He hated it.
Below him, the gardens unfurled like a tapestry, their symmetry a testament to centuries of wealth and control. Everything at Hawthorne Hall was symmetrical. The hedges, the portraits, the expectations. Especially the expectations.
Edward wore his inheritance like a noose lined in silk. Son of the great Lord Alistair Ashcombe, heir to a title that carried weight in every drawing room from London to Vienna, he was everything a proper gentleman ought to be: handsome, educated, courteous to a fault. He could recite Latin verse and ride with the finest of foxhunters. He danced like a prince and debated like a barrister. And yet, beneath the layers of tailored wool and polished charm, he was suffocating.
“Daydreaming again, Edward?” came a voice from behind.
He turned to see his father approaching, already dressed in a charcoal morning coat and cravat, every button gleaming like accusation. Lord Alistair Ashcombe was a man carved from cold marble, tall, lean, with silver at his temples and steel in his gaze. He did not walk so much as glide with purpose.
“Not daydreaming,” Edward said smoothly. “Just thinking.”
“That’s a dangerous habit, in excess.” Alistair joined him at the balustrade. “Especially for a man who will one day lead.”
Edward didn’t reply. He’d long since learned silence was the best shield.
His father continued. “Lady Margaret and her mother will be joining us for supper this evening. See that you don’t wear that melancholy expression you’ve taken such a liking to lately.”
“Of course, Father.”
“I trust I need not remind you what’s at stake. The Margaret family holds considerable influence in Parliament. A marriage between our houses would secure alliances that even His Majesty would nod at.”
Edward nodded, sipping his now-cold tea. The taste turned bitter on his tongue.
What his father didn’t understand, or worse, refused to, was that Edward could play the role of aristocratic heir perfectly. He could toast with dukes and flirt with countesses. But he couldn’t feel any of it. It was all glass, beautiful, transparent, and breakable. Especially the expectations.
As the elder Ashcombe departed, Edward remained, staring out over the manicured grounds. Somewhere beyond the maze of hedges and marble fountains, the world pulsed with color and chaos and life.
Somewhere out there, people fell in love without permission. Somewhere, men weren’t born into cages dressed in gold.
And Edward, the golden heir with the iron collar, had no idea that the crack in his world was already forming, not in the drawing rooms of nobility, but far below, where the servants whispered and a maid with eyes like dusk would soon change everything.
Clara kept her head down as she moved through the lower corridors of Hawthorne Hall, her hands tucked into her apron and her steps light enough not to echo. She had learned quickly that silence was a kind of armor in a house like this. The quieter you were, the less likely you were to be noticed. And the less you were noticed, the safer you remained.
She had been at the estate for only three weeks, yet already it felt like a lifetime. Every hallway held a mirror, every room a portrait. Hawthorne Hall was a palace dressed as a prison, and Clara had the key to none of its doors.
But she could breathe in the gardens.
It was early morning, her favorite time. The other maids were busy preparing for breakfast, scrubbing and straightening and keeping out of the butler’s line of sight. Clara had offered to fetch the fresh linens from the washhouse, a task that conveniently took her past the south garden.
The garden was a place she had discovered by accident on her second day. Hidden behind a line of tall hedges and overlooked by no window, it was a quiet square filled with climbing roses and a single stone bench. No one came here. It felt secret, like something forgotten. Like her.
She rounded the last corner and slipped through the narrow break in the hedge. For a moment, the morning sunlight caught on her face and she closed her eyes to feel it. Warmth that was not artificial. Light that belonged only to her for these stolen minutes.
Clara sat on the bench and let the silence settle. She pulled a small book from her apron pocket, worn and water-stained. It was a volume of poetry, the cover faded beyond recognition. She had found it in the servants' quarters, left behind by someone long gone. Every time she opened it, the world shrank into something small and beautiful.
“Miss.”
The voice startled her. She rose too quickly, dropping the book, her heart leaping in panic. She turned toward the sound, already apologizing.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”
She stopped. The man standing at the entrance to the garden was not a steward or a footman or a cook. He was dressed in fine wool and carried himself like someone who belonged on a balcony, not among hedges.
It was him.
The heir.
Edward Ashcombe.
He looked as surprised as she was. Not angry. Not haughty. Just curious.
“I believe that’s yours,” he said, gesturing to the book.
Clara bent to retrieve it, careful not to meet his eyes for too long. Her pulse was racing, not just from being caught, but from something else. Something she could not yet name.
“I thought this garden was empty,” he said. “It usually is.”
“I come here when I can,” she replied, voice barely above a whisper.
There was a pause, not uncomfortable but heavy with something new.
“What are you reading?”
“Poetry,” she answered.
