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Broken heart …

The words echoed inside his mind like a thousand church bells.

“You are so quick to condemn,” she said. “And yet you know so little.”

Nathaniel paused. The firelight painted his boots gold. He turned back slowly, the anger still thrumming in his chest. Her voice had sounded … different. Not cold. Not composed. Not … hers.

She did not meet his gaze. Her hands, always so precise, now twisted in the folds of her gown.

“I loved him,” she said as if confessing something dreadful. “Before your father. Before the title. Henry.”

Nathaniel blinked, suffocating a gasp. “Uncle Henry?”

She nodded once. It was not graceful. It was not rehearsed.

“I was young. We both were. But he …” Her voice caught like a snag in silk.

“He loved someone else. I’ll never forget how he described her to me …

A girl with laughing eyes and ink-stained fingers.

” She paused there, pressing her hand to her chest as if the words caused actual physical pain.

“A baron’s daughter. She was not suitable, of course.

They would never allow it. But that didn’t stop him. ”

Nathaniel’s blood ran cold.

“Eleanor’s mother,” he said.

His mother’s eyes closed for a moment, her lashes dark against her pale cheek.

“I was not chosen,” she whispered against the onslaught of anguish. “Not by him. Not for love. When Henry refused the match our families arranged, I married your father instead. It was expected. It was… necessary.”

Nathaniel stood frozen as if the room itself had tilted.

“All my life,” she said, her voice threadbare now, “I did what was required. I played the part. I bore the heir. I hosted the dinners. I stood beside a man who never once looked at me the way Henry used to look at her. And I buried it. All of it. Until I saw you with her.”

She looked up at him now, and for a moment, Nathaniel saw someone else. She wasn’t the Duchess of Wycombe, nor was she the architect of manipulation. She was just a woman, hollowed by years, clinging to the tattered remnants of something she could not name.

“You gave her the locket,” she said. “The one I found in his desk after he died. The one he kept for her.”

“It wasn’t yours to keep,” Nathaniel said, his voice harsh in the quiet. “And it’s not an excuse.”

Her shoulders lifted, just barely, and fell.

“I know.”

His fists clenched at his sides. “You used your pain like a weapon. You tried to destroy what you lost, simply because it didn’t come to you.”

She winced, visibly, and still made no reply.

“You humiliated Eleanor. You broke her trust. You turned me against her with half-truths and silence. And for what? To avenge a choice made decades ago?”

The duchess’ mouth trembled, but no words came. The fire cracked in the grate, and Nathaniel thought for a moment she might weep, but no tears came. Only the ghost of what could have been.

“You let bitterness grow where love should have healed you,” he said, quietly now. “And you passed that inheritance down to me.”

Her expression cracked then. He could see a fissure. Small, but real.

“I was trying to protect you,” she whispered.

“No,” Nathaniel said. “You were trying to protect yourself.”

He stood still for a moment longer, watching her: this woman who had shaped his world, who had spoken in lessons and expectations and gloved silences.

His mother. His adversary. His origin.

But he did not yield.

“I will not be Henry,” he said at last, his voice quiet but firm. “I won’t let history repeat itself. I will not sacrifice love to please anyone, not even you.”

Her eyes flickered.

“I will build a different kind of life,” he continued. “A different kind of family. One that doesn’t begin with power, duty, or fear, but with love, and it will be with Eleanor.”

For a long moment, the room was still. The fire whispered behind the grate. The duchess looked away, down at the hem of her gown as though it were more than she could bear. Then, at last, she nodded. It was an act done just once. A small motion. A single, brittle concession.

It wasn’t absolution. It wasn’t an apology. But it was something.

Nathaniel turned. The door felt lighter in his hand than it had moments ago. He opened it and stepped into the corridor. He did not feel triumphant, but he felt … changed.

As he walked down the hall, past portraits of dukes and ancestors and stories built on duty, he thought of Eleanor. He thought of her laughter, her defiance, her resilience, and finally, her hands: small, strong, capable of forgiveness.

This, he knew, was the line between the past and what lay ahead, between fear and something braver. And this time, he knew exactly where he stood. He would choose Eleanor.

Always.

***

Eleanor sat very still.

The room suddenly felt smaller, and the fire too warm. The duchess closed the door behind her with a measured hand and stepped forward, each movement deliberate, and under the circumstances, almost ceremonial.

