Page 13 of A Legacy of Lies

Clara inclined her head. Ordinary words, yet Eleanor’s eyes lingered an instant longer than courtesy required, leaving her unsettled.

The duchess turned her gaze to Nathaniel. “You will walk the grounds today, as you intend. Begin with the south terrace. Percival will have Mr. Hollis, the estate steward, meet you here.”

Nathaniel inclined his head. “As you wish.”

Eleanor pushed back her chair. Percival was at her side at once, offering his arm. Edith gestured, and the maids began to clear with brisk efficiency.

Clara rose. Her gloves lay folded beside her napkin. She gathered them slowly, resisting the urge to glance across the table, though she felt his gaze all the same.

The scrape of Nathaniel’s chair reached her. Controlled. Neat. Yet her heart struck hard once. She pressed the gloves together until the stitching bit her palm, the damp leather refusing to warm.

Eleanor’s voice broke the moment. “Clara.”

She stepped to the duchess’s side. Eleanor did not look at her, only set her cane firmly and began her measured pace toward the door. Clara followed, aware of Nathaniel behind them, the tread of his boots steady on the flagging.

The watery sun caught the tall windows as they passed into the corridor, lighting portraits in pale gold. Faces of long-dead Hartleighs stared down, varnish blurring their gaze, yet she felt them watch and Nathaniel’s eyes with them. Eleanor’s cane tapped its rhythm, louder than footsteps dared. The chill crept up through Clara’s shoes until her calves ached.

Eleanor’s voice came without warning. “You spoke when I asked.”

Clara’s steps faltered. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“It was not mere deference.” The cane touched once against the runner. “It was truth.”

Clara lifted her gaze to her ladyship. “Surely you know I meant no offense, Your Grace.”

Eleanor’s glance flashed, sharp as a blade. “Not at all, my dear. Truth gives offense only to the guilty. Remember that.”

They reached the garden doors. Percival opened them. Raw air swept in, sharp with the smell of turned earth and cold stone. The gravel path glittered under a thin sheen, and roses bowed their heavy heads. The watery dew set the dew alight.

Clara gave Eleanor her arm. Together they stepped into the light. The hush after the storm held, every leaf trembling with it. Clara matched Eleanor’s pace, steady when she pressed on, slower when she paused.

Across the lawn, movement caught Clara’s eye. Nathaniel walked with John Hollis, the steward, a ledger tucked beneath his arm. Hollis’s cap was pushed back, his mouth working in steady explanation. Nathaniel listened, his head bent slightly, one hand gesturing toward the line of the south wall where the ground dipped toward the mill road. Even at this distance, the motion carried purpose. Hollis nodded, pencil poised.

Clara’s chest tightened. She could not hear the words, but the sight was enough. Nathaniel did not look like a man dismissing work or shifting blame. Verity had called him the solicitor duke. He did not look it now. He looked like a man the land itself might accept. And if the land yielded to him, what else might he uncover, about Hartleigh and about her?

Eleanor’s hand pressed lightly against her arm. “Hartleigh will test him,” she said.

Hartleigh would test her, too. It already had.

Clara listened intently as Eleanor added, “As it tests all who think to master it.” She straightened, her profile cut clean against the gray light.

Clara lowered her eyes to the gravel, stones slick beneath her shoes, Eleanor’s cane keeping time beside her. The image of Nathaniel’s steady hand would not leave her.

A breeze moved through the roses, scattering a fine spray that caught the light like glass. Clara blinked it away, but the unease stayed.

Chapter Six

The sky lay close and gray, its weight pressing against the high windows and seeping deep into Hartleigh’s bones. Nathaniel sat at the great desk, his shoulders squared, his hand moving slowly across ledgers that had long gathered dust in Charles’s neglect. Columns of figures blurred beneath his gaze with debts unpaid, accounts half kept, and a miller’s note unanswered. The ink had faded, but the neglect had not. He turned another brittle-edged page and paused, the paper’s crack a reprimand in the hush. These were not marks of deceit, only the quiet decay of a house left untended, a legacy wasting itself line by line.

He leaned back, the chair creaking against the hush. How long had it been since he last set foot in this study? Five years? More? When Adrian left, he had stayed away. When Adrian died, he had stayed away still, unwilling to face the echo of grief sealed in every stone. Charles had written, Eleanor too, and he had answered with polite lines, always brief, always distant. Now the desk told its own story, dust thick in the joints, papers left to sag, each sheet accusing him in silence.

If he had come sooner, if he had looked beyond the careful phrases of their letters, might he have seen the cracks before they widened? He pressed his palms flat to the leather blotter, the cold seeping up through the hide. Guilt was not a habit he indulged, yet it settled across his shoulders like damp stone. Even the fire gave little warmth, only the brittle snap of protest in the grate.

The house seemed to breathe with it, every groan of timber reminding him how long he had not been here.

A knock came at the door, steady and discreet.

Nathaniel sat up straight, closing the ledger with a flat sound that stirred the dust. “Come.”