The Manor’s Ghosts
The travel from Nadia’s vandalized flat, Millbank to Ashby Manor library consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The library at Ashby Manor had always been Nadia’s sanctuary, even when it belonged to a stranger. Now, standing in the doorway with morning light slanting through the tall windows, she felt like a thief in her own memory.
The room smelled of old paper and lemon oil. Identical to the last time she’d seen it—six years ago, when she’d crept down at midnight, unable to sleep, and found Adrian hunched over a ledger by lamplight. He’d looked up, startled, then smiled in that way that made her feel like the only person in the world.
*“Can’t sleep?”* he’d asked.
*“The house has too many echoes.”*
*“Stay. I’ll keep them at bay.”*
She’d sat across from him until dawn, watching him work. They hadn’t spoken much. They hadn’t needed to.
Now the same desk stood against the same wall, but the ledgers were gone. In their place lay a single photograph in a silver frame—Eli, taken last spring, grinning with a missing front tooth. Adrian must have placed it there. The thought hooked beneath her ribs and pulled.
“Mama, look.”
Eli stood at the far end of the library, one hand pressed flat against the paneling. “There’s a door here. Behind the books.”
Nadia crossed to him, her boots muffled by the Persian rug. He was right—a hairline seam ran vertically through the wainscoting, invisible unless you knew where to look. She traced it with her fingertips, and a section of the wall swung inward on silent hinges.
A hidden study. Smaller than the main library, windowless, lined with shelves of leather-bound volumes. A single armchair sat beneath a gas lamp. On the small desk, a stack of papers, yellowed with age.
Eli slipped past her before she could stop him. “Whose room is this?”
“It was your grandfather’s.” She hadn’t known the words would come out rough. “Edward Ashby. Your father’s father.”
Eli picked up a letter from the desk, holding it with careful reverence. “Can I read it?”
“It’s not ours to read.”
“Everything here is ours now, isn’t it?” He looked up at her, and in that moment, he was so much Adrian’s son—steady, questioning, unafraid of difficult truths. “Father said the manor belongs to me someday.”
*Someday.* The word sat like a stone in her throat. “Yes. Someday.”
She took the letter from him gently, scanning the first line before she could stop herself. *My dearest Caroline—*
She set it down. Some ghosts didn’t need disturbing.
—
By noon, Margot had arrived.
Nadia heard the commotion from the front hall—a flurry of footsteps, the clatter of luggage, and Margot’s voice cutting through the stuffy quiet like a blade through butter.
“Tell Adrian Ashby that if he expects me to stay in the east wing, he can expect me to leave. I’m not a governess, and I refuse to sleep in a room where the wallpaper predates the Magna Carta.”
Nadia smiled for the first time in days.
She found Margot in the entrance hall, hands on her hips, a traveling coat draped over her shoulders. The Ashby butler stood helpless beside her trunk.
“Margot.”
Her friend turned, and her face broke into a genuine grin. “Nadia. You look terrible.”
“Thank you. You’re a comfort.”
“I’m a realist.” Margot crossed to her and squeezed her hands, her eyes scanning Nadia’s face with surgical precision. “You’ve been crying.”
“I’ve been sleeping poorly.”
“Same thing.” Margot released her and glanced around the hall, her expression shifting to something harder. “Where is he?”
“Adrian? In the study with Reid. There’s been… news.”
Margot’s jaw worked. She didn’t press, not here, not in front of the servants. She simply linked her arm through Nadia’s and said, “Then I’ll wait. Show me the nursery. I want to meet Eli properly.”
—
The nursery was a battlefield of wooden soldiers.
Eli had arranged them in opposing ranks across the carpet—redcoats against blue, though the colors had long since faded to pink and gray. He knelt in the center, hair falling into his eyes, moving his forces with intense concentration.
“General,” he said, without looking up. “That’s what Father calls me. When we play.”
Margot settled onto the window seat, folding her hands in her lap. “And what do you call him?”
“Adrian. He says ‘Father’ makes him feel old.”
“Does it?”
