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Nathaniel knocked once upon the polished oak of his father’s study door. The sound echoed dully in the quiet corridor as if even the house itself sensed the significance of the summons.

His presence had been requested, and the old instincts prickled in his spine. A command from the Duke of Wycombe was not issued lightly.

“Come in,” his father’s voice ordered from inside.

Nathaniel entered, finding both of his parents already seated. The study smelled faintly of pipe smoke and old parchment, the curtains drawn back to admit the watery spring light.

His mother sat in the armchair by the hearth. His father remained behind his great desk, posture as erect and unmoving as if he were carved from marble. But something about this scene was different. A softening at the corners of his eyes, perhaps. A less rigid set to his father’s jaw.

“You asked to see me, Father,” Nathaniel said, careful but not cold.

His father nodded once. “We did.”

His mother said nothing, merely inclined her head in greeting.

Nathaniel glanced between them, brows drawing together. “Is everything all right? Has the physician … said something?”

His father cleared his throat, a rare show of discomfort. “No. Not exactly.” He looked down at the blotter on his desk, then back at Nathaniel. “I did something I am not proud of.”

That, more than anything, startled Nathaniel. The duke did not confess whatever transgression he had seemingly committed.

“I beg your pardon?”

His father laced his fingers together. “I exaggerated the state of my health.”

Nathaniel stared at him incredulously. “You … what?”

“Exaggerated,” the man repeated, though his voice was tighter now. “I may have … allowed you to believe my condition was more grave than it truly was. And I think it only fair for you to be aware of it now.”

Nathaniel blinked once, then twice. “Why?”

“You know why.” His father’s tone held the edge of impatience, though it faltered slightly under the weight of truth. “Because you wouldn’t have married Eleanor otherwise.”

And Nathaniel, to his own surprise, found he could not immediately argue. His lips parted, but no protest came.

“I …” He paused. “Perhaps not then. No.”

His father nodded with a grim sort of satisfaction. “Then I did what had to be done. I made the choice of your future bride because you refused to do so yourself.”

That was when his mother finally spoke. “We believed the end justified the means.”

“And now?” Nathaniel asked, his voice quiet.

“Now,” his mother said, turning her gaze to the fire, “we see that it could have ended differently. And we are grateful that it did not.”

There was silence, broken only by the soft crackle of the hearth.

“We did not marry for love,” she continued, more softly than he’d ever heard her speak.

“Your father and me. We are both aware of that fact. But marriage is more than just affection. It is respect. Trust. Loyalty. A shared purpose. These things matter. They last.” She looked at Nathaniel now.

“Love … is not always given to everyone.”

He studied her face and saw the faintest tremor at the corner of her mouth.

“But … why now?” he asked. “Why change your minds? You could have gone on without saying anything. Why decide to tell me the truth now?”

His mother looked at his father, then back at Nathaniel. Her posture, always so upright, seemed to ease a fraction.

“Because I realized,” she said, “that I was wrong.”

The confession hung there, almost fragile in its honesty.

“It was I who suggested we tell you about your father’s illness,” she continued, her voice calm but unflinching. “Or rather, the illness we allowed you to believe was far more dire than it truly was.”

Nathaniel’s gaze switched from her to his father, who gave a faint, silent nod.

“I thought,” his mother continued, “that if we could … push you, press you towards a decision … that you might do what needed to be done. You were drifting. You were being detached. You always have been … guarded. Even as a child.”

He didn’t interrupt her, though he heard the familiar steel returning to her voice.

“We didn’t want her as your wife,” she added, then corrected herself, “I didn’t want her as your wife.

But … your father assured me that she would be a good wife to you.

In the beginning, I couldn’t agree with what he was presenting me with: you married to her, settled, continuing the family line, but I agreed because that is what a good wife does. ”

His father spoke again. “It was pragmatic. As these things often are.”

Nathaniel studied them both. His mother, newly softened.

His father, still restrained, still proud, but speaking more plainly than he ever had before.

He thought of the many years when their conversations had been all strategy and silence, no room for feeling. And now, at last, the mask had cracked.

“I understand,” Nathaniel said, his voice even. “I understand why you did it. And … I think I even understand who you were trying to be. For me.”

His mother inclined her head. “Yes, my secret nearly destroyed everything and everyone in its path. But I … we did not wish to lose you.”

“You nearly did,” he said gently.

She looked away. “Yes.”

The moment hung in the room like a breath held too long. Not quite warm, not yet familiar. Not after everything they had been through. But it was the beginning of something promising.

“Thank you,” he said again, quieter this time.

Then, he turned to go, pausing once at the door to glance back. His father remained seated behind his desk, unmoving but watchful. His mother stood by the fire, the light catching the grey at her temples, her face older than he ever remembered seeing it.

They were both imperfect people, bound by their own pasts, their own losses. And for all their control, all their manoeuvring, they had chosen to share the truth.

That had to count for something.

***

The drawing room at Loxley House had never looked so lovely, nor so full of light.

