against it, chest heaving, staring up at him. “You are not locking yourself in the dark. We are done with the dark. You don’t understand what that letter is asking you to do — it’s asking you to be the commander you were. It’s asking you to hold the line for him one last time. He needs you to testify, Nathaniel. His mother needs you.”

“I am broken.” He roared it, slamming his fist against the door inches from her head. The wood splintered. He leaned over her, breathing harsh, his face a mask of terror and grief. “I cannot fix this. I cannot save him. I can barely save myself.”

Cecilia didn’t flinch. She reached up and framed his face with both hands, his skin slick with cold sweat.

“You do not have to save him.” Fierce, holding his panicked gaze, refusing to let him look away. “He’s gone. You just have to tell the truth. You just have to lay him to rest.”

“I can’t go to London alone.” His voice cracked. A tear tracked through the dust on his cheek. “The noise. The crowds. It sounds like the guns.”

“You are not going alone.” She slid her arms around his neck, pulled his forehead down to rest against hers. “I am going with you. We leave at dawn.”