The Duke Returned Unannounced to His Old House .. only to Find His long dead Duchess and Son Alive..

Chapter 3

There had been nothing left to say that had not already been said. He had kissed her forehead. Her cheek. Then properly. She had kept her hands flat at her sides, and he had understood why — because if she held on to him, she would not let go.

He had picked up Thomas. Thomas had grabbed his face with both hands and examined it with great seriousness, the way babies do when they are trying to memorize something. Then he had patted both cheeks approvingly and gone back to looking at the wolfhound.

Edward had held him for a long time.

Then he had put him down.

Downstairs, the carriage had been waiting. The estate manager, William Graves, had been overseeing the preparation with his usual thorough precision. William had been Edward’s closest friend since Cambridge — fifteen years of shared ambitions, shared difficulties, the particular closeness of a friendship that forms before either person fully understands who they are. He was lean and precise, educated and capable, the kind of man who made everything around him run smoothly without ever needing to be thanked for it.

“All ready,” William had said, looking up as Edward approached. His voice had been steady, professional. “The horses are fresh. You’ll make Newcastle by nightfall.”

Edward had nodded. They had shaken hands. William’s grip had been firm, his eye contact steady, his expression exactly right — concerned, supportive, loyal. Everything a friend should be at a moment like this.

The household staff had assembled in the entrance hall to see him off. Cook, housemaids, footmen, 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. He had thanked each of them by name.

Charlotte had walked him to the front steps with Thomas on her hip and the wolfhound at her heel. The gravel had crunched under his boots. He had handed his traveling case up, climbed in, turned back once.

She had been standing on the top step. Straight-backed. Head high. Thomas waving at nothing in particular. The morning light on her copper hair.

She had raised her hand.

He had raised his.

The horses had moved forward.

The carriage had rolled down the oak-lined drive. The hall had disappeared from view. Charlotte had stood on the steps until the sound of the wheels faded completely into the moorland silence. Then she had pulled Thomas close, turned, and gone inside.

And that had been the last normal morning either of them would know for a very long time.