The Duke’s Family
The travel from Voss Manor throne room (court hearing) and garden to Ashford Manor private garden, sunrise consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The dawn came slowly to Ashford Manor, the first light bleeding across the private garden like gold threaded through silk. A month had passed since Dorian Langley had been led from the estate in chains, since Grant Langley’s sneer had been swallowed by the iron doors of a magistrate’s carriage. The trial had been swift. The Voss family solicitors had unearthed records of embezzlement, coercion, and the attempted abduction of a minor heir. Dorian would see the inside of Newgate for fifteen years. Grant, his hands stained with the orchestrations of a dozen ruined families, was transported to the colonies. The Langley name would persist in ledgers and lineage charts, but its teeth had been pulled.
Dante stood at the edge of the rose beds, the chill of early autumn curling around his collar. He had not slept. Not from worry—those days were done. He had not slept because the weight of what he was about to do pressed against his ribs like a second heart, and he wanted to meet it fully awake.
Behind him, the chapel doors stood open. A small structure of gray stone, built by his grandfather’s grandfather, it had witnessed baptisms and burials, whispered vows and silent griefs. Today, it would witness something new.
Oliver came running through the garden path, his small boots scattering dew from the grass. Nadia followed at a slower pace, her hand resting on the gate, her hair loose and catching the early light. She had not yet dressed for the ceremony. Neither had he. This moment, before the formalities, belonged to them alone.
“Papa!” Oliver skidded to a stop, holding up a butterfly—dead, its wings still brilliant orange. “I found him. He’s sleeping.”
Dante crouched, taking the delicate creature from his son’s palm. “He’s gone, Oliver. But he lived well. You can see it in his colors.”
Oliver studied the wings with the solemn focus of a child who understood loss more than he should. “Will we go away too?”
The question landed like a stone in still water. Nadia reached them, her fingers brushing Dante’s shoulder as she knelt beside their son.
“No,” Dante said, his voice low and certain. “We stay. Together. This is our home now.”
It was not the first time he had said it, but it was the first time Oliver’s eyes held no doubt. The boy nodded, took the butterfly, and carefully placed it beneath a rose bush. “He can sleep here, then.”
Nadia rose, her gaze meeting Dante’s. She had grown into the manor like a vine climbing a wall—not clinging, but claiming. The staff had come to respect her. June visited twice a week, and Oliver had begun lessons with the estate tutor. The fractures of the past month had healed into a mosaic that caught the light in ways a single pane never could.
“June has the marriage license,” Nadia said quietly. “She picked it up from the registrar yesterday. She was very proud of herself.”
Dante allowed a corner of his mouth to lift. “She should be. She threatened the clerk with a letter from the Home Office.”
“She did not.”
“She did. Silas told me. It was a very convincing letter, apparently. She signed it with your name.”
Nadia closed her eyes, a soft laugh escaping her. “I’ll have to thank her.”
“You’ll have to keep her. She’s appointed herself your lady-in-waiting. I don’t think we have a choice.”
The bells of the chapel chimed the hour. Seven o’clock. The ceremony was set for half past, but Dante had wanted this—the quiet before, the garden still wet, the world not yet awake to witness his transformation. He was no longer the Duke who had returned from London with a secret. He was a man standing in the ruins of his own design, rebuilding with his bare hands.
Silas appeared at the chapel door, his expression impassive but his posture relaxed. The security chief had not taken a day off since the Langleys’ arrest, but the lines around his eyes had softened. He nodded once to Dante, a signal that the grounds were clear, the guests arrived, the path prepared.
“Oliver,” Nadia said gently, “go with Silas. He’ll help you find your coat.”
“I don’t need a coat.”
“It’s cold in the chapel. And your mother will cry if you shiver.”
Oliver looked at Dante, who nodded solemnly. “She will. It’s a thing mothers do.”
The boy took Silas’s hand and walked toward the chapel, turning back once to wave. Dante watched him go, and the garden fell silent again, save for the distant chirp of sparrows and the drip of water from the fountain.
Nadia turned to face him fully. “Are you ready?”
He considered the question. Readiness implied a finish line, a point at which preparation became certainty. He had prepared for this moment for six years, since the night he had learned Oliver existed, since the morning he had stood in a cold parlor and told Nadia she would never want for anything again. But certainty had always eluded him.
“I’m ready to begin,” he said. “That’s different.”
She nodded, understanding in her eyes. “I know. I’ve been beginning for a month.”
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a ring. Not the Voss family signet, which held the weight of dukes and debts and a legacy of silence. This was a band of silver, simple and unadorned, with a single groove worn into the inside from years of handling. It had belonged to his mother. She had worn it on her right hand, a gift from her own father, a man Dante had never met.
Nadia’s breath caught. “Dante…”
“The ceremony is for Oliver,” he said, his voice rough. “To make him my heir before the law and the church. But this—this is for us. I wanted to give it to you here, where no one is watching. Where it’s just the truth.”
He took her hand, and she did not pull away. Her skin was cool, her fingers steady.
“I spent my life believing that love was a weakness,” he continued. “That the only way to protect what was mine was to keep it at arm’s length. I was wrong. The only thing I protected was my own fear. You showed me that. Oliver showed me that.”
He slid the ring onto her finger. It fit, as if it had always been waiting for her.
“I’m not asking you to be a duchess,” he said. “I’m asking you to be my family. The rest is just rooms and titles.”
