When the Colonel Came to the Estate

“You never told me.”

“I know.”

A flicker of anger crossed Wesley’s face, but beneath it was something more wounded. There is a particular kind of grief that comes from learning you were raised inside an edited version of your own family. I saw it settle over him, and despite everything between us, I wanted to reach for his hand.

I didn’t.

But I wanted to.

Charles leaned forward, elbows on his knees, no longer the polished patriarch of the Pembroke family. He looked like a son who had once been very young and very afraid.

“Eleanor was two years younger than I was,” he said. “Brilliant. Stubborn. Funny in ways that got her into trouble. She hated the rules in this house. Hated the expectations, the dinners, the quiet agreements no one admitted making.”

Margaret looked toward the door, as if wishing the walls would release her.