His mouth lifted, just slightly. “Do you have a favorite?”
Clara hesitated, then held out the book. “I like the ones about the sea.”
He took the book carefully, as if it were fragile. As if she were fragile.
“You don’t speak like the others,” he said, flipping gently through the pages.
“I was educated. A little. Before my mother passed.”
“I see.”
Clara wanted to vanish. She had said too much. But then he handed the book back, and their fingers brushed. Just barely. But enough.
“Perhaps I will join you tomorrow,” he said.
Clara blinked. “Sir?”
“Only if you do not mind.”
She could not find words, so she nodded.
Edward Ashcombe gave her the kind of smile one does not expect from the son of a lord. It was not smug or practiced. It was real.
Then he turned and left without another word, disappearing into the trimmed corridor of hedges like a ghost from a dream.
Clara sat back down, the book clutched to her chest, and for the first time since arriving at Hawthorne Hall, she was no longer sure what it was she feared most.
The next morning arrived cloaked in gray, the sky a sheet of dull silver. Rain whispered over the slate rooftops and trickled down the tall windows of Hawthorne Hall. Inside the great house, life moved as it always did. Bells rang. Boots echoed. Orders were barked in clipped tones.
Clara moved through the chaos with practiced ease, her hands busy folding linens in the drawing room while her thoughts strayed elsewhere. All morning she had listened for footsteps that never came. She had glanced toward the hallway every time a shadow passed the door. But there was no sign of him.
Perhaps he had changed his mind.
Perhaps he had only been teasing.
Perhaps he was simply being kind in a moment of idleness.
Still, when the clock struck eleven and she was sent out to polish the brass lanterns on the southern walk, she took the long path. The path that led her past the hedged entrance to the hidden garden.
And there he was.
Edward stood beneath the arch of climbing ivy, coat damp with mist, hands tucked behind his back. He looked like a painting half-finished, not yet dried by the artist’s hand.
“I was beginning to think you would not come,” he said.
Clara stepped forward, the brass cloth forgotten in her pocket. She offered a small smile, one she did not feel quite ready to wear.
“I almost did not.”
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“Why?”
She hesitated. The answer was too large to fit into words. Because she was a maid. Because he was not. Because people like him did not speak to people like her without purpose. And if he had a purpose, she was not sure she wanted to know it.
“I was not sure you meant it.”
“I did.”
He walked toward the bench and sat, motioning for her to join him. She remained standing, hands clutched in front of her.
“You do not have to be afraid of me,” he said quietly.
“It is not you I fear.”
Edward tilted his head slightly. “Then what is it?”
She looked at him. Really looked. His hair was rain-swept, and there was a crease between his brows that had not been there the day before. He looked like a man at war with a hundred things no one could see.
“I fear what happens when someone like you is kind to someone like me,” she said.
His expression changed, not into something she could name, but something she could feel.
“Then let me be unkind,” he said softly. “Sit with me.”
Clara laughed, startled by the sound. It broke the fog around her. She sat.
They did not speak for several minutes. The rain turned to mist, drifting through the hedges like breath.
Edward reached into his coat and pulled out a folded paper.
“A poem,” he said. “I wrote it. Years ago. It is not very good.”
She took it with careful hands and read it slowly, eyes tracing each uneven line. It was clumsy in rhythm, but full of heart. It spoke of longing and belonging and the way the sea can pull at a man’s soul without ever touching his skin.
When she looked up, his gaze was not on the garden, but on her.
“Why are you here, truly?” she asked.
He did not look away.
“Because this is the only place in the world that feels honest.”
The words settled between them like fallen petals.
Clara folded the paper and handed it back.
“You should write another,” she said.
“Only if you promise to read it.”
And so began the first of many stolen mornings. In the days that followed, they met again and again, always in the garden. Always with the veil of secrecy between them. He brought poems. She brought stories. Their conversations curled around them like ivy, slowly binding something neither of them dared name.
Each meeting felt both like the first and the last. Each glance lingered longer than it should. And with every passing day, Clara found it harder to remember why she had been afraid in the first place.
But deep beneath the roots of the roses, the truth was waiting. A secret planted long ago, growing in silence, ready to bloom.
The morning was crisp, the sky clear for the first time in days. Clara had just finished lighting the final hearth in the east wing when she felt it. A prickle at the base of her neck. The unmistakable weight of someone watching.
She turned. Nothing but the quiet shimmer of dust in the light.
Still, the feeling lingered.
In a house the size of Hawthorne Hall, nothing went unnoticed for long. Every servant knew that eyes were always present, even when no footsteps echoed down the halls. Whispers traveled faster than fire, and secrets had a way of climbing stairs.
Clara quickened her pace, her pulse loud in her ears.
