She ran her fingers over the cool, polished wood. Her hand brushed against a small carved rosette on the side of the pedestal.
It felt loose.
Curious, she pressed it.
There was a soft click. A narrow vertical panel slid open, revealing not a drawer, but the edge of one.
A secret compartment.
Her heart began to beat faster.
This was a trespass, a violation of his privacy.
She should close it and walk away.
She could not.
Her fingers trembled as she pulled the drawer open. It was not large. Inside, nestled on a bed of dark velvet, was a single object.
A small leather-bound journal.
The initials E.B., Edward Blackwood, were embossed in faded gold on the cover.
She stared at it for a long time.
The wind howled.
The house groaned.
It felt as if the entire world was telling her to stop.
Reading this felt like a betrayal far greater than their transactional marriage. It was a betrayal of the fragile trust that was beginning to grow between them.
But her need to understand was stronger.
To understand the brother was to understand the Duke.
To understand the grief was to understand the man.
With a deep breath, she lifted the journal from the drawer. She took it to the armchair by the dying fire and opened it.
The handwriting was a bold, energetic scrawl, so different from the Duke’s precise script.
She began to read.
The journal was not a record of recklessness.
It was the opposite.
It was a record of sensitivity, of poetry, of a young man who felt things with a painful intensity.
He wrote of his love for the wild fells, for music, for his horse, Chaos, whom he called his dark confidant. He wrote of the pressure he felt to be a Blackwood, bold, fearless, a sportsman. He wrote of his admiration for his older brother, Marcus, but also of his fear of being a disappointment, of living in his shadow.
Helena’s hands grew cold as she read on.
The entries from the final weeks of his life were filled with a growing anxiety. His friends were planning a reckless steeplechase across the fells. There was a particularly dangerous jump over a collapsed section of stone wall. They were all daring each other to take it.
Edward did not want to.
He described the jump in detail, the poor takeoff, the treacherous landing.
He called it a fool’s errand.
The final entry was dated the morning of his death.
They are all going. Marcus is away in London. Thank God. He would try to stop me, and I would feel a coward. But I feel a coward for going. Charles and Peter are calling me out. They say Chaos can clear anything. But it is not the horse I doubt. It is the jump. It is my own nerve. I cannot show them I am afraid. A Blackwood is never afraid. I wish I could be someone else just for today.
Helena closed the journal.