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A Troublesome Deal
Fecha de publicación:
2026-08-08 07:15:32
Último capítulo
Beneath His Isolation A Subtle, Accidental Shift
The west corridor was long, lined with tall arched windows that looked out over the wild garden where Kent had kept his mother’s roses alive. I held my dusting cloth tightly in my hand, my heart hammering an unsteady rhythm against my ribs.“You don’t want to marry someone you don’t love.”“No... I don’t.” His voice kept echoing in my head, soft and heavy with a vulnerability he so rarely allowed anyone to see. He had looked at me in those seconds, really looked at me, without the cold mask of the Master of Hawthorne Manor. He was just Kent. A man surrounded by vast wealth and looming stone walls, yet desperately, intensely lonely.I dragged the cloth across the carved mahogany molding of a high wall table, but my movements were on autopilot. My mind remained stuck at the edge of the terrace. I remembered the tired smile that had touched his lips, and the way the shadows in his grey eyes had softened when he admitted his truth to me."You're going to rub the finish right off that wood
Beneath His Isolation A Troublesome Deal
The next morning, I overslept.Not by much, perhaps fifteen minutes, but in a house where every clock seemed to breathe in perfect rhythm, fifteen minutes felt like an hour.I nearly tumbled from my bed trying to dress, fumbling with buttons as I hurried down the servants' staircase.The kitchen was already alive.Thomas was kneading bread.Arthur carried a basket of vegetables in from the early stock at the market in town.Agnes stood at the stove, stirring porridge with one hand while directing everyone else with the other.She looked up the moment I entered. "There she is.""I know," I groaned. "I'm late.""You are.""I'm sorry.""I know." She smiled despite herself."You've been forgiven before you've finished apologizing. Eat something.""I don't have time.""You'll make time." She thrust a slice of warm bread into my hands before I could protest. "You can't dust an entire manor if you faint halfway through."Thomas chuckled. "She nearly sprinted down the stairs.""I did sprint."
Beneath His Isolation Something like trust
Supper that night was subdued. Word had traveled through the servants' hall the way it always did in that house, murmur to murmur, hand to hand, and even Thomas let his usual stories go untold. Arthur kept glancing at the door, as though the elder Mr. Hawthorne might materialize through it that very evening, letter or no letter.I didn't have much appetite myself. I kept thinking of Kent at that wall, refolding a letter he hated rather than burning it, because apparently even the things that hurt him were things he couldn't quite bring himself to lose.So when Agnes handed me the tea tray again, "Arthur's ankle's still not right, and I won't have Vance hauling trays like some junior footman." I didn't hesitate the way I had the first time.The study door stood ajar when I reached it, firelight spilling into the corridor in a long gold stripe across the floorboards. I knocked anyway, out of habit, or perhaps out of some old instinct that a person deserves warning before you step into w
Beneath His Isolation A Sealed letter
The days that followed that quiet morning in the library fell into something I hadn't quite dared to hope for. A rhythm.Not friendship, I was still a maid, and he was still the master of Hawthorne Estate, and neither of us pretended otherwise. But small things shifted. He took to arriving in the library most mornings around the hour I did, ledgers tucked under one arm, and though we rarely spoke beyond a greeting, the silence between us no longer felt like something I had to survive. It felt, instead, like something we were building together, one dust-quiet hour at a time.Agnes noticed. Agnes noticed everything."You're humming," she told me one morning, not looking up from the bread she was kneading."I am not.""You are. Have been for days." She glanced at me sideways. "Haven't heard humming in this kitchen in a long while." She caught herself before finishing the thought, the way she always did whenever she came too near a door she wasn't willing to open. "Well. It's nice, is what
Beneath His Isolation A Quiet Morning
The morning light filtering through my small window in the east wing was pale and cold, carrying the quiet stillness that always seemed to rest over Hawthorne Estate before the sun fully rose. I hadn't slept well. Every time I closed my eyes, I kept thinking back to the kitchen—to the heavy silence of the night, the faint aroma of honey, cinnamon, and rich tea, and the sight of Kent sleeping peacefully at the table. The contrast was stark, seeing the man playing the saddest tunes on the piano, before witnessing him sleeping so peacefully on a hard wooden kitchen table.Mr. Vance’s words echoed in my head like an unwritten rule: “He doesn’t sleep often, so just let him be”. I thought a lot about what he said, and how he said it as I was falling in and out of sleep for the night. Maybe it was because he rarely spoke to me in that way, or I was just curious about how terrible Master Hawthorne's sleep could be.By the time I made my way down to the kitchen, Agnes was already at the hearth,
Beneath His Isolation A Steward's conflict
Vance's povWhen Master Kent informed me he wished to hire new servants, I was skeptical.The house already functioned adequately.Additional staff meant additional responsibility.Additional responsibility meant additional opportunities for mistakes.Then I reviewed Catherine's application.Hardworking. Dependable. Strong enough for physical labor.Well regarded by the townsfolk. She appeared... suitable.I approved her employment. Perhaps I should have burned the application instead.There had been peace in Hawthorne Estate before she arrived.Not happiness. I had long since accepted that such a thing had abandoned these halls years ago. But there had been an order. Silence. Routine.Master Kent worked. The servants worked.I ensured neither interfered with the other.That was how this estate survived.Then Catherine walked through the front doors....The first thing I noticed about her was not her smile, nor the hopeful look in her eyes. It was the way she looked around.Every serv
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