That afternoon, while polishing silver in the butler’s pantry, she caught the scullery maid, Anna, staring. Not idly. Not with curiosity. With something sharper.
“What is it?” Clara asked, not unkindly.
Anna blinked as if caught sleepwalking. She shook her head and muttered something about the tray being too tarnished.
But Clara knew that look.
That was the look of someone who had seen too much.
In the drawing room, Edward sat in a sunbeam, pretending to read.
He had not seen Clara that day. Not in passing, not at the garden gate, not even among the swirl of skirts and aprons during breakfast. And though he tried to remain composed, the quiet absence of her presence unsettled him.
He turned the page of his book, though he had not read the last four.
“Your Grace,” said a voice behind him. It was Mr. Fielding, the butler.
Edward glanced up, schooling his face into the mask of polite interest.
“Yes?”
“Your father asked to see you in the library.”
“When?”
“Now.”
Edward closed the book with deliberate care and rose. Every encounter with his father was a performance, one that required preparation of posture, tone, and patience.
The library was dim and scented with tobacco. Lord Ashcombe stood by the fireplace, hands clasped behind his back.
“You have been quiet lately,” he said without turning.
Edward said nothing.
“Lady Margaret wrote to me,” his father continued. “She expressed concern over your lack of correspondence. You were meant to attend her family’s gathering last week.”
Edward moved to the edge of the hearth, keeping a comfortable distance.
“I forgot.”
Lord Ashcombe turned then, his gaze sharp and cutting.
“You do not have the luxury of forgetting.”
“I never asked for any of this.”
“No,” the older man said. “But you were born into it. And that is the same thing.”
Silence stretched between them like a taut wire.
“There are rumors,” Lord Ashcombe said at last. “Servant talk. Idle nonsense, I am sure.”
Edward did not flinch, though his hands curled slightly at his sides.
“I hope you understand,” his father went on, “that whatever freedom you believe you have ends the moment it threatens the family’s name.”
Edward met his father’s eyes. The weight of the old man’s world pressed down on him like cold iron. But beneath the surface, something had shifted. He no longer feared it. He no longer believed in its power.
When he spoke, his voice was calm.
“Do you remember what it feels like to be in love, Father?”
A flicker. Barely a breath of hesitation.
Lord Ashcombe turned back to the fire, but did not answer.
That evening, Clara returned to the garden.
He was already there, waiting, a folded paper in his hand.
“I thought you had changed your mind,” he said.
“So did I,” she replied.
He handed her the paper, but she did not open it.
Instead, she looked at him, really looked. There was something behind his eyes. A storm gathering. A man preparing to fight something larger than himself.
“They know,” she said.
He nodded. “I thought they might.”
“And still you came?”
“I will always come.”
She finally opened the paper. The poem was shorter this time. Only three lines.
The wind may howl
The gate may close
But I will find you in the dark
Clara folded the page and placed it over her heart.
“I am afraid,” she whispered.
“So am I,” he said.
But neither of them turned away.
The storm broke just after midnight.
Thunder rolled across the moors like distant drums and the windows of Hawthorne Hall trembled in their frames. Most of the house slept, lulled by the rain and the rhythm of a life lived under rules.
But Edward did not sleep.
He stood at his bedroom window, watching the gardens vanish beneath the blur of falling water. The hedge maze was a shadow, the roses bent low, and somewhere beyond them, in a tucked-away corner no one else cared to see, was the bench where she had once read aloud to him.
He pressed his fingers to the cold glass.
They were running out of time.
In the servants' quarters, Clara sat on her narrow cot, clutching a damp letter. Her hands trembled. It was not from Edward. It was from a woman she barely remembered, a cousin in the village who had heard a whisper from someone who worked at the post office.
They’re talking about you, the letter said. They know. Be careful.
She folded it, tucked it under her pillow, and looked around the room that had become her world. The other girls were asleep, their breaths soft and even. But Clara’s chest felt too tight. As if all the walls were leaning in.
Someone had seen them.
Someone had spoken.
And it was only a matter of time before the wrong person listened.
The next morning, Lord Ashcombe summoned the staff.
It was rare for him to speak directly to them. His voice usually moved through the butler, through housekeepers, through rules written and unwritten. But today, he stood at the top of the grand staircase, looking down at the assembled rows of maids and footmen.
“There have been reports,” he said, voice calm, almost casual. “Of impropriety. Of disrespect to the household. Such behavior will not be tolerated.”
No one moved.
“I trust I do not need to remind you,” he continued, “that this house is a place of order. Should anyone forget their place, they will be removed.”
His eyes moved across the crowd, resting for the briefest second on Clara.
She held his gaze.
And then looked away.
