“Sebastian used to brag she could out-debate his Oxford friends.”
Robert smiled faintly. “I believe it. And she ought to be somewhere her mind is used. I’ve inquired about governess positions. With the right endorsement, I could even press the Viscount, I’ll see her settled.”
Margaret nodded slowly. “And if she were to marry?”
“Without a dowry, her chances are poor.” He hesitated. “There’s a clerk in my office. Quiet, steady, honest. I could speak to him. He’d give her a roof. She’d be safe.” He paused, frowning slightly at his teacup.
Margaret gave a soft sigh. “But she’s not made for that. She’d rather teach grammar to spoiled girls than marry a man she cannot admire.”
“That’s what I thought too,” he said, almost smiling. But his eyes were haunted.
Silence settled again, broken only by the rhythmic tick of the mantel clock and the faint creak of footsteps overhead—Jane, perhaps pacing.
“Thank you for coming,” she said quietly. “I feared I’d been cast off.”
“Never by me.” Robert set down his cup. “You’re my sister. And I’ll see you all safe. I only wish I could do more.”
* * *
That night, once the house had gone quiet, Jane slipped into the library—while it still resembled the place she had known. A single candlestick lit her way, its flame casting long shadows across the half-empty shelves. The scent of old paper lingered in the air.
She pressed her back to the wall and let the tears come silently. Around her, the house creaked and settled, as if mourning with her. Inevitably, her thoughts turned back to thatmorning—the morning her father had died beneath the old ash tree at the edge of the churchyard.
They had walked together, as they often did, gravel crunching beneath their feet, while tired bees hovered over bramble flowers, sluggish in the heat. He carried his cane, but lightly, as though it were an ornament rather than a need. Their talks had always been her delight—discourses on scripture, poetry, the great philosophers of old.
That day he had been quieter than usual, letting her words fill the air. She had spoken with all the fervor of her twenty years, her thoughts tumbling over one another.
“Dante erred in my eyes,” she told him, “for he crowned Virgil with honor yet left him desolate at the threshold of Heaven. If the poet of theAeneidcould glimpse providence and virtue in a world of idols, surely that is proof enough of God’s light in all ages. To banish him is to slight the very reason the Creator bestowed upon mankind.”
When she turned to him, she found his eyes glistening. A single tear had traced his cheek, though his smile was full of pride.
“My clever girl,” he murmured, his voice unsteady. “I need to rest. Go on—I will catch up with you.”
She hesitated, uncertain, but he insisted with a gentle wave of his hand. So she walked on a little way, her thoughts still alive with Virgil and Dante, with faith and reason.
When no footsteps followed, she turned back. He was no longer on the path. She retraced her steps in growing unease, until she saw him beneath the old ash tree, seated against its trunk, his hand resting upon the bark as if in greeting. His face was tilted toward the sky, his eyes open, but unseeing.
She had run to him, called his name, clutched at his coat and begged him to wake. But he did not move. His expressionwas peaceful, as though he had at last heard the answer to the question he had chased all his life.
Now, as her mother packed up the remnants of that life, Jane felt a quiet kind of fury stir in her chest—not for the poverty, nor even for the exile from their home, but for the casualness with which his work was being dismantled.
They didn’t have a library anymore. They had a graveyard of thought.
Her father’s volumes had been companions—marked with notes, smudged with candle wax, corners folded from sleepless nights. They had mattered. To Jane, they still did.
She wiped her eyes and straightened her shoulders. She would go to whatever position her uncle found for her. She would teach another man’s child, wear plain gowns, and vanish into the polite invisibility of a governess. But she would not forget. And she would not forgive the world for throwing away a man like her father as if he were nothing more than the spine of an old book, cracked and easily ignored.
Chapter 3
The carriage crested a gentle rise, and there it was at last—Westford Castle. Jane’s breath caught. For a moment, the ache of the journey receded. The sleepless nights in drafty inns, the five days of jostling travel, the quiet dread, all of it fell away. The sight before her was nothing like any place she had ever known.
It wasn’t a fortress. The original Norman walls were long gone, their stones now folded into the foundations of a vast Palladian estate, its golden façade glowing in the afternoon sun. Towers crowned with balustrades framed the central portico, where massive columns upheld a pediment carved with crest and garland. The grounds stretched wide and immaculate, and beyond them, a glass-smooth lake gleamed beneath the sky like a polished mirror.
She had once thought her grandfather’s seat impressive. Now it seemed little more than a gamekeeper’s lodge by comparison.
She hadn’t expected her uncle to find her a post so quickly, let alone one like this. But he had written to an old friend—the steward of Westford Castle—who had remembered him kindly. They had been in luck: a governess was needed for the young daughter of the Duchess herself.
Uncle Robert had arranged everything. He hired a post-chaise, enclosed and dependable, and sent Mrs. Cole—the housekeeper from his Southampton home—to accompany her. Not because Jane still needed a chaperone, but because a woman traveling alone invited talk. And reputation mattered.Especially now. She was not arriving as a guest, but to be assessed.
