Chapter 13

13

London, 1866

Eight years ago

The rain drummed against the carriage’s roof as it rumbled down the muddy road. Julian stared out of the fogged window, though there was nothing to see but grey. Just endless, featureless grey.

The dismal weather matched his bleak mood. He had thought returning to London might lift his spirits after so many dreary months abroad, but the city’s familiar streets only echoed with absence. With loss.

Five months had passed since he last left England. It felt like a lifetime. An interminable torrent of storms had battered his journey to America, delaying his search for Viscount Harcourt and Grace’s sister Victoria. Not in New York or Boston. Not in Philadelphia nor any of the eastern cities. He had pressed onwards, chasing elusive whispers and rumours west across a vast continent. Enduring icy rains and towering snowdrifts as winter sank its teeth deep, until he reached San Francisco, where Harcourt had gone with his new son-in-law to establish business contacts in the maritime trade with China.

Precious time lost. Time stolen he could never regain.

Julian swallowed against the hollow ache building behind his ribs. He had missed Grace’s funeral. Missed holding Caroline in those first raw days of grief.

His hands curled into fists against his thighs. Grace’s death had splintered something vital inside him. Unleashed a feral, wounded thing driving him halfway across the world just to outrun the pain nipping at his heels. Finding what remained of Grace’s family had seemed noble, a way to wrest meaning from senseless tragedy.

But distance had made things worse. He wanted his wife.

Stafford House’s glowing windows beckoned through the gloom. As soon as the carriage halted beneath the portico, Julian pushed open the door, heedless of the rain gusting in freezing sheets. His boots sank into the mud, his greatcoat sodden by the time he mounted the steps.

The blessed warmth of the hall enveloped him, chasing away the pervasive chill. His butler approached, unruffled as ever. “Welcome home, Your Grace. Shall I have a bath drawn?”

Julian handed the man his gloves, hat, and cane. “In a moment. Is Her Grace in residence?”

The butler hesitated. “She’s been at Ravenhill for some months now, Your Grace.”

Julian dragged a hand over his rain-slicked face, regret and self-loathing threatening to choke him. Exhaustion pulled at his limbs, but he needed to see her. “Tell the staff not to unpack my things. I’ll travel on shortly.” As an afterthought, he added, “Any letters arrive in my absence?”

“Allow me to fetch them for you.”

The storm redoubled its efforts as Julian waited beneath the crystal chandelier, lashing the tall windows in wild fury. He thought of Caroline alone in England while he roamed a distant continent on a fool’s errand. God, how she must hate him.

At last, the butler returned with an armful of correspondence. “Your letters, Your Grace.”

“Thank you.” Julian took the stack and turned for the door, eager to be off.

Once ensconced in the carriage, he rifled through the pile of envelopes. Estate business. Parliamentary matters. Tenant messages. Halfway through the stack, his frenzied shuffling slowed. Then stilled altogether.

A letter penned in Caroline’s graceful hand stared up at him. Addressed to the hotel in New York where he’d stayed on arrival in America all those endless months ago.

Returned undelivered.

Julian was scalded by dawning horror. With a curse, he sifted through the remaining letters. All bore that damning mark. Returned undelivered. Returned undelivered. Returned undelivered.

Dozens of letters she had dispatched to bridge the ocean between them. None had found their way into his hands. And the letter he had sent informing her of his passage to San Francisco must never have reached English shores. Their correspondence had been two ships passing in the night.

“Damn it all to hell,” Julian rasped.

Hands trembling, he unfolded the delicate, creased parchment of Caroline’s first letter. Just the sight of that beloved script raised a lump in his throat.

Dear Julian,

Grace’s funeral was beautiful. I held Lady Harcourt’s hand as the choirboys sang a dirge. Lady Harcourt kept her composure through the ceremony and the wake, but it was difficult, I think, without her husband here with her. I hope you find him quickly. I miss you.

Ever yours,

Caroline

Swallowing hard, Julian moved on to the next letter. This one later, the cheer more forced. As he progressed through the stack, she wrote chatty accounts of her days, sparing no detail. Determined to hold them together somehow.

And loneliness bled from every line. It was scrawled between each word in the spaces where affection once resided. He could read the silence stretching taut and thin between his departure and her waiting.

Shame scalded his throat. Then he reached a letter that made his hands tremble so violently he nearly dropped it. The strokes seemed firmer, the prose suffused with joy. He glanced at the date – three months ago. Written while he was on that damned fool quest across a continent.