Eli considered this. “I think he’s just not used to it yet.”
Nadia leaned against the doorframe, watching them. The afternoon light caught the dust motes suspended in the air, turning the room gold and soft. For a moment, the danger felt distant. The Blackthorns, the threats, the running—all of it faded into the background hum of a house that had seen worse.
But only for a moment.
Margot caught her eye, and the look she gave was not soft. It was a question. *How bad?*
Nadia answered with a slight shake of her head. *Later.*
—
Adrian found her in the library at dusk.
She was standing at the window, watching the last light bleed from the sky. The estate grounds stretched into darkness, fields and treelines dissolving into shadows. Somewhere out there, the Blackthorns were watching. Or their men were. Or Jasper himself, smiling that cold, deliberate smile.
“Nadia.”
She didn’t turn. “Margot’s here.”
“I know. Reid told me.” His footsteps crossed the room, stopped behind her. Close enough that she could feel the warmth of him. “She’ll be safe here. I’ve doubled the night patrols.”
“And will that be enough?”
Silence.
She turned to face him. In the dim light, his features were sharp, worn. The same face she’d fallen in love with, but aged by six years of absence and the weight of what he’d inherited. “Cole Blackthorn has friends in the magistrate’s office. In the banks. He’s been calling in debts I didn’t know existed. Mortgages my father took out before he died, loans I never signed for, contracts with terms that shift like sand.”
“Can you prove it?”
“I’m trying.” He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture she remembered. Frustration, barely contained. “Reid has contacts in London. Former military, men who owe him favors. They’re tracing the paper trail, but it’s slow. Blackthorn has had years to bury his tracks.”
“And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, we wait. We fortify. We don’t give him the reaction he wants.” He met her eyes. “He’s spreading rumors about Eli. That he’s not mine. That you—”
“That I’m a liar.” She finished the sentence for him, her voice flat. “I know. Margot told me. It’s already reached the village.”
Adrian’s hands curled at his sides. “I’ll kill him.”
“No, you won’t.” She stepped closer, close enough to see the flecks of amber in his eyes. “Because that’s what he wants. A public scandal, a fight he can paint as an attack. He wants you to lose control so he can take everything—the manor, the title, Eli.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
She held his gaze. “We fight smarter.”
—
The dinner was quiet.
Margot kept up a stream of light conversation—gossip from London, news of mutual acquaintances, observations about the manor’s architecture that bordered on mockery. Eli ate with the focused intensity of an eight-year-old, occasionally interjecting with questions about the gardens or the stables.
Adrian answered them all, patient and present. He asked Eli about his lessons, about the books he’d found in the library, about the soldiers still arranged on the nursery floor. The rhythm between them was new, still clumsy at the edges, but real.
Nadia watched them and felt something crack open in her chest.
After dinner, Adrian took Eli to the study to show him a map of the estate—old, hand-drawn, detailing every acre and boundary. Eli traced the lines with his finger, asking about each field, each stream, each copse of trees.
Margot found Nadia in the parlor, staring at nothing.
“You’re doing that thing again,” Margot said, settling onto the settee beside her.
“What thing?”
“The thing where you look at them like they’re already gone.”
Nadia didn’t answer.
Margot’s voice softened. “He loves you. He never stopped.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you look so afraid?”
Nadia turned to her friend, and for a moment, she was twenty-three again, pregnant and alone, standing in a rain-soaked street with nowhere to go. “Because love doesn’t protect anyone. It didn’t protect my mother. It didn’t protect me. And if I’m not careful, it won’t protect Eli.”
Margot took her hand. “Then we’ll be careful.”
—
Later that night, Reid appeared in the library doorway.
Nadia was alone, a book open in her lap that she hadn’t read in an hour. She looked up at the sound of his boots on the hardwood.
“Ma’am.” He closed the door behind him. “I have news.”
She set the book aside. “Tell me.”
“The Blackthorns are applying pressure through the Ashby creditors. Three of them have called in notes early—notes that weren’t due for another six months. They’re claiming breach of contract.”