Eleanor stood just beyond the threshold, her heart fluttering with a rhythm both solemn and breathlessly sweet.

There was no organ music, no marble columns or sweeping arches to lend grandeur.

But there was Nathaniel, standing near the hearth where they had once quarrelled, once confessed, once begun again.

He turned as though he sensed her arrival before even the minister did, and when their eyes met, it was not awe that filled her … it was peace.

Her parents sat in the front, just as she had hoped they would. She saw now what had once been hidden from her: that love did not always arrive like a tempest.

Sometimes it came quietly, like a tide, persistent and patient. Lord Ravenshaw reached over and covered his wife’s hand with his own. It was not a grand gesture, but something smaller, more enduring.

And in that simple act, Eleanor felt the pieces of her mother’s story settle into place not as a tragedy, but as a life gently salvaged.

Across the room, seated with a solemn grace that nearly disguised his triumph, the Duke of Wycombe watched the ceremony unfold with an expression of concealed satisfaction.

Beside him sat his wife, her back straight as ever, and yet, Eleanor saw it: that change, not overt, but unmistakable. Since the truth had surfaced, since the bitter conversations and unspoken confessions, the duchess had softened not into warmth, not entirely, but into acceptance.

She no longer flinched at Eleanor’s presence. She no longer calculated or corrected. She had, in some mysterious way, made peace.

And then there were Charlotte and Marsden.

To Eleanor’s left, near the window where the light was most golden, stood her oldest friend, luminous in lavender muslin, her dark curls pinned up but slightly rebellious as always.

Charlotte balanced a small bouquet in one hand and Percival’s leash in the other, though the pug had, quite sensibly, curled at her feet and dozed off.

Captain Marsden stood beside Nathaniel, upright and composed, the silver detailing of his uniform catching the light. But his gaze remained fixed on Charlotte more often than the ceremony.

Eleanor smiled softly to herself. Another story was beginning. Slower, perhaps, but no less sure. Love did not always arrive with thunder and clashes. Sometimes, it stepped gently, growing steadily, like a seed knowing spring would come.

She looked around. There were no choirs, no elaborate pomp. Only the scent of orange blossom, warm from the sun and heady in the still air, and the murmured hush of loved ones gathered to witness what no one had expected to see again: vows, not made, but remade.

Nathaniel now stood before her, his dark coat unadorned, the line of his collar slightly askew, almost as if he’d dressed in haste, or perhaps simply didn’t care for precision today.

His eyes met hers without hesitation. No mask, no reserve.

He looked like a man who had stopped pretending and would never start again.

Eleanor felt no tremor in her hands. No flutter of nerves. This was not the fragile, glittering day of their first wedding, shadowed by obligation and false smiles. This was something true.

The chaplain cleared his throat and began with a brief blessing, which was nothing ornate nor rehearsed.

Then he read a passage from a slim volume Eleanor had clutched during her convalescence.

Words that had once startled her with their clarity: “Love is not a thunderclap. It is a choice. A rhythm. A decision renewed.”

She stepped forward first, her heart full and steady.

“We were a marriage of arrangement,” she said, her voice carrying gently across the room.

“We began with terms, not tenderness. With duty, not desire. But amid that bargain, you astonished me. You listened when you could have spoken. You stayed when you had reason to leave. You were steady, even when you were angry. And through every misstep, you revealed something truer than affection, you revealed character. I offer you not just my hand, but my loyalty. Not just my name, but my future. And I choose you, freely. Each day, I will choose you.”

Nathaniel’s gaze didn’t waver. When he spoke, his voice was low, roughened by emotion.

“I lived afraid,” he said. “Afraid of failing a legacy. Of tarnishing a name. Of being less than what I was told I must be. And then you came into my life, Eleanor, sharp, kind, and unwilling to be shaped by anyone. You didn’t shatter my fear.

You unravelled it. With laughter. With pain.

With truth. I cannot promise perfection.

But I can promise presence. I cannot shield you from every wound.

But I can bear it beside you. I vow to meet you, every day, not as a title or a task, but as a man in love with his wife. ”

There was no fanfare. No grand pronouncement.

The chaplain simply inclined his head and confirmed. “So noted. So witnessed.”

No crowd waited outside the chapel-turned-drawing room. No blare of trumpets, no cascading fireworks against the sky. Only the people who mattered most: their families, their friends. And this moment, quiet and incandescent as morning dew.

When Nathaniel leaned forward, Eleanor met him without hesitation. The kiss they shared was not the kind meant for spectacle but for something deeper, something steady, reverent, and wholly theirs. A seal not of ceremony, but of truth.

She slipped her hand through the crook of his arm, her fingers brushing the fine wool of his sleeve, warm from the heat of his body.

Together, they stepped through the threshold and into the sunlight spilling gold across the flagstones, where the world waited not with fanfare, but with peace.

This time, there were no strangers. No masks. No scripts written by others. This time, they were husband and wife not by arrangement, not by pressure, but by a vow freely given and freely kept by choice … by love.

THE END