Bathed in moonlight, clutching a decanter of port in one hand, a raven’s feather in the other, Duncan stumbled across the dewed grounds of Thornhill Grange, away from the feeble lights of the sparse household and deeper into the dark.
A horse whinnied from the distant stables, as if trying to call him home.
“Not now!” Duncan shouted back, lumbering onward.
A few of the staff had tried to prevent him from wandering out alone, worried about his welfare, but he was not thinking about them as he made his way toward shapes in the distance, just beyond the orchard.
“They do not understand,” he muttered to no one, sipping from the decanter. “They do not understand the sheer weight of being a second son, thrust into a role, a costume, that does not fit. Theywish you were here instead of me, too, Christopher. Goodness, how I wish you were here.”
His brother would have known what to say to make him feel better. He would have bombarded Duncan with advice, making suggestions, and if that failed, Christopher would have told him bluntly what he needed to do to remedy his situation. Whether or not Duncan would have listened was another matter entirely.
“I do not know what this feeling is, ‘topher,” he rambled on, knocking into an apple tree, muttering an apology to the trunk as he wobbled onward. “Why will she not leave me alone? It has been four days since I saw her. I cannot get her out of my head, brother. She is a barb, stuck right… here.” He tapped the middle of his forehead, harder than he had intended.
Of course, Christopher did not answer.
“It is a beautiful gown,” Duncan murmured. “She would have looked exceptional in it. I think I shall hang it in the entrance hall, as a flag of my failures.”
He chuckled darkly to himself, weaving through the orchard, kicking fallen fruit that encroached on his path, until he finally shambled up to a wrought iron fence. The slate roof of the small chapel winked in the moonlight, taunting him.
It had been a long time since he had come here, but as he shoved against the gate, it did not squeak on rusty hinges. It opened smoothly, silently. Someone must have been taking care of thechapel and its homogenous cemetery, scattered entirely with his ancestors. Locks of all kinds.
Taking a deep gulp of the port, he squinted through the gloom until he found what he was looking for. There, underneath the wafting fronds of a willow, the three people he wanted to have a word with.
“Sorry to call upon you so late,” he said, smirking, as he sat down cross-legged in front of the three headstones. Each more aged and mossed than the next. Mother, Father, brother, side-by-side.
He set down his decanter, reading the names and dates and epitaphs that gave so little away about those buried beneath.
“How did you know you loved Louisa?” he asked, stroking the raven’s feather between his fingers, running it lightly across his throat. “How did you know you loved Mother? And you, Mother—how did you know you loved Father?Didyou love him, as he loved you?”
The willow fronds swayed, the whispering wind speaking a language he did not understand. He was alone, talking to ghosts who refused to appear.
“Do you not think it hurt me to know what I did?” he slurred, swallowing thickly. “Do you not think I blamed myself for your death, Mother? But… I was a baby. I did not do it on purpose.”
Silence echoed back, deafening.
“If you had just given me one kind word, Father, I would have… turned out differently,” Duncan continued regardless, feeling the first pebble of a cairn of grief and bitterness and childhood confusion tumble free. “If you had noticed me, smiled at me, called me ‘son’ instead of ignoring me, I think… I would have been better. A better person.
“I know I will never be what you were, ‘topher, but… I am trying my best,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “I have kept the estate in good order. I have improved our fortune. The staff are happy, and… the house is taken care of. I have tried, brother. I have made so many mistakes, but… I have tried to be good duke, even if I have not been a perfect person.”
His shoulders slumped, his chin dropping to his chest. “Am I allowed to stop punishing myself now? Am I allowed to stop punishing myself for insisting we race that day, ‘topher? Am I allowed to stop punishing myself for being the reason you died, Mother? Am I allowed to stop punishing myself for looking like her and being such a grand disappointment, Father?”
He tipped onto his side, curling up on the soft bed of grass, while the willow fronds sought him out, lightly caressing him, as if trying to feel what manner of man he was.
“I just miss you,” he murmured, resting a hand on Christopher’s grave. “All of you. I have been so alone, and… I think it has damaged me in ways I do not understand. But then… she came along, and I… did not want to be alone anymore. I have notthought of another woman, I have not looked at another woman, I have not wanted anyone but her.”
In the quiet of the cemetery, that admission took on a new meaning. He had assumed that his interest would wane, as it had done every time before, but he had neglected to realize something rather important: he had never felt this way before. His feelings for Valeria were something entirely new, previously unknown to him.
Does that mean it would be different?
Still, the silence would not answer, but the graves did.
He had thought he could not put someone through the pain of loss that he had felt, but his father had loved his motherbeyondthe death, never marrying again, carrying a tiny portrait of her with him always. And Louisa’s enduring love for Christopher had been enough to make her flee the country and a marriage she did not want.
Then there was Lionel, plagued with the fear of a family curse that could take him at any moment. He had not stopped that from letting him fall in love with Amelia, nor had it stopped Amelia from falling in love with him.
Perhaps, he had been concentrating on the wrong thing, the loss instead of the living before that.
And there is more than one way to lose someone…