Later, as the house resumed its routine with a hush that felt unnatural, Edward found her in the corridor behind the east gallery. It was a quiet hallway, mostly unused, lined with portraits whose faces had long since faded.
“You heard,” he said.
Clara nodded.
“I think your father knows.”
“He does.”
“Then it is over.”
Edward stepped forward. “No. It is just beginning.”
“We cannot pretend nothing has changed,” she said.
“I am not pretending.”
Clara’s voice trembled. “You do not understand what they can do. You are protected by your name. I have nothing.”
“You have me.”
She looked up at him. Her eyes were wet but fierce.
“And what will you give up to keep me? Your title? Your inheritance? Your father’s approval?”
“Yes,” he said.
She did not answer. The silence between them was louder than any promise.
That night, Edward left a note on her pillow.
Meet me in the garden
Midnight
Bring only what you need
Clara read it once.
Then again.
And when the house finally went still, she rose without a sound.
She did not pack much. Only a few coins, her worn book of poetry, and the letter from her cousin. She left behind her uniform, her shoes, and the quiet, invisible life that had never truly been hers.
She stepped into the rain with bare feet and a heart full of fire.
He was waiting at the gate, coat soaked, hair plastered to his forehead. When he saw her, something in him broke open.
“You came,” he said.
“So did you,” she replied.
He took her hand.
And together, they disappeared into the storm.
The first light of morning found them far from Hawthorne Hall.
The wind had softened. The storm had passed. The sky above was pale and bruised, as if it too had spent the night wrestling with something it could not name.
Edward and Clara walked hand in hand through the misty edge of a village neither of them knew. The thatched roofs were still wet, and smoke curled gently from chimneys. It was the kind of place where no one asked questions as long as you paid for bread and spoke politely.
They found a small inn on the edge of town. Its sign was weather-worn, the name too faded to read, but the fire inside burned warm. The innkeeper looked them over once, saw the way Edward held Clara’s hand, and said only, “Room’s upstairs. Two shillings a night. Breakfast comes with it.”
They paid in silence and climbed the narrow staircase together.
The room was small. A single bed. A washbasin. A window that overlooked the gray hills.
It was not grand.
But it was theirs.
They spent the next two days wrapped in quiet.
Edward traded one of his cufflinks for extra coin and bought them new clothes from the tailor’s son. Clara braided her hair and smiled more than she had in years. They read to each other. Walked in the fields. Watched the sky change color.
He called her “my darling” when no one else was near.
She called him “Ed” and laughed every time he said it felt strange and perfect at once.
And for a moment, the world forgot them.
On the third evening, just as the sun dipped low behind the hills, a carriage arrived at the inn.
It was dark and simple, with no crest on the door. But Edward knew the make. Knew the driver. Knew the silence it carried.
He stood from the table without a word and stepped outside.
Clara watched through the window, her breath caught in her throat.
The man who stepped down from the carriage wore a long black coat and a familiar expression. Calm. Cold. Measured.
Lord Alistair Ashcombe.
Edward met his father in the gravel path between the inn and the road. No one else seemed to notice the tension in the air. No one else knew that something was about to break.
“I should have known you would come,” Edward said.
“I gave you two days,” Lord Ashcombe replied.
“You always were generous.”
His father did not smile. “You are my son, Edward. I will not allow you to throw your life away.”
“I am not throwing anything away. I am building something. With her.”
Lord Ashcombe looked toward the window. Clara had stepped back, but Edward knew he had seen her.
“Then you should know,” his father said, “what you are building upon.”
“What do you mean?”
There was a long silence. Then Lord Ashcombe spoke words he had once sworn never to speak aloud.
“Years ago, when I was younger than you are now, there was a maid at Hawthorne Hall. Her name was Elise. She had eyes like frost and a voice like summer rain. I loved her, in the foolish way that young men often do.”
Edward said nothing.
“She bore a child. A girl. I never married her. She left before anyone could question it. I arranged everything.”
Edward’s mouth went dry.
His father met his eyes.
“Her name was Elise Bray.”
The name hit like a stone through glass.
Clara’s last name was Bray.
Edward’s world tilted.
“No,” he said, but the word felt distant, foreign. “That is not possible.”
“I hoped you would never need to know,” his father said. “But you gave me no choice.”
Inside the room, Clara sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor. Her hands were clenched. Her heart beat too fast.
She had heard.
Every word.
The door opened.
Edward stepped inside. He looked as if the wind had been knocked from him.
“Clara,” he said.
She looked up. Her eyes were already red.
“Tell me it isn’t true,” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Silence swallowed them.
They had run from one prison and landed in another, built not of stone, but of blood.
And for the first time since the garden, neither of them reached for the other.