Nadia looked down at the silver band, then up at him, and the tears she had promised Oliver she would shed began to fall. She did not wipe them away.
“You could have let me go,” she said. “A hundred times, you could have walked away. You didn’t.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
He cupped her face, his thumb brushing the curve of her cheek. “Because I finally understood that running doesn’t keep you safe. It just makes the distance longer when you finally turn around.”
She leaned into his touch, and the garden held its breath. The fountain trickled. The sparrows fell silent. The sun crested the eastern wall, spilling gold across the roses.
“I love you,” she said. “I think I always have. Since the night we met, even when I didn’t know your name.”
“You knew my coat was ridiculous.”
“It was. Red velvet. Very foolish.”
“I burned it.”
“Good.”
He kissed her then. Not the desperate, stolen kisses of the past, haunted by secrets and shadows. This was slow, deliberate, a seal pressed into wax. Her lips parted beneath his, and he tasted salt from her tears and the faint sweetness of the tea she had drunk on the terrace that morning. Her hands came up to his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, holding him as if he might dissolve into mist.
When they broke apart, the bells chimed again. Half past seven.
“Oliver will be wondering where we are,” she said, her voice unsteady.
“Let him wonder a moment longer.”
She laughed, the sound bright and unguarded. “You’re going to make a terrible duke. You’re actually happy.”
“Don’t tell the House of Lords. They’ll expect me to smile at functions.”
They walked to the chapel hand in hand, the gravel crunching beneath their feet. The door stood open, and inside, the light filtered through stained glass in columns of blue and amber. Oliver stood at the altar, fidgeting with his collar, June beside her with a handkerchief already in hand. Silas stood at the back, arms crossed, scanning the room with the practiced ease of a man who had learned to trust peace but not abandon vigilance.
The priest, a quiet man with silver hair, waited with patient stillness.
Dante led Nadia to the altar, and they stood before the small congregation. June. Silas. A few trusted members of the household staff who had proven their loyalty through the darkest weeks. No grand lords. No political allies. No one who would use this moment as leverage.
This was not a performance. It was a foundation.
The priest began the words of legitimacy, the language古老 and formal, binding Oliver Voss to the line of Ashford by blood and law. Oliver stood straight, his small hands clasped behind his back, repeating the phrases the tutor had drilled into him. He stumbled once, on “inherit,” and Nadia squeezed his shoulder.
When the priest finished, he placed a hand on Oliver’s head. “You are recognized before God and man as Oliver Voss, heir to the Dukedom of Ashford. May you carry the name with honor.”
Oliver looked up at Dante. “Does that mean I have to do chores?”
June let out a wet laugh. The priest’s lips twitched.
“It means,” Dante said, “that you have a duty to this family. And we have a duty to you. Chores are non-negotiable.”
Oliver considered this, then nodded gravely. “Alright. But I want extra jam with breakfast.”
“Done.”
The ceremony concluded, and the small group moved to the garden for breakfast beneath the trellis. The cook had prepared a spread of cold meats, fresh bread, and a pot of chocolate so rich it could only be served in thimble-sized cups. Oliver ate three pastries and chased butterflies until he collapsed on the grass, sun-drunk and content.
June cornered Dante by the fountain. “You did well,” she said. “For a man who once tried to pay me to leave.”
“I was a different man.”
“You were an idiot. But you’ve improved.” She glanced at Nadia, who was laughing at something Silas had said. “Take care of her. Or I’ll find a way to make you regret it.”
“I have no doubt.”
As the afternoon softened into evening, the guests departed. June kissed Oliver’s forehead and promised to return for she birthday. Silas did a final sweep of the grounds, then retreated to his quarters. The staff cleared the dishes and left the family alone in the garden.
The sky turned lavender, then violet, then a deep, bruising blue. Stars emerged, one by one, distant and patient.
Dante sat on the stone bench, Oliver asleep in his lap, his small chest rising and falling with the rhythm of dreams. Nadia sat beside him, her head resting on his shoulder, the silver ring catching the last light.
She spoke without looking up. “Is this real?”
He pressed a kiss to her hair. “It is now.”
“What happens tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow, I have meetings with the estate steward. Then I teach Oliver how to ride. Then I spend the evening trying to convince you that I am worth the trouble.”
She smiled against his shoulder. “You don’t have to convince me.”
The air cooled, and the garden settled into night. Crickets began their chorus. A lantern flickered on the terrace, casting a warm circle of light across the stone.
Oliver stirred, murmured something unintelligible, and drifted back to sleep.
Dante looked at the stars. He thought of his father, of the cold halls of his childhood, of the years he had spent building walls instead of bridges. He thought of the fear that had driven him, the fear that had nearly cost him everything. And he thought of the boy in his arms, the woman at his side, the life that had grown from the ruins of his mistakes.
He had no grand speech left. No clever words to seal the moment.
He simply turned to Nadia, her face illuminated by starlight, and let the silence speak for him.
She understood.
She always had.
He lowered his mouth to hers, and the kiss was soft, unhurried, a promise whispered in the dark. She tasted of chocolate and summer, of everything he had never known he needed until the moment he found it.
When they parted, her eyes were bright, and her voice was steady.
“I, Dante Voss, Duke of Ashford, vow to love you and Oliver until the very last star in the sky fades into memory.” She smiled, tears falling. “And I, Nadia Prescott, vow to stand beside you, come what may.”