Page 33 of Yours Always (The Enduring Hearts #1)

Matthew stood in the doorway of Robert’s study, waiting silently until the older man finally looked up from the ledgers spread across the desk.

Robert’s hair looked grayer than it had the day before.

His eyes were hollow. The deep lines in his face etched deeper now, carved by a grief no words could soften.

He looked like a man who had aged a decade overnight.

But, still he was here; sleeves rolled, spectacles perched low on his nose, tending to the affairs that needed tending. Because someone had to.

Matthew cleared his throat softly, “Sir?” Robert blinked, as if surprised to find him standing there. Then he waved him in with a weary flick of the hand. “Come in, son. Sit.”

Son. The word struck like a hammer to Matthew’s chest.

He nodded stiffly and stepped inside, crossing the room with slow, deliberate strides.

He sank into the chair opposite Robert’s, the same chair he’d sat in as a boy learning his sums, asking advice about horses, about land, about love.

It had always been Robert Weston who steadied him and treated him like one of his own.

Who made a place for him in a world that hadn’t quite known where to put him.

Last night when Sarah fled from him, eyes wide and trembling with something too close to fear, he had nearly turned and run.

Back to Scotland. Back to the wreckage of his own making.

Back to the solitude where the ache couldn’t touch anyone but him.

But then he had seen Robert. This hollowed man, bent beneath the weight of loss no father should ever carry.

Sarah would have the Duke.

Victoria had Robert.

But Robert would carry this alone.

Matthew couldn’t leave, not now.

Robert scrubbed a hand across his face, leaning back in the chair with a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his bones.

“We’ve got a good deal of work ahead of us,” he said gruffly.

“Arrangements to make. Papers to settle. Tenants to reassure.” Matthew nodded, curling his hands into fists in his lap to keep them from trembling.

“I will help however you need me to,” he said quietly.

“You have my word.” Robert’s mouth pulled into something like a smile, but it just fell short. “I know you will.”

He pushed one of the ledgers across the desk with a slow, deliberate hand.

“I need you to look at Somerton. The transfer was not yet complete, but…” The words caught.

He swallowed hard. “I am thinking of selling it.” Matthew stilled, the idea of selling Somerton settled like a weight in his chest. The land they’d ridden across as boys.

The place Ben had poured his future into.

It would feel like burying him twice. “I understand why you would want to,” Matthew said slowly.

“But maybe don’t make any decisions just yet. ”

Robert’s gaze lifted, sharpened even, through the haze of grief.

“And leave it sitting there like a ghost?” Matthew hesitated.

He hadn’t meant to strike a nerve. “I just think, in time, it might not feel the same way.” He chose the words carefully, gently, each one placed like a footstep in fresh snow.

Robert’s expression fractured slightly. “In time, maybe.” He winced as though the words tasted foreign.

Silence descended, broken only by the slow crackle of the fire behind them.

Matthew lowered his gaze to the ledger, but the numbers blurred.

All he could see was Benjamin. His grin.

His laugh. The way he used to nudge Matthew in the ribs and tease him about everything and nothing.

Matthew shut his eyes for a moment, steadying himself.

He wasn’t here for his grief, he was here for Robert’s.

Robert’s voice came again, softer now. “I know you loved him too, Matthew.” Matthew’s throat closed, unable to speak.

“He loved you like a brother,” Robert said, folding his hands tightly on the desk.

“And if he were here he would have told you himself, that you are every bit as much my son as he.” Matthew’s breath hitched.

He bowed his head, gripping the edge of the ledger until his knuckles went white. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Robert leaned back, the firelight deepening the wear on his face.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better man to walk alongside him.

” The words split something open inside him.

He had promised to protect Benjamin. He had promised to protect Sarah.

He had even promised to protect Mary. And he had failed them all.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save him,” Matthew said, the words raw.

“I should have done more—” Robert cut him off, his voice quiet and strained, but heavy with feeling.