Dear Julian,

Some happy news that I hope you take with you on your travels. We made a child. It’s difficult to tell how far along after our vigorous first few months of marriage. Let us vow never to tell this child the particulars of its conception, shall we?

Ever yours,

Caroline

Julian froze.

A child. Their child. They had made a baby.

Her subsequent letters detailed the quiet joy of watching herself swell with pregnancy, the change of the seasons as summer’s long days faded to autumn’s vibrant hues. A happiness polluted with loneliness and worry. He had missed so much – all those milestones vanishing like smoke.

Dear Julian,

I can’t sleep well in winter, even under the best circumstances, but your child seems to enjoy kicking me awake each night. I am also growing quite large and ill-tempered, so perhaps it is fortunate you have been away. I’ve written so many lists of names that I’ve murdered all the inkwells in the house, but I settled on Tristan for your heir or Violet for a girl. I can’t wait to meet our Tristan/Violet and see which one of us our baby resembles most. Between us, I hope it’s you. The men in your family have superior bone structure.

Ever yours,

Caroline

He shuffled to the final letter – dated three weeks prior. Ink blots marred the heavy parchment, the strokes jagged and sparse – a brutal blow straight to the heart.

Duke,

Our child was lost this morning.

He was to be named Tristan.

Caroline Hastings

Gone. Their baby was gone before he could even meet it. Before he could cradle the small body in his palms and marvel at tiny fingers and toes. Only a handful of letters shaped a name for a life extinguished too soon.

Tristan.

His name was Tristan.

Hot moisture burned Julian’s eyes, obscuring the page. He pressed a fist against his mouth to hold back the howl clawing up from his throat. Duke , she’d called him. Caroline Hastings , a cold, impersonal signature – a damning verdict of his failure.

Christ, what had he done?

He could scarcely draw breath for the rest of the bleak journey. Wind and rain lashed the carriage as it rolled up the winding drive. At last, Ravenhill loomed ahead, pale and imposing. Julian burst from the coach before it stopped, taking the front steps two at a time.

“Your Grace,” the butler said when he stormed into the house. “We weren’t expecting you—”

Julian barrelled past. Up the grand staircase, down the shadowed corridor to the duchess’s chambers. Towards her. He had to see her, had to beg her forgiveness—

Julian paused outside the carved oak door, breath sawing in his lungs. Then he turned the knob and stepped inside. The heavy velvet curtains blocked most of the watery daylight. Shadows cloaked the bed at the far end of the room, where a figure lay motionless beneath the coverlet.

Caroline.

His heart clenched. Julian moved slowly nearer, afraid to startle her. She showed no sign of noticing his presence until he stood over her.

“Linnie.” The name dragged like broken glass from his throat.

Caroline’s eyes found his. Then, her face crumpled as a fresh wave of tears streamed down her hollow cheeks. A low, keening cry tore from her.

“Shhh. It’s all right,” Julian murmured, reaching for her. But Caroline shoved him back with shocking force for one so frail. She recoiled against the headboard, body wracked by heaving sobs.

“Don’t touch me,” she choked out.

Shame and regret crushed the air from his lungs. “I never received your letters until today. I sent a letter when I reached New York that Viscount Harcourt had gone. The correspondence must have been lost.”

Another wrenching sob escaped her. She wept with the devastation of one whose heart had been shattered beyond repair.

He had done this. Made her grieve Grace. Grieve Tristan.

Grieve him .

“Linnie, if I had any idea—”

“Get out.” Her entire body shook with the force of her voice. “ Get out! ”

Each wretched shout felt like a physical blow. Julian retreated across the carpet on wooden legs. At the door, he paused, casting one last anguished look at his wife’s crumpled form swallowed by the shadows.

He had broken her. Abandoned her when she needed him most. An unforgivable transgression. So he slipped out, drawing the door closed behind him. As he strode down the corridor, his wife’s ragged sobs echoed through the darkened manor.

*

Julian returned again. Day after day. Week after week.

Each time, the mansion was silent. This house did not welcome him. It loomed like a mausoleum, all dark wood and velvet drapes blotting out the sun. Shadows clung to the corners.

Julian paused outside the bedchamber door and held his breath. She’d stopped rejecting him weeks ago. Now, she wouldn’t speak. But he kept coming. Held her cold body in his. Waiting. Hoping.

Praying that one day, she’d turn in his arms and hold him back.

