She should pull away. Should step back. Should reestablish the proper distance between employer and employee, between duke and governess, between the man who had given her shelter and the woman who had no right to want more.
Instead, she stood perfectly still, her hand in his, her eyes on his face. And wondered what would happen if, just for once, she took what she wanted rather than what she was offered.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Walk with me,” Hudson suggested. “Cassie is quite content, I assure you,” he added, as though reading her mind.
She nodded, and they moved deeper into the garden.
The wide paths near the townhouse gradually narrowed, winding between tall hedges and moonlit flowerbeds. Hudson led her farther still, until the music and laughter from the house became little more than a distant murmur.
At last, they stepped into a small alcove tucked behind a curtain of climbing roses and yew, so well concealed that one could easily pass by without noticing it.
For the first time that evening, they were entirely out of sight.
“She is having quite the time,” she said simply.
Hudson nodded. “She gets that from our mother, I believe.”
Augusta tilted her head to the side. She had been at Oakhart House for nearly two months, and in all that time, Hudson had mentioned his parents exactly twice: one time to explain that the portrait in the gallery was of his mother, and another time to note that his father had commissioned the music room’s pianoforte as a wedding gift. The rest had remained firmly in the territory of things not discussed.
“I’d like to know more about her,” she said quietly. “If you’re willing to tell me.”
Hudson was silent for a long moment, his eyes trained on the garden path where it disappeared among the rose bushes.
“She was… remarkable,” he began. “She had a way of seeing people, really seeing them, and making them feel as though they were the only ones in the room. The only ones who mattered.” His mouth curved in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Augusta waited, not daring to break the moment, not wanting to disrupt whatever had prompted this unprecedented confidence.
“My father,” Hudson continued after a moment, “was her opposite in nearly every way. Where she was warm, he was… reserved. Careful. He moved through the world like a man playing a particularly complex game of chess, always thinking three moves ahead, always calculating risks and advantages.” A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “He loved her. I never doubted that. But he loved her the way some men love fine wineor rare books. As a possession to be admired, displayed, and ultimately controlled.”
The bitterness in his voice surprised her. She studied his profile.
“They were married for twelve years,” he went on. “Twelve years of my mother trying to coax my father out of his shell, and my father trying to fit my mother into the neat, orderly box he’d constructed for his life.” He shook his head. “I’m not certain either of them ever quite succeeded.”
“And then Cassie was born,” Augusta said softly.
Hudson nodded. “And then Cassie was born,” he echoed. “My mother never recovered from the birth. The physicians said it was a fever, an infection that spread too quickly to treat. But I’ve always wondered…” He stopped, his throat working visibly. “She was so strong. So determined. It seems impossible that something so ordinary could have taken her.”
Augusta’s hand moved without conscious thought, coming to rest lightly on his arm. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
The words were utterly inadequate, but she had nothing else to offer.
Hudson covered her hand with his, his palm warm and steady against her suddenly cold fingers.
“It was a long time ago,” he said. “Though sometimes it feels like yesterday.” He drew a breath that shuddered slightly in his chest. “My father… didn’t take it well. He’d built his entire life around her. Around the idea of her, at least. When she died, something in him broke. He started drinking. Gambling. Spending money we didn’t have on horses and houses and women who reminded him of her.” His mouth twisted. “He was trying to fill the void she left. But some voids can’t be filled. Not with liquor or cards or pretty faces.”
They stood in silence for a moment, the only sound the soft buzzing of the bees among the roses.
“Then the fire happened,” Hudson said. “I was twenty-five. Cassie was four. We were summering at Oakhart Hall. My father had been… difficult. More drinking. More gambling. More of the black moods that would descend without warning and last for days.” His jaw tightened. “I’d been trying to keep Cassie away from him, to give her some semblance of normalcy amid the chaos. That night, I’d put her to bed early. Read her a story. Promised her we’d go riding in the morning, just the two of us.” He shook his head. “I was in the library when I heard the first screams. By the time I reached the nursery wing, the corridor was full of smoke. Cassie’s room was at the far end, the farthest from the stairs and the closest to my father’s chambers.”
Augusta’s hand tightened on his arm. She could picture it with terrible clarity. The smoke-filled corridor, the desperate race against time, the awful moment of choice that no one should ever have to face.
“I got her out,” Hudson rasped. “Carried her through the flames, down the back stairs, and out into the garden where the servants were already gathering with blankets and water and the desperate, useless hope that everyone would make it out alive.” His throat worked. “My father… didn’t. The flames had reached his bedchamber, and the ceiling collapsed.” He drew a shaky breath. “They found his body the next morning. Or what was left of it.”
“I’m sorry,” Augusta said again. “That must have been…” She stopped, unable to find the words that wouldn’t diminish the horror of what he had endured.
“Unbearable,” Hudson supplied. “For a long time, yes. Though I’ve found that most things that seem unbearable in the moment become merely… difficult, with enough time and distance.”