“On what grounds?”
“Irregularities in the inheritance. They’re filing a motion to contest the will.” Reid’s face was impassive, but his voice carried an edge. “They’re arguing that Adrian was not Edward’s legitimate heir. That the bloodline was compromised.”
Nadia felt the floor tilt beneath her. “They’re trying to take the manor.”
“Yes, ma’am. And the title. And everything attached to it.”
“Can they succeed?”
Reid hesitated. A fraction of a second. But she caught it. “Not if we can prove fraud. Mr. Ashby’s men found records in London—accounts that link Cole Blackthorn to the forged mortgages. It’s not enough yet, but it’s a start.”
“What do you need?”
“Time. And your testimony.” His eyes met hers. “About the night you left. About why you ran.”
The memory surfaced before she could stop it—Jasper’s hand on her arm, his breath sour with whiskey, his voice a low murmur in her ear. *“You think he’ll keep you? You think he’ll choose you over everything his father built?”*
She had run because she was afraid. Because she was young. Because she thought she was protecting Adrian from a choice that would have destroyed him.
But she had been wrong.
“You’ll have it,” she said. “Whatever he needs.”
Reid nodded once, then turned to leave. At the door, he paused. “One more thing, ma’am. We intercepted a message today. From Jasper Blackthorn to one of his men in London.”
“What did it say?”
“Five words.” Reid’s voice dropped. “*The boy must not reach age nine.*”
—
The contract truth unraveled in the study, two hours past midnight.
Adrian spread the documents across the desk—letters, ledgers, account statements—each one a thread in a web that led back to Cole Blackthorn. Nadia stood beside him, reading over his shoulder, her pulse a steady drum in her throat.
“Here.” Adrian tapped a folded paper, yellowed and brittle. “This is the original deed to the Ashby lands, dated 1789. Signed by Edward’s grandfather. It’s legitimate.”
“And this?” Nadia pointed to a second document, crisp and new, the ink barely dry.
“A copy. Forged. Filed with the magistrate’s office three days before my father died.” Adrian’s voice was cold, precise. “It claims the estate was entailed to a cousin. A cousin who died in infancy, conveniently enough to make the line ambiguous.”
“They planned this.”
“For years. Decades, maybe.” He looked up at her, and she saw the weight of it in his eyes—the betrayal, the slow-burning rage. “My father knew. I think… I think that’s why he didn’t fight harder when you left. He was trying to protect you. Protect Eli.”
The words hit her like a blow. “He knew about Eli?”
“He must have. He left this.” Adrian pulled a sealed envelope from beneath the stack. Her name was written across the front in Edward Ashby’s careful hand. “I found it in the hidden study this morning.”
Nadia took the envelope. Her fingers trembled as she broke the seal.
Inside, a single sheet of paper.
*Nadia—*
*If you’re reading this, I’m gone, and you’ve come home. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth when you were here. I was protecting my son. I thought distance would keep him safe.*
*I was wrong.*
*The Blackthorns will come for the boy. They always meant to. But Adrian doesn’t know the full extent of their reach. He doesn’t know about the London trust, the offshore accounts, the men they’ve bought in every office from here to Whitehall.*
*You need to know everything. The full account is with my solicitor, Harold Vance, at 14 Chancery Lane. Ask for the Ashby file. He’ll know.*
*Keep my grandson safe. Keep my son alive.*
*Tell Adrian I’m proud of him. I should have said it while I could.*
*—E.A.*
Nadia looked up. Adrian was watching her, his face pale, his hands still.
“He knew,” she whispered. “All along.”
Adrian said nothing. He simply reached out and took her hand.
And in that moment, the contract truth was complete. There was no turning back.
—
She found the torn letter on her pillow when she finally retreated to her room, exhausted and hollow.
It had been placed there while she was in the study. While Reid was reporting. While Margot was sleeping in the east wing. While Eli dreamt of wooden soldiers.
One sheet of paper, ripped in half, the words scratched in a hand she didn’t recognize.
*Leave the boy, or lose him forever. —C.B.*