There was no chaperone, no tray of tea to soften the edge of the visit. Only the hush of heavy drapery and the soft creak of Eleanor’s bed as she shifted, setting her hairbrush aside.

Lady Honoria said nothing at first. Her gloved hands rested, folded neatly before her like punctuation.

Eleanor could never resist the temptation to study her, this tall, proud, immaculate woman.

But behind the composed facade was something else.

A crack beneath the porcelain. Not regret, not quite, but perhaps the first shadow of it.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” the duchess said.

Eleanor’s voice was calm. “No.”

Honoria’s gaze flicked over her, bandaged wrist, propped ankle, the hint of fatigue in her posture. “You are recovering well, I see.”

“I am,” Eleanor replied. “Thank you.”

The silence that followed stretched, taut as a drawn string. Eleanor waited. She had no desire to offer comfort, but she would grant dignity. That was all she could give.

At last, Lady Honoria spoke again, her voice lower this time. “You must think me a cruel woman.”

Eleanor blinked. The duchess never spoke in self-indictments. And yet there was no defence in her tone, only an admission spoken like a fragile relic uncovered.

“I don’t pretend to understand all the reasons behind what you did,” Eleanor said quietly. “But I know it hurt your son. And it nearly destroyed me.”

“I came to apologize.”

Eleanor blinked, unsure she’d heard correctly.

“I judged you,” the duchess continued, her eyes fixed on some indeterminate point in the space between them. “I interfered where I had no right. I told Arthur Pembroke to pursue you at the ball. I orchestrated the guest list. I fed Nathaniel just enough doubt to keep him at arm’s length.”

She said it plainly. There was no hedging, no false justifications. The words landed like stones dropped into still water. Eleanor remained motionless, barely breathing. The admission did not absolve. But it mattered. It mattered deeply.

“I misjudged you,” Honoria said. “Because I saw only what I feared.”

Eleanor swallowed. “And what was that?”

Honoria hesitated, then lifted her gaze to meet Eleanor’s fully.

“Your mother.”

The name hit the air like a bell rung once, long ago, the sound still echoing.

“She was the great love of Henry’s life,” Honoria said. “And I … was not. I was suitable, dutiful. His parents preferred me. But he gave his heart to someone else.”

Eleanor felt her chest tighten. “He chose my mother.”

“Yes,” Honoria said, quietly. “And that is why I chose a title.”

The fire popped sharply in the hearth. Eleanor stared at the woman before her, regal and composed, and saw her for what she truly was now: not a villain, not a martyr, but a woman who had sacrificed love in the name of security and spent the rest of her life punishing herself, and others, for that choice.

“All this time,” Eleanor said slowly, “you weren’t trying to hurt me. You were trying to erase her.”

A faint crack appeared in Lady Honoria’s expression. Her composure didn’t break, but the strain in it was visible now, thin as glass under heat.

“She defied everything I was taught to value. She married someone else in the end, as you know. And yet … he loved her. Until the end, he loved her.”

“Then you saw me,” Eleanor whispered, “and remembered.”

“Yes.”

Eleanor looked down at her hands folded in her lap. She didn’t feel anger anymore. At least, not in its sharpest form. What she felt was older, deeper. It was a sorrow worn smooth over time.

“I understand,” she nodded. “Not everything. But enough.”

Lady Honoria nodded. It was not a request for forgiveness. It was something more honest, a plea for release from the shackles of the past.

“I won’t stand in your way again,” the duchess said. “I will not cost my son the happiness that was once denied myself.”

She turned to leave. There was no grand farewell, no lingering sentiment. Not that Eleanor expected any such thing. But as the duchess’ hand touched the door, Eleanor’s voice stopped her.

“You were wrong,” she said tenderly.

Lady Honoria turned.

“Love isn’t weakness. It’s the only thing that makes any of this bearable.”

For a heartbeat, their eyes locked. Neither woman said anything else. Nothing was left to be said because the flicker of recognition passed between them, lighting up what had up until that point been enshrouded in utter darkness.

The duchess inclined her head. And then, she left.

Eleanor sat back against her pillows, with her breath unsteady, feeling the echoes of old grief and older truths still settling around her like dust in the light.

She had not forgiven. Not yet. That woman had done much to be forgiven, and only time would ease that burden. It was just like Nathaniel said … they had time. Time enough for each other, time enough to let go of the past and leave it behind, where it belonged.

Because she had seen. And been seen.