The Duke took her hand. Charles's small fingers were still wrapped around her other one. For the first time in over a year, Edward allowed himself to believe that Blackthorne Manor might finally be safe.
With Edmund arrested and the truth finally out, justice was served. But as Rose drifted into exhausted sleep, the Duke realized what he felt for her had become something far greater than gratitude.
Months passed. Winter thawed into spring, and Blackthorne Manor was unrecognizable from the silent house it once was. Charles laughed every day now, real, unguarded laughter that echoed through halls that once held only grief. He ran through the corridors with the wooden sword Rose gave him, challenged the footmen to duels they always lost on purpose, and slept through the night without nightmares.
For the first time in over a year, the nursery, once a place the Duke avoided, overflowed with music and noise. He found himself drawn there in the evenings, not out of obligation, but because he could not imagine being anywhere else. Rose had fully recovered from her ordeal at the lodge, though she still visited the chapel some evenings, no longer out of secrecy, but simply because it comforted her. The Duke often joined her now.
They stood together at Eleanor's grave, not as strangers bound by a dead woman's letter, but as two people who had loved her in different ways and found each other because of it. Edward had begun restoring Eleanor's gardens properly, not to erase her from the manor, but to honor what she built. Rose helped him choose the flowers. Lilies were always planted nearest the chapel.
As the estate prepared for its annual spring celebration, the first the household had properly held since Eleanor's death, the Duke made a decision he had been carrying quietly for weeks.
The celebration filled the manor's great hall with warmth and candlelight. Tenants, staff, and old family friends gathered together for the first time in years. Charles wove through the crowd, delighted, refusing to sit still for a moment. Midway through the evening, the Duke called for quiet.
The hall stilled.
Rose, standing near the edge of the room in a soft green gown, had no idea what was coming. The Duke stepped forward holding something in his hand: Eleanor's letter, the one that had started everything.
"A year ago," he began, his voice steady despite the weight of the room's attention, "this house had forgotten how to laugh. My son had forgotten how to speak, and I had forgotten how to hope."
He unfolded the letter carefully. "My late wife left behind a request, a promise she asked of whoever might one day care for our son."