Instead, Arthur let out a long, ragged exhale. The fight seemed to drain out of him, leaving him looking very tired and very young.
"I didn't stop trying because the world was cruel," he said quietly, his eyes fixed on the flames. "I stopped trying because I was the one who broke it."
Beatrice didn't move. She waited.
"My father left me a prosperous estate," Arthur continued, the words coming out in a slow, painful trickle. He had not spoken these truths aloud in two years. "I thought I was invincible. I invested heavily in trade ships bound for the Indies. I borrowed against the land. I borrowed against the tenant farms. I borrowed against the very stones of this house. Three ships went down in a hurricane. The fourth was taken by privateers."
He set the knife down. He looked at his hands—his bandaged, ruined hands.
"The debts came due all at once. Hundreds of families in Oak Haven lost their livelihoods because of my arrogance. The servants I sacked? I didn't sack them. I couldn't pay them. They left. My fiancée, the daughter of an earl, returned my ring within the month. Harrow Gate didn't die of natural causes, Beatrice. I slaughtered it."
The silence in the kitchen was profound. The only sound was the crackle of the fire and the hiss of dripping fat. Arthur waited for her judgment; he waited for the disgust to settle on her face. He was a failure, a fool who had gambled with other people's lives and lost everything.
Beatrice walked over to the fire. She knelt beside him. She reached out and took the heavy iron poker, adjusting the logs to let more air into the heart of the blaze.
"You made a mistake," she said, her voice steady. "A massive, stupid, catastrophic mistake."
Arthur let out a bitter half-laugh. "Your comfort is overwhelming."
"I am not here to comfort you," Beatrice said, turning her head to look him in the eye. "I am here to tell you the truth. You broke it. Fine. The ships sank. The money is gone. But the stone is still here. The land is still here. You are still breathing. You can sit in the dark and drink yourself into a shallow grave, or you can pick up a rusty axe and chop wood."
She pointed to the bucket of potatoes at his feet. "You peeled the potatoes," she said simply. "It's a start."
Arthur looked at the bucket. He looked at the woman kneeling beside him, smelling of flour and wood smoke. The crippling weight on his chest, the guilt that had suffocated him for years, didn't vanish; it was still there. But for the first time, it didn't feel fatal. It felt like something he might eventually be able to carry.