Page 56 of A Wallflower's Convenient Duke
Chapter 24
The door clicked softly behind her as Evelyn stepped into the study, her silken skirts whispering against the polished floor. She took in the scene without speaking—a son hunched in silence, his shoulders rigid, surrounded by relics that no longer stirred joy.
Philip didn’t look up. “If you’ve come to lecture me, Mother,” he murmured, “you’ll have to get in line behind my conscience. It has already had a head start.”
Evelyn approached with the measured grace that had always marked her presence. She glanced at the disordered spread of artefacts across his desk, her brow lifting ever so slightly. “You should dust these,” she said mildly. “They deserve better than to be caught in the fallout of your guilt.”
That made him look up.
She gave him a sympathetic smile and took the armchair opposite, folding her hands in her lap as if they were merely about to discuss the day’s weather. But her eyes—wise, shrewd, and impossibly kind—were fixed on his face.
“You’ve been in here for three days,” she said gently. “You haven’t ridden, or gone to the club. You didn’t even come down when Emily brought the children. That, more than anything, tells me your heart is not bruised—it is broken.”
Philip looked away.
“I was angry,” he said, his voice a low rasp. “Furious. But now all I feel is… hollow. I should never have spoken to her as I did.”
Evelyn tilted her head. “Did you mean what you said?”
“No.” His answer came swiftly, without hesitation. “At least—not the part where I accused her of being complicit. I see now… she didn’t know. She couldn’t have. But in the moment,everything—everything—felt like a trap closing in on me. Her mother’s confession, the lies, the humiliation…”
“You were frightened,” Evelyn said. “You won’t admit it aloud, but you were. You’ve been hurt before. And when this happened, all the pain you buried came rushing back.”
Philip’s fingers tightened around the edge of the desk. “I thought she was different.”
“She is,” Evelyn replied calmly. “You’re simply not used to trusting someone enough to believe that.”
Silence fell between them once more, thick with unspoken truths. The fire crackled in the hearth, a low, steady hum that seemed to echo the slow return of clarity in Philip’s mind.
He gestured to the collection strewn across the desk. “Some of these belonged to her father,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t know… but now I realise. They were hers. I’ve bought pieces of her life without knowing what they were. I intended to surprise her, not…” His voice faltered. “Not wound her.”
Evelyn rose, moving to his side. She placed a hand gently on his shoulder.
“Then you must return them to her,” she said. “Not just the artefacts, Philip. But your words. Your trust. Your heart. She deserves to know that you still hold it.”
He looked up at her, anguish stark in his eyes.
“But what if it’s too late?”
She gave a faint, knowing smile. “Love, when it is real, can bend without breaking. But it does not wait forever. If she is worth fighting for, and I believe she is—then fight.”
Philip swallowed hard. The truth, laid bare by his mother’s steady wisdom, struck deep. He had misjudged Blanche. Let fear and pride override everything they had begun to build together. But now… now he saw the shape of what had been lost, and it gutted him.
Evelyn took a step back, toward the door—then paused, turning slowly. Her voice was quiet, but firm. “She came into your life like a summer storm, Philip. Unexpected, yes, but perhaps she was sent to wash away all that came before. Do not let this storm pass without finding the light it’s left behind.”
She did not leave. She lingered in the doorway, as though sensing that the most important words had yet to be said.
Philip looked up from the artefacts, finally meeting her gaze. The lines on Evelyn’s face spoke of a life well lived, and her eyes, pools of tempered compassion, held a wisdom he had always known and trusted. And in that moment, it felt as though she saw right through the walls he had so carefully built around his heart.
“Blanche’s actions may be coloured by the shadows of her own past, just as yours may still bear the bruises of old wounds,” Evelyn said gently. “But to close your heart entirely to love’s redemptive power is the greater tragedy. Bitterness has never healed a soul.”
Philip’s jaw clenched. “How can I know what’s real?” he asked, his voice rough with weariness. “How can one distinguish sincerity from illusion? This pain—it feels the same as it did before. And I... I do not know how to recover.”
She walked back toward him, slow and deliberate, and placed a steadying hand on his shoulder.
“You recover by listening to your heart—truly listening. And by giving time its due. You’ve been burned, yes. But not all fires are meant to consume. Some are meant to temper.”
Philip’s eyes dropped to the desk, where the ancient relics of Blanche’s past lay strewn across the wood like silent witnesses. Each one a testament to the life she had loved—and the pain she had been forced to endure.
