As Ryan stepped out of the estate, he shielded his eyes against the blinding noon sun. It was already at its zenith — probably around one o'clock in the afternoon.
"That's why no one is about."
Palmer the butler, Mrs. Parker, the Warrens — father and son — and the various day laborers. Everyone who worked at Blissbury was hardworking and conscientious. They rose early and never sat idle until dinner, moving constantly through the estate without complaint.
It showed. Even with its owner absent, not a speck of dust settled on the furniture, and the halls carried the pleasant scent of dried herbs. A quiet testament to how carefully Mr. Severton had chosen his staff.
And while all of them had been at their work since dawn, he was only now dragging himself free of a nightmare.
That alone made him feel worse.
He left the estate without a clear destination and followed the pull of the nearby river. Without bothering to undress, he walked straight in.
*Splash.*
The cold enveloped him completely. His clouded mind snapped clear.
He dove and surfaced several times before hauling himself onto the bank and dropping into the shade. Lying there, wet and catching his breath, he wiped the water from his face.
The end of the dream surfaced in his memory — the man who had attacked him most viciously at the war council.
**Count Wallace.**
He had come at Ryan with such ferocity that even the nobles seated nearby tried to restrain him, murmuring that he was going too far. Ryan hadn't managed even a wry smile in response. He had simply looked back.
Anyone else might have dismissed it — just another aristocrat consumed by envy, furious that some gutter-born soldier had stumbled into glory. But Count Wallace...
*And such a man is my father.*
The words dissolved into the wind before they had fully formed.
---
Ryan had first laid eyes on Earl Wallace at the age of ten.
He'd spent the morning with friends from the same street, watching coal being unloaded at the railway station. When he came home, a stranger was standing inside the house.
At first glance, the man looked like any gentleman one might pass on the street. But a second look told a different story. The fabric was smooth and perfectly pressed — no worn elbows, no creased sleeves. The cut was unmistakably the work of a master tailor.
And even more telling than the clothes was the way the man looked at Ryan.
As though Ryan were the most contemptible creature he had ever had the misfortune of encountering.
*An aristocrat.* Ryan knew it instantly.
"Is this him?"
He lifted his chin toward Ryan and referred to him in the third person.
"Yes, sir. Come now, Ryan — say hello. This is Count Wall—"
*Clap.*
Before his mother could finish, the Count's hand struck her across the cheek.
Ryan lunged to steady her as she staggered. The man who had struck her calmly produced a handkerchief and wiped his palm — the way one cleans a hand after touching something unpleasant.
"Who gave you permission to speak my name?"
"I — forgive me. I'm so sorry."
She had been the one struck. She was the one apologizing.
Ryan held his mother upright and stared at the man with cold, quiet hatred. He was only a boy, but he'd grown up fighting in those alleys — older boys, bigger ones from neighboring streets. He'd beaten them before. That same hardness was in his gaze now, and Count Wallace **flinched.**
Then, as if ashamed that a child had made him falter, he raised his cane to strike.
Ryan caught it.
He wrapped his hand around the shaft and held firm, meeting the Count's eyes without blinking.
"You — *bastard!*"
Wallace yanked at the cane. Ryan did not let go.
"Who are you?! How dare you — who raised you to behave like this!"
"I'm sorry! Please, I'll handle him — Ryan, stop it! This gentleman is—"
His mother stepped between them, glancing desperately from Ryan to the Count, unable to finish her sentence.
She didn't need to. The hesitation in her eyes said everything.
Ryan looked at the man again — really looked. The thick black hair. The blue eyes. The stubborn set of the mouth that his friends had always said made Ryan look arrogant without trying.
*His father. Alive.*
The Count studied him in return. Unlike Ryan, he had already composed himself.
"As reported. He resembles me."
"*Reported?*"
"That's right. Word reached me that a stranger had been asking questions around this alley."
Ryan hadn't paid it much mind at the time. Now it fell into place — the Count's men, watching him.
*Why would he suddenly want to know about me?*
For as long as Ryan could remember, his father had simply not existed. Some nameless man had fathered him and vanished, and the shame of it had driven his mother from her village into the city, into a crowd of women just like her. Their lives there were no easier — no land to farm, only factory floors and disdainful looks and wages that barely kept them alive.
To escape it, his mother had married a gravedigger. An old man, neither kind nor cruel, who gave Ryan his surname — **Wilgrave** — and a roof, but never a seat in a schoolroom. Ryan hadn't complained. A roof and meals were more than they'd had before.
So they had lived quietly, and he had made his peace with a life that held no father.
He could not understand why one was appearing now.
Then Count Wallace spoke.
"You will do something in place of my son."
His tone made the meaning absolute.
*You are not my son. Not in any way that counts.*
---
## — The River —
Ryan exhaled — long and slow — and stared up through the canopy.
He was lying beneath an enormous tree, wide enough that five grown men could not have wrapped their arms around its trunk. The dense foliage cast a deep, generous shadow, and only fragments of sky showed through.
It was still spring. His wet clothes had gone cold in the shade. He could shift a few feet — move into the sunlight just beside him.
He looked at it.
He didn't move.
His mind was clear. His body was fine. But the will to do anything at all simply wasn't there.
A military physician in the capital had called it an unstable mental state.
*That's why I came here. To recover.*
But this quiet countryside — which was supposed to bring peace — had stirred nothing in him for an entire week. If anything, the stillness made it worse. Silence left too much room for thought, and his thoughts returned, always, to the war.
That was natural. Since Count Wallace had found him again at the age of ten, had there been room in his life for anything besides the army?
He lay there, wet and motionless, until a dull and practical thought finally surfaced.
*When did I last eat?*
"A day... maybe two?"
Mrs. Parker had been fretting so visibly that he'd taken to pretending — moving food around his plate, quietly disposing of it when she wasn't looking, just to spare her the alarm of summoning a doctor from Cambon. That had been the day before yesterday.
**Over two days without eating.**
He knew it wasn't normal. He knew something was wrong. But knowing and feeling compelled to act on it were entirely different things, and the latter seemed wholly beyond his reach.
He was still lying there, cold and numb, when the sound of approaching wheels drifted down from the road above.
*Someone heading to Blissbury.*
Since arriving, he'd endured a steady procession of visitors — people who claimed to be merely passing through, dropping in on a whim, yet somehow always found their way specifically to him. He had long since stopped pretending otherwise.
This one was likely the same.
He had no intention of making himself visible. Meeting anyone right now would only be a burden. He would wait quietly where he was.
The carriage slowed. Stopped.
Then a woman's voice — low and distinctly put-upon — carried through the trees.
"Sergeant Thornton, I genuinely do not want to meet that man..."
Ryan went still.
He sat up slowly.
*A person who, unlike all the others, sincerely does not want to see me.*
He turned toward the sound.
In a sunlit gap between the trees stood a young woman with light brown hair pulled neatly into a bun. Perhaps it was the angle of the light — the way it caught her just so — but something about the sight made him pause. He blinked, then blinked again.
While he stared, faintly bewildered, she climbed down from the cart and began rummaging in a basket tucked under the seat, muttering under her breath.
"Mother told me to give it to him... but this apple pie is *so good.* Why should *he* get it? I could just eat it here. Right now. No one would ever know."
Ryan stared at her.
*This woman is genuinely considering eating his apple pie — in secret, on the side of the road — rather than delivering it to him.*