The hinges uttered no protest as he swung the door open. Weak light cast the room in shades of gloom. The air hung stale and untouched, a sickroom sealed shut from the world. Julian’s heart clenched at the sight of the figure curled on the expansive mattress. The same place she’d been since he’d returned to England two months ago.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he said softly. Julian approached the bed with care. “Would you like me to open the curtains for you?”

She said nothing. She lay on the silken coverlet, still dressed in a creased nightgown. Her lovely blonde hair spilled across the pillow in limp disarray. Dark hollows haunted the delicate skin under her eyes.

Perching on the bed’s edge, Julian noted how sharply Caroline’s collarbone protruded above the sagging neckline of her gown. How wan her skin had become, pulled taut over the elegant scaffolding of bones beneath – wasting away despite everything he did to get her to eat.

“I’ve brought you more flowers,” he murmured, replacing the wilting blooms on her nightstand with the fresh bouquet. The vivid new blossoms seemed garish – an offence to the atmosphere of decay. Tulips were her favourites. So he’d brought her red for love and purple hyacinths to beg her forgiveness. “These are from the garden. The magnolias are in bloom now. Will you come outside and see?”

Caroline’s vacant stare drifted over the colourful bouquet. Then away. She had not spoken a word to Julian since the day he returned. She simply existed here in this elegiac tomb, staring into some middle distance only she could see. The entrance sealed shut behind her.

His chest constricted. He kept bringing flowers anyway, stubbornly strewing beauty among the ruin. As if their ephemeral loveliness could pierce the armour of Caroline’s grief. As if anything could.

Gently, Julian lifted one chilled hand in his, chafing warmth back into her icy fingers. “Won’t you eat something today, Linnie?” he murmured. “I’ll have Cook prepare anything you desire. Chocolate. Pastries with clotted cream and jam on top. Cake. Just say the word, and you can indulge in the most hedonistic diet imaginable.”

Nothing. Caroline stared through him, lungs rising and falling in a listless rhythm beneath her nightgown. Barely breathing. Barely alive.

Julian stretched out alongside her on the mattress. With utmost care, he gathered her into the circle of his arms. She remained limp and unresisting in his tentative embrace. Julian rested his cheek against her hair and exhaled unsteadily.

Too thin. She had lost so much of herself, wasting away before his eyes. He wouldn’t tell her that, though. Wouldn’t add fuel to the fire laying waste to the woman he loved.

“It’s warm outside today,” Julian whispered, brushing a kiss across her cheek. “Would you join me for a walk?”

For the span of a heartbeat, Julian thought he glimpsed awareness stir behind Caroline’s hollow stare. The barest flicker of life in the ashes. But it guttered out, and she turned her face in wordless rejection. Shutting him out – a door slamming closed.

Frustration roiled in Julian’s chest, but he leashed it ruthlessly. None of this was her fault. The blame rested on his shoulders. He’d abandoned her when she needed him most. Now, he could only weather her bitterness and try to reach past the armour she had locked around her heart.

So Julian held her too-slight frame, stroking her limp hair. “Then we’ll stay in today,” he conceded softly. “Lounge around in bed.”

He pressed another tender kiss on her temple, willing his touch to penetrate her shell of grief. But Caroline remained removed. Her rejection pierced Julian’s heart like a blade. Twisting with every breath.

At last, she parted her colourless lips. “I don’t want you in this bed with me,” Caroline rasped. Her voice was cracked and ravaged from disuse. “I don’t want you bringing me flowers or telling me about the weather. I can’t bear the sight of you.”

Each ragged word lanced through Julian’s heart, but he drank them in desperately. Proof that she lived. Still felt something .

Even if it was hate.

A broken sound tore from Caroline’s throat. Her fingers knotted in Julian’s shirt, twisting it as she collapsed against him. Her body shook with the force of her sobs, guttural and cracked.

“I hate you,” she wept. “I hate you so much.”

Agony splintered through Julian. He cradled her closer, wishing he could absorb her anguish. He stroked her hair and pressed kisses on her brow, offering comfort as she shattered in his arms. As the tide of her agony finally crested and broke.

When her sobs dwindled at last to hiccupping breaths, Julian shifted back. He smoothed her tangled hair from her wet cheeks with tenderness. Cupped that ruined face between his palms and met her wild gaze.

“I know,” Julian whispered. And then, giving voice to his gnawing guilt, “God above, I know. I hate myself, too.”

