Candice washed her body, every place where he had kissed her and made love to her. She was numb and feeling so lost, "Now what am I supposed to do?" she thought aloud. She dressed herself slowly and deliberately as she tied a pink ribbon in her hair. She could not help but wonder if her circumstances would change once again.
The mansion felt different somehow; it felt vacant, empty and devoid of expression. It seemed to lose life just as soon as he left or maybe she felt she lost something precious when he left her.
Her heart clenched in pain when she remembered the words he had written eventhough he had been honest about how he felt.
Cassius's home had once upon a time felt warm with his low laughter and the subtle weight of his presence lingering in every corridor. However, now it felt like a graveyard, the silence was deafening, every archway echoed sound too loudly, and the candles burned silently.
She stood in the great hall with her fingers curled into fists as she refused to let the tears that had gathered in her eyes fall. She could hear the servants whisper.
"Master has gone...left her to fend for herself. When will he return?" some asked and others simply shrugged their shoulders not knowing what to say.
Candice groaned softly and closed her eyes briefly as she thought of the rumours that would surely follow as he had left without informing when, where or how long he would be gone for.
Behind her, Miss Harcourt cleared her throat softly.
"My lady," her governess said gently, "perhaps you should rest for a while. You have been on your feet since morning."
Candice nodded slowly although she felt tired her body had refused to rest. Her heart ached, it was heavy and sore for it had been bruised after loving too deeply.
She allowed Miss Harcourt to guide her toward the drawing room, where the afternoon light came through the tall windows and fell across the divan. She sat on the divan with her legs up on its seat. Cassius's favourite chair sat by the fireplace, untouched, its black leather still shone after being polished.
She did not look at it for long.
Her father entered the drawing room then, his steps slower, his shoulders stooped and his countenance pale. He had come immediately for her as soon as he had received her letter that Cassius had left her. Lord Edmund Whitcombe always had a commanding presence about him. Now, as he entered the drawing room and looked at his daughter, his eyes softened with regret, thinking of whom he had given her away to. He wanted to shoot Cassius for leaving her so abruptly, but where was he supposed to start looking for the wretched brute of a man?
"My sweet girl, I am so sorry," he said quietly.
Candice rose, and for the first time since Cassius had left, she allowed herself to be held. Her father's arms were solid, familiar, and when she pressed her face against his coat, the scent of brandy and old papers clung to him.
"I should have protected you," he murmured into her hair. "I should never have allowed him to marry you like this, only to leave you alone."
She shook her head slightly, though she did not pull away. "He did not mean to hurt me," she said, in his defense. "He believed he was protecting me, freeing me."
Miss Harcourt watched father and daughter from her chair, hands folded neatly in her lap, her expression calm but pained. She had raised Candice from the age of eight, taught her how to read poetry, how to speak with grace, how to guard her heart and yet, no lesson could have prepared her for this particular kind of wound. She felt guilty even if it was not hers to bear.
That evening, they dined together in the smaller dining room. The servants spoke little and Candice barely touched her food. Every clink of fine china felt too loud and too sharp; it served to remind her how, amidst the silence, she felt hollow and empty.
When night fell, Candice went to the bedchamber where she had last slept with him.
It was there that she had last felt his presence, and now she needed to hold onto the last memory of him.
His cloak still hung behind the door. His books remained stacked on the side table, pages marked where he had last read beside her. She sat on the edge of the bed, hands pressed flat against the mattress, remembering how his warmth had once lingered there long after dawn.
Why was love so cruel? It was present in one moment and wrenched from her in the next moment.
She did not cry at first. She had cried enough on the first day, when the letter had been all she had left of him. Words written with care and pain, promising love even in absence, promising protection through distance. Promises that felt hollow now, when every hour without him stretched endlessly as though punishing her for losing him to another.
It was Miss Harcourt who came to her later, carrying a small tray of tea and buttered bread with strawberry jam.
"You do not need to act strong with me," her governess said quietly, setting the tray aside. "You never have."
That was when Candice broke.
She covered her face with her hands, shoulders shaking as sobs tore free from her chest. Miss Harcourt sat beside her and drew her into an embrace that felt the same since she was a child, like safety. She stroked Candice's hair slowly, the way she had when Candice was small and frightened of storms.
"I loved him," Candice whispered through her tears. "I still do and I do not know how to live in the world now that he chose to leave it."
Miss Harcourt did not offer false hope. She did not say time would heal all wounds or that Cassius would return. Instead, she said, "Then for now, your father and I. We will stay here with you. We will not leave you alone."
True to her word, the days that followed were shaped by quiet companionship.
Lord Edmund took to walking the gardens with Candice in the mornings, pointing out pink roses and speaking softly of her mother and of her resilience. Miss Harcourt read to her in the afternoons, sometimes poetry, or stories that she took from Cassius's library.
Slowly, Candice began to reclaim pieces of herself.
She played the pianoforte again, though her fingers trembled. She wrote letters she never sent to him. She wandered the halls of the mansion, no longer avoiding the spaces Cassius had once filled, but acknowledging them as part of her story rather than the end of it.
The house did not feel empty anymore.
It felt watchful, patient, as though it understood grief and was willing to endure it with her.
One evening, Candice stood at the window of the great hall, watching the sun set beyond the mountains. She pressed a hand to the glass, her reflection pale but she felt steadier than before.
"I will live through this," she said softly.
She still loved Cassius. That love had not vanished with his absence but she was learning that the grief of losing love did not have to destroy her and in the presence of those who chose to remain with her, Candice found solace.