He turned to her, his sea-gray eyes filled with a profound, humbling sorrow.
“It was easier than admitting that I failed him. I was his older brother. I should have seen his fear. I should have protected him. But I was too busy being the Duke of Blackwood. I pushed him just as everyone else did, to be something he was not.”
He looked down at their hands.
“You saw him in the journal, in the horse. You saw the real Edward. You saw him with a clarity I never had.”
He lifted his gaze back to her face.
“And you saw me. You have seen past the cold, grieving shell I made of myself. You stood in that library and held a mirror up to me, and you forced me to look. It was the cruelest, kindest thing anyone has ever done.”
A tear traced a path down her cheek, and she did not bother to wipe it away.
“I did not ask for a wife,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “I signed a contract for a duchess, a functionary, but I did not get what I bargained for. I got you, a woman of quiet courage and fierce integrity, a woman who could see the truth in a grieving horse.”
He released her hand only to gently cup her face.
“You did not tame Chaos, Helena. You listened to him. You gave him a space to be seen for what he was. And in doing so, you did the same for me.”
He searched her eyes.
“The contract between us is a piece of paper, a transaction. I want to tear it up, and I want to ask you, not as a duke to a commoner, but as a man to a woman. Will you stay? Will you choose to be my wife? Will you help me bring this house and its master back to life?”
It was not a demand.
It was a plea.
He was giving her back the choice that had been stolen from her.
The choice to leave.
The choice to stay.
She looked at this man, his pride stripped away, his heart laid bare. She looked at the wild, beautiful horse who had been her first friend. She looked at the bleak gray landscape that was beginning to feel like home.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Marcus, yes.”
The smile that finally broke across his face was a true smile. It reached his eyes, transforming his severe features, chasing away the last of the shadows.
It was like the sun breaking through the clouds after a long, hard winter.
And in that moment, Helena knew she had not just found a home.
She had found her heart.
The spring that came to Ravensdale that year was a revelation.
It was as if the land itself, freed from the oppressive grief of the house, could finally exhale. Daffodils bloomed in great golden swaths across the parkland. The skeletal trees of the woods cloaked themselves in a haze of vibrant green.