“How?” Norman challenged, leaning forward. “How could you have seen what she herself buried beneath her smiles and obedience? You think I don’t remember? She agreed with everything you said. She went where she was told, did what was expected. She was the perfect duchess. You never saw her angry until the very end.”
“She was afraid to speak,” Valentine muttered, guilt lacing the words. “Afraid of me. Afraid of father. You cannot blame her for that.”
“Whose fault is that?” Norman pressed gently. “Yours? Or the man who raised us both?”
Valentine’s eyes flickered, but still, he said nothing.
Norman went on. “Helena did what Father always rewarded. She complied. She suppressed. She wore perfection like a noose around her neck. You did not know, Valentine. How were you supposed to know she was forced into the marriage? Even I didn’t know. Let it go.”
Valentine looked away, his voice rough. “You think I don’t want to let it go? You think I like being miserable? It’s eating me inside, Norman. I cannot help it.”
Valentine stared into the fire. The amber liquid in his glass was half gone, but he didn’t remember drinking it. His throat felt raw, as though the words Norman had spoken had scraped something loose inside him.
The silence stretched between them.
Then Norman spoke again. “I know I’m pushing you.”
Valentine’s eyes flicked to him.
“I’ve listened, for years, like you asked. I’ve held my tongue. I didn’t mention Helena. I didn’t say a word when you buried yourself in work or when Abigail barely knew how to smile. I didn’t press. Not even when you started acting like a ghost in your own house.”
Norman sat back. “But I’m pressing now because I see something different. I see Cecilia.”
Valentine frowned slightly. Her name struck like a stone thrown into still water.
“The only reason I am pushing so much is because I know you are in love with Cecilia, but you are punishing yourself because, according to your flawed logic, you do not deserve happiness, and now that someone is giving that to you, you are running away. Just let love lead, Valentine.”
Valentine didn’t answer right away. He looked at Norman, puzzled. “How did you know?” he asked quietly. “About my feelings for her?”
Norman raised an eyebrow. “So you’re not denying it?”
Valentine exhaled, long and slow, like the confession had been dragged from somewhere he had kept locked even from himself. “That’s not the issue,” he said quietly.
Norman stilled. “What is, then?”
“Loving her isn’t the issue,” Valentine said again, more firmly this time, as though he were testing the words on his own tongue. “I never thought I would fall in love. Not truly. Yet somehow, I did, and knowing I love her doesn’t frighten me.”
He clicked his tongue and set his glass down. “All my life, I imagined that love would undo me. That it would rip me apart or reduce me to a man I didn’t recognize if it ever happened to me. But it hasn’t. It gives me…peace. In all the noise and all the duty and all the grief, knowing that I love her feels steadying. Like a fixed point.”
Norman frowned, listening.
“The problem...” Valentine went on. “...is not how I feel. It’s what I am. What I have become. I cannot give her what I do not have. I cannot give her happiness,” he said. “I know it. I feel it in my bones. Every time I think of Helena and how I carry her memory like a stone in my chest, unmoving. Six years later, I still feel like this. If I cannot climb out from under that guilt, if I cannot let go of something that happened so long ago.What hope is there that I could love someone as she deserves to be loved?”
Norman leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table. “Then give her what you can give her.”
Valentine turned to him.
Norman didn’t wait for him to interrupt.
“You keep saying you cannot give her happiness as if it’s a fixed thing. As if it’s some perfect little box you can hand over, ribbon and all, and say, ‘Here, I’ve solved it.’ But that’s not how life works, Valentine. That’s not how love works. Happiness isn’t yours to give; it’s something she builds for herself with the one she chooses to build with. That’s the whole point.”
Valentine opened his mouth, then closed it again. He sat frozen, Norman’s words ringing in his ears like the last toll of a cathedral bell. But before he could form an answer, before he could even feel the answer, the door burst open.
Miss. Flaxman stood there, pale and breathless, her usually neat cap askew and her hands trembling at her sides. “Your Grace,” she gasped. “Forgive me, but I’ve searched everywhere. The nursery, the garden, the south wing, I cannot find her.”
Valentine’s head snapped up. “Who?” His voice was a low, dangerous growl, though he already knew the answer.
The governess swallowed, her voice breaking. “Abigail, Your Grace. She’s missing. I have been searching for over an hour.”
