She stepped aside.
Edwin moved through the narrow hall and into the parlour as though he owned it. He took the better chair without asking and arranged himself with the ease of a man who had never sat in a room he did not control.
“You look well, Rosamund.”
She did not. She knew she did not. But she recognised the opening for what it was: a pleasantry designed to establish a civility she had not invited and did not trust.
“Why are you here, Uncle?”
“Direct.” He inclined his head. “Your father was direct too, in his way. Though I always found it worked against him more than it served.”
The mention of her father landed like a hand pressed to a bruise. Rosamund held herself still against it.
“You have not visited in four years. You have not written. You did not attend my father’s funeral?—”
“I attended your mother’s.”
“You stood at the back and left before the earth was turned.”
A flicker crossed his face—not guilt, she thought, but the brief calculation of a man adjusting his approach. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and when he spoke again his voice carried a weight of rehearsed sincerity that made her skin tighten.
“I have been remiss, Rosamund. I will not deny it. The circumstances of your father’s disgrace were—painful. For the entire family. I handled my grief poorly, and I have lived with the regret of my absence. But I am here now because I have recently become aware of certain... realities... regarding your situation.”
“My situation.”
“Your financial situation. Your living circumstances.” He gestured at the room with a hand that somehow managed tomake the gesture feel charitable rather than insulting. “The conditions under which my brother’s youngest daughter is being raised.”
The air in the room shifted. Rosamund felt it the way one feels a change in weather—not a sound, not a movement, but a pressure that altered everything.
“Clara is well cared for.”
“Clara is living in a house that is three months behind on rent, in a neighbourhood that is beneath what any child of the Vale name should endure, under the guardianship of an unmarried woman with no fortune, no connections, and no means of providing for her beyond the income of a seamstress.” Edwin’s voice did not rise. It did not need to. Each word arrived with the quiet precision of a knife being laid out on a table. “I say this not to wound you, my dear. I say it because it is the truth, and someone must.”
Rosamund’s fingers pressed into the fabric of her skirt. “You did not come here to discuss the truth.”
“No.” He smiled again, and this time the warmth had gone from it entirely. He leaned forward, a small smile playing around his lips. “I came to tell you that I intend to petition the courts for guardianship of Clara.”
The room contracted.
“I have consulted with my solicitor,” Edwin continued, in the same measured, reasonable tone. “The law is quite clear. A child of Clara’s age requires stability, security, and the protection of a suitable household. I have the means to provide all three. My country estate in Hertfordshire is well-appointed, well-staffed, and more than adequate to raise a young girl in the manner befitting her station—or what remains of it.”
“You cannot?—”
“I can. And I shall.” He held up a hand, as though forestalling an objection at a business meeting. “The courts will consider the child’s welfare above all else. A single woman, without means, without family support, without the protection of a husband or a male relation willing to vouch for her fitness—that woman will not be favoured in the eyes of the law, Rosamund. However devoted she may be.”
Her chest had gone tight. The kind of tightness that preceded something she would not be able to control if she did not master it immediately.
“Clara does not know you. She has never been to your estate. She has no memory of you whatsoever, because you made certain of that by disappearing entirely when we needed you most.” Her voice held. She made it hold. “And now you stand in my parlour and speak offitness.”
“I understand your anger?—”
“You understand nothing.”
“— but anger does not change the mathematics of the situation. You cannot provide for her. I can. The courts will see it plainly.” He rose from the chair, brushing a speck from his sleeve that almost certainly did not exist. “I do not wish to make this adversarial. I would far prefer your cooperation. Clara’s removal will be less distressing for the child if it is managed with grace.”
Clara’s removal.
The words hit her body before her mind could process them—a wave of cold that spread from her hands inward until it reached her chest, where it sat like a fist clenched around her heart.