“You did all any man could do.” Matthew looked up, and in Robert’s eyes, he found something he hadn’t known he’d lost, a measure of grace and a flicker of strength.

Robert leaned forward, one hand resting firm and steady on the desk. “I need you, Matty. I can’t do this alone.” Matthew nodded, forcing the grief down far enough to steady his voice. “You’re not alone,” he said. “I’m here. I will handle Somerton. The tenants. Whatever you need.”

Robert hesitated, but just for a breath. “And Sarah, too.” His voice heavy as if he knew the full weight of the words he had spoken.

Sarah, who had kissed him and run.

Sarah, who had lost everything.

Sarah, who needed someone steady, which was something Matthew was no longer sure he could be.

He couldn’t find the words, but he nodded in agreement.

He would stay. He would fight. For Robert.

For Grace. For Sarah. Even if it meant living with a heart that might never fully heal.

Robert gave a faint, fractured smile, then leaned back into his chair.

“For now,” he said softly, “that is enough.”

______________________

Sarah paced the length of the upstairs corridor, arms wrapped tightly around herself. She ought to have returned to her room, laid down and at least tried to rest, but the thought of being alone knowing that Benjamin’s room now sat empty, made her feel hollow and cold.

The truth, the real reason she stood outside Matthew’s door in the dead of night, was simpler then she wanted to admit. She needed to know. She needed to know if that kiss had shaken him the way it had shaken her; if he’d felt it, not just physically, but down to the bones.

Since that moment, they hadn’t spoken. Matthew had spent every hour with her father managing the estate business, while Sarah had drifted between her mother’s grief and her own, pretending to eat, and pretending to sleep. But she couldn’t bear to wait another day.

He would be gone soon, back to the boarding house and whatever was left of the life he was rebuilding, and she didn’t know when, or if, they would ever be alone again. It was now or never.

She raised her hand and knocked softly. Even so, the sound echoed like thunder in the stillness of the sleeping house.

She held her breath, but nothing stirred on the other side.

She hesitated, then leaned in, whispering, “Matty,” as she reached for the doorknob, intending only to jiggle it to get his attention.

The door opened before she could touch it.

Candlelight spilled into the dark hall, and she jumped back.

Matthew stood in the doorway barefoot, shirt half-unbuttoned, sleeves rolled, suspenders hanging loose at his sides.

His hair was tousled, his face freshly shaven, but his eyes were rimmed with exhaustion and held something that made her stomach twist.“Lizzy,” he said softly. “Is everything all right?”

His voice grounded her. She forced her eyes to meet his gaze.

“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to worry you.

” She took a step back, the edges of her courage beginning to fray.

He stepped into the doorway, reaching out to cup her cheek the way he had when she was little, his thumb brushing gently along her jaw, but it wasn’t the same.

His touch lingered now, warmer and slower, and she felt it all the way down to her toes.

“Couldn’t sleep?” His voice was quiet, almost tender. She gave a small nod, afraid that speaking might shatter the fragile stillness between them. “I can’t either,” he murmured, pulling his hand back. “I was thinking of making some tea. Would you like to come down with me?”

“I was hoping...” She hesitated. “...we could talk. Just for a moment.” He studied her, clearly weighing the risk.

“Here?” He glanced down the hallway, then back at her.

“In my room?” She nodded. “I just don’t want to be alone.

” He leaned against the frame, torn. “Would the kitchen not serve us better”

“The fires downstairs have all gone cold. It’s warmer up here,” she said quickly. “Please, Matty.” He exhaled slowly, then stepped aside so she could enter. “Not too long, Lizzy girl.”

She slipped inside, heading straight for the fireplace. The coals were low, but still warm. She glanced at the neatly made bed and wondered if he’d even tried to sleep at all.

Matthew joined her, crouched by the hearth, coaxing the fire back to life with a few well-placed logs.

