Rose closed her eyes, and the whole truth finally spilled out. The night before Eleanor's wedding, she had pulled Rose aside, gripping her hands so tightly it left marks. She had been strangely afraid that night, Rose recalled, afraid in a way brides should not be.
Eleanor made her swear one thing. "If anything ever happens to me, find Charles. Find our son before grief destroys him."
Rose had promised without understanding why it mattered so much. She did not learn the truth of that fear until a year ago, when news reached her that the Duchess was dead. She came to Blackthorne Manor as soon as she could, only to be turned away at the gate by Eleanor's relatives, who told her the Duke wanted no reminders of his late wife in the household. She was dismissed before she ever saw the Duke or Charles.
It took her nearly a year and a false name on a governess registry to finally find her way back through the front door.
"I didn't lie to hurt you," Rose said, tears slipping free. "I lied because I was terrified of losing him again, losing Charles before I ever had the chance to keep my word to her."
The Duke stared at the letter in his hands. Then at the woman before him, no longer a stranger, but someone who had carried his late wife's last wish farther than he ever knew. The anger in his chest, the suspicion he had been holding since the chapel, drained out of him all at once. He sat down heavily, the letter still trembling in his grip.
For the first time since he buried Eleanor, since the funeral, since the silence swallowed his house whole, Duke Edward Sinclair wept.
Rose did not move to comfort him. She only stayed quiet, letting him grieve the wife he lost in a way he had never allowed himself to grieve before. When he finally spoke again, his voice was hoarse.
"She trusted you with our son before she trusted anyone else."
"She trusted you, too," Rose said softly. "She just needed to make sure Charles would be loved either way."
Outside the door, unseen by either of them, a shadow lingered a moment too long before slipping away down the corridor. As Rose left the nursery that night, someone watched from the darkened hallway and murmured under their breath, "She remembers too much."