Hated himself for leaving her. For not being there as she grieved for Grace, endured her pregnancy and childbirth alone. For not being there during the death of their son. For sailing halfway around the world on a fool’s errand while she weathered the unimaginable back home.

Yes, Julian hated himself.

Caroline looked as frail as cracked porcelain in his arms, her skin nearly translucent with a faint tracery of blue veins. Dark hollows clung beneath her eyes. She had slipped back into silence once more. Lost again to a fathomless grief beyond his power to penetrate.

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Julian said, brushing a thumb across her ashen cheek.

“No.” Her voice was iron this time. “Don’t come back. Stop visiting. Just get out and leave me alone.”

Those words sank their claws deep as Caroline released him and turned away.

Everything in Julian railed against leaving. If he walked away now, she might seal herself off from him entirely. Yet he’d never denied Caroline anything she asked – even this ruinous request.

So Julian rose to his feet. Paused with his hand on the door, composure fracturing. “I love you,” he whispered. “I just want you to know.”

And then he left her there in the decaying opulence of their home. Left her to fade day by day among the ghosts.

In the following weeks, Julian forced himself to go through the motions of living. He remained in London but kept vigil over Caroline from afar. Ensured the staff attended to the house and grounds despite the absence of its master and mistress.

Eventually, a letter arrived, penned in the housekeeper’s graceful script:

Her Grace has departed for Brighton to continue her convalescence by the sea.

Relief crashed through Julian. Caroline was up, dressed, and well enough to travel. The breath Julian released shook his entire frame.

I suggest you let her recover without looming, Mrs Gibbons added.

Delicate words meant to hurt. She had been with Caroline through the childbirth and the aftermath – his wife’s loyal ally in his absence.

Hands trembling, Julian folded the note and placed it on top of the stack of business letters requiring his attention. He would pen a response later with instructions for the staff to provide anything his wife desired. For now, work beckoned. There was always work to lose himself in.

He would wait until she asked to see him again.

The weeks turned to months. The months became years. When Julian learned Caroline had returned to London, he waited for a letter that never came. Her voice echoed through his mind, a toxin spreading.

I can’t bear the sight of you.

*

Three years after she had banished him from her life, Julian stood in the portrait gallery at Marlborough House. He stared up at a large canvas that had stirred excited whispers and scandalised gasps: a lush, radiant painting of a muscular Achilles before the gates of Troy. The rendering was so lifelike – every detail of the model’s physique was captured with devoted precision. From the sculpted muscles, down to the fine tracery of veins in the arms.

Julian recognised the elegant brushstrokes instantly. The subtle interplay of light and shadow. The tender devotion in each motion of the brush. After years apart, he still knew Caroline’s artistic talents intimately.

In the corner, a bold signature: Henry Morgan.

A false name. But the artistry was undeniably hers. Julian stared up at the riveting portrait, chest hollowed by loss. She had found a way to channel her gifts, at least. Had begun to paint again. To live again, somewhere beyond his reach. Without him.

“He’s extraordinarily talented, isn’t he?” a voice spoke at his shoulder. A gentleman was also studying the painting, keen interest etched on sharp features. “One can almost feel the warmth of the skin.”

“Remarkable,” Julian agreed, keeping his tone neutral. “The name is unfamiliar to me.”

“Newly ascendant talent. Morgan’s work is coveted for all the finest aristocratic collections.” The gentleman shot Julian a knowing look. “Rumour has it he once served in the military. Perhaps was even the captain of a ship. Accounts differ.”

“How mysterious,” Julian said. His eyes lingered on the play of light over the muscular curves so lovingly rendered.

Grace had suggested a nom de guerre , he remembered suddenly. You should use a man’s name to sell them to the unsuspecting masses. Something dashing and mysterious.

They had laughed together once, the three of them. Two lives lost, now. His family whittled down to ghosts and painful memories.

Before grief could choke him, he said brusquely, “If you’ll pardon me.”

He walked away, putting distance between himself and the pain of seeing how far she had moved on without him. How separate their lives had become. In the three years since she banished him, Caroline had learned to subsist without his presence. Even thrive in her own way.

Julian still woke reaching across the empty sheets for her. Still wandered his palatial home, half convinced he could hear her soft laughter around the next corner.

Still longed for her.

But she despised him now. Could not bear the sight of him. She had made that plain.

So he boarded a boat bound for the Continent and put miles between them. As more years passed, Julian learned to slowly and painfully live without her.

It was nothing less than he deserved.