Constance did not move an inch. She simply looked at her son. 

"Yesterday afternoon," Constance said, her voice cutting through the room like a silver blade, "at three o'clock, I was sent in to tend the fire. You were eating a peach, Miss Trent. You complained about the noise of the iron tongs, and then you complained about my son." 

"Lies!" Josephine shrieked, the sound sharp and ragged. "Lucas, don't listen to her!" 

"You said he wept over a dead bird on the terrace," Constance continued, her tone relentless, factual, utterly devoid of malice. It was a recitation of a butcher's bill. "You said you had to force yourself to produce a tear to get him to stop talking. You said his poetry didn't rhyme properly and that it made you want to scream." 

Lucas physically flinched. The blow landed right in the center of his chest. He looked down at his own hands, the hands that had carefully written out those sonnets by candlelight. 

"No!" Josephine sobbed, tears finally spilling over her pale cheeks. But these were not the delicate, practiced tears she used to manipulate him. These were the ugly, frantic tears of a cornered animal. "Lucas, it isn't true! I love your poetry. I love you!" 

"You called his limp humiliating," Constance said. 

The room went entirely still. Even Lady Trent stopped breathing. 

Lucas's right leg, the one that betrayed him, the one he dragged when he was tired, seemed to grow heavy. He shifted his weight off it, a small, unconscious movement of deep shame. 

Constance saw it. A flash of profound sorrow crossed her gray eyes, but she did not stop. She had to cut the rot out completely, or it would fester and kill him. 

"Your mother told you his limp was his greatest asset," Constance said, turning her terrible gaze onto Lady Trent, who shrank back against the chaise lounge as if she had been physically struck. "She said a handsome, arrogant duke would never have looked twice at a girl with a dowry of dust and a brother facing debtors' prison. She said his weakness was your ladder. And you, Miss Trent, agreed. You said once you were married, you would manufacture slights against me, weep into his chest, and have him exile me to Cornwall. So you could have Aylesbury House to yourself and leave him in the country with his dead birds." 

"Lucas," Josephine begged. She lunged forward, grabbing the lapels of his riding coat, burying her face against his chest. "She hates me. The Dowager has always hated me. She's making this up to ruin us. Tell her to leave. Tell her you love me." 

Lucas stood perfectly still. He did not put his arms around her. He did not stroke her hair. He looked down at the top of her head. He smelled the rosewater in her hair, the scent he had written three stanzas about only that morning. Then, he remembered the voice that had screamed, *"You clumsy, wretched cow!"* just moments before. He had heard it himself. He had seen the sneer on her face, the raw, unfiltered disgust aimed at a servant she thought was beneath her notice. He had seen the mask slip. 

His mother didn't need to invent a monster. Lucas had just seen the monster with his own two eyes. 

Gently, firmly, Lucas reached up and took Josephine's wrists. He peeled her hands off his coat. 

"Don't," Josephine pleaded, her voice dropping to a harsh, panicked whisper. "Lucas, please, my brother. The debts. You promised." 

"I promised to help the woman I loved," Lucas said quietly. His voice cracked just a fraction, betraying the immense, bleeding wound in his heart. "But she does not exist, does she?" 

Josephine stared at him. For a single, terrifying second, the calculation vanished, and a look of pure, resentful hatred flashed in her pale eyes. It was the look of a gambler who had bet everything on a rigged game and still lost. 

"You are a fool," Josephine hissed, the venom finally spilling over. "You are a soft, pathetic boy playing at being a duke. You need me. Who else is going to look at you without pity?" 

Lucas closed his eyes. The words were a knife twisting in his ribs. But when he opened his eyes again, the insecurity that had plagued him his entire life was gone. What replaced it was a cold, quiet dignity. He was Lucas, the Duke of Aylesbury, and he had survived worse falls than this. 

He stepped back, dragging his right foot deliberately. He did not hide the limp. He owned it. 

"You are right, Miss Trent," Lucas said softly. "I am soft, but my mother is not. And her fortune, which you so desperately need, will never buy another peach for this house." 

He turned away from her. He looked at Constance. The Dowager Duchess stood amidst the shattered crystal, a queen in the garments of a beggar. 

"Are you ready to go home, Mother?" he asked. 

Constance nodded. "I am." 

"Lucas, wait!" Lady Trent lunged forward, her pride entirely abandoned. She threw herself at his feet, ignoring the glass that crunched beneath her knees. "Your Grace, please. Thomas will be ruined. We will lose Oakhaven. You cannot leave us like this. It is a misunderstanding. I swear it on my life." 

Lucas looked down at the weeping, pathetic woman groveling on the floor. He felt a flicker of his old, instinctual pity. But then he looked at his mother, standing in boots that had blistered her feet, wearing coarse wool that had rubbed her neck raw, all to protect him from the wolves. 

"Send my condolences to your son, Lady Trent," Lucas said. "Good day." 

He offered his arm to his mother. Constance took it. Together they walked out of the drawing room. They did not look back when Josephine began to scream. 

They did not have to wait long. As Lucas and Constance stepped out through the heavy front doors of Oakhaven into the biting November wind, the familiar rumble of heavy wooden wheels and the synchronized trotting of six matched grays echoed up the gravel drive. The grand ducal carriage of Aylesbury, bearing the family crest in gold leaf on its polished black doors, crested the hill. It was flanked by four outriders in full livery. 

Martha, the lady's maid, sat rigidly beside the driver, her face a mask of furious anxiety. 

The carriage rolled to a halt at the base of the crumbling steps. The footman leapt down, lowering the velvet-lined steps, his eyes widening in shock as he took in the sight of the Duke standing arm in arm with a woman dressed as a scullery maid. He quickly averted his gaze, holding the door open. 

Lucas helped his mother inside. The interior smelled of expensive leather, beeswax, and lavender. Constance sank into the plush velvet cushions with a heavy sigh. The adrenaline that had carried her through the last twenty-four hours was rapidly fading, leaving behind the aching reality of her sixty-year-old bones. 

Lucas climbed in after her, sitting on the opposite bench. The footman shut the door, sealing them in a quiet, padded world. A moment later, the carriage lurched forward, turning around in the chaotic courtyard, and heading back down the long, weed-choked driveway.