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

Chapter 9

Over the next two days, Edward spoke to everyone.

He began with Mrs. Peton. He sat with her in the housekeeper’s room the morning after his return — a small, warm space off the main kitchen that smelled of dried lavender and beeswax — and asked her to tell him everything she remembered from the night of the fire onward.

Mrs. Peton told him all of it. She spoke in the precise, sequential way of a woman who had been paying attention to everything that happened in that house for thirty years and had kept it organized in her memory because she suspected that one day someone would need to hear it. The telegram. The timing. The way William had managed the news. The way he had managed Charlotte afterward. The gradual shift in his presence at the hall — from estate manager to something harder to name. The September evening that Mrs. Peton had not been present for but had understood from Charlotte’s changed manner the following morning.

She told Edward all of this in a level voice with her hands folded in her lap.

When she finished, she looked at him directly.

“I did not know what to do with what I suspected, Your Grace. I am sorry. I did not find a way to reach you.”

“You had no reason to believe I was alive,” Edward said. “Neither did anyone else.”

He thanked her and went to find the coachman. Then the stable master. Then each member of the household staff who had been present throughout. Each conversation added another piece. Each piece made the picture clearer and worse in equal measure. The forged identity William had used at the telegraph office. The careful timing of the telegram. The months of positioning. The way William had controlled what information the household sent out and what came in.

Small details that individually meant nothing and together meant everything.

By the end of the second day, the full architecture of what William had built was completely visible.

Meanwhile, Thomas had been conducting his own independent assessment of the situation. He appeared at Edward’s elbow on the morning of the second day while Edward was standing in the stable yard looking at the horses. Thomas stood beside him for a moment without speaking.

“That one is called Bess,” Thomas said, pointing at the large bay mare in the nearest paddock. “She does not like strangers.”

“Noted,” Edward said.

“She likes me,” Thomas added.

“Also noted,” Edward said.

Thomas considered him for another moment. Then he went back inside. An hour later, he returned carrying a small wooden horse, which he presented to Edward without explanation, and then retreated to a safe observational distance to watch what happened next.

Edward looked at the wooden horse. Then he sat down on the ground right there in the stable yard.

Thomas stared at him.

Edward patted the ground beside him.

Thomas came and sat down.

They examined the wooden horse together for a while without speaking. The morning was cold and bright. The horses moved in the paddock. The moors stretched away to the horizon.

Charlotte watched this from the stable yard gate and had to walk away before she did something undignified with her face.

On the morning of the third day, Edward sent a note to the estate cottage.

Four words: Library. Ten o’clock. Come.

He told Charlotte what he was going to do. Charlotte asked what he intended to say.

“The truth. And then I am going to listen to whatever he says, and then it will be finished.”

Charlotte looked at him. “Whatever he says,” she repeated carefully.

“Yes,” Edward said. “Even if what he says makes it worse. Especially then. Because I need to know all of it — every piece — so that nothing comes back later.”

Charlotte nodded slowly. “And after?”

Edward picked up his coat. “After,” he said, “we begin.”