Once the flames caught, he laid a thick blanket on the floor and draped another around her shoulders.

He settled beside her, close but careful, the firelight casting shadows across the planes of his face.

She tried not to look at him but her eyes betrayed her, and what she saw nearly broke her.

His features, always so familiar, looked hollowed out by grief.

His expression was guarded and exhausted, but beneath it was something raw.

Fractured. The kind of hurt that didn’t come from wounds, but from guilt.

From a loss that could not be undone. He was carrying his grief quietly, and he was doing it alone.

“Do you remember when we were little,” she said softly, “and you and Benjamin would pile up blankets by the fire in the library? We’d stay there all night, reading and acting out stories.

” Matthew nodded, eyes fixed on the flames.

His expression didn’t shift, but something about the stillness of him made her ache.

She could almost hear his shallow breaths echoing in the hollowed-out shell of the boy he used to be, before the grief, before the guilt, before the morning he returned without her brother.

“I am sorry, Matty,” she whispered. He finally turned to her. His eyes shone with unshed tears. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

“For what I said that morning,” she said. “I was in shock. I didn’t mean any of it. I know you loved Benjamin.” Her voice broke. “I know you did everything you could.”

He turned his face back to the fire, but the light betrayed him, catching the tears that began to fall freely. “I sat outside for hours before I worked up the courage to knock on the door,” he said, voice thick. “I knew the moment I spoke the words, it would become real.”

Sarah watched him in silence, her heart splintering as his shoulders trembled. “I can’t sleep,” he whispered. “Every time I close my eyes, all I see is him, and I just keep wondering why it wasn’t me.” She sat forward and took his hand. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not?” he rasped. “Benjamin had everything. Grace. A future. A family. I have nothing. It should have been me.” Sarah lifted both hands to his face, gentle but unyielding, her thumbs brushing away the tears that clung to his lashes.

She leaned in, close enough to feel the heat of his breath. “You have me.”

He tried to turn away, but her hands stayed firm, anchoring him, refusing to let him retreat back into the shadows.

“Benjamin was my brother,” she whispered, her voice trembling, “and losing him has shattered my heart in ways I didn’t know possible.

But I know, in time, that it will heal again.

” She reached for his hand, tightening her grip.

“But Matty, if you had died...” Her throat tightened.

“I don’t think I would have survived it.

” He closed his eyes, a sharp breath escaping him.

“You would have found a way to move on.”

“I wouldn’t have.”

The air between them stilled, as if even the fire dared not move. She reached up and traced her thumb across the corner of his mouth. His breath caught. His gaze dropped to her lips and for one suspended heartbeat, he started to lean in, but then he broke away.

He rose to his feet, turning from her, as if the space between them was full of flames. “Lizzy, you need to go.”

“What?” she breathed.

“Leave. Now.” He turned back, eyes wide, filled with something that resembled fear, but she could see what he was trying so desperately to hide simmering just below the surface.

She stepped closer. “You said we could talk.”

“Please, just go.”

“No,” she said gently. “I am not leaving until you talk to me.” “Lizzy, I can’t...” His voice broke.

She slid her hands onto his shoulders, expecting warmth, but he was cold.

Not just from the night, she thought, but from something deeper; the weight of his grief.

The chill of him bled through the fabric and startled her.

His eyes closed, head tipping back against the wall as she stepped closer, her arms winding gently around his neck.

“You don’t have to hold everything so close that no one else can see it, Matty,” she whispered, her breath brushing against his cheek. “You don’t have to be strong all the time.” His hands clenched at his sides. His jaw tightened, and she saw it in his eyes the exact moment his resolve gave out.

His lips crashed into hers with all the ache and longing of a man who had waited too long, had carried too much, and could no longer pretend he didn’t need her.

As his arms closed around her and she kissed him back without fear, without hesitation, Sarah knew, with aching, breathless certainty, that nothing between them could ever go back to what it was before.