The years did not rush.
They unfolded.
Autumn bled into winter. Winter softened into spring. Spring opened into long, gold-washed summers. And each season laid another quiet layer upon the lives within De Montfort.
The Duke's absence, once sharp and startling, settled into something almost ordinary — not because it hurt less, but because life, stubborn and relentless, insisted on continuing.
Letters arrived with steady regularity.
They came creased from travel, wax dulled by weather, ink sometimes faintly smudged by rain or gloved hands. Yet Theodore's handwriting remained firm and unmistakable — disciplined even at a distance.
Charlotte always read them first in private.
She would stand beside the tall mullioned windows in her sitting room, pale light falling across her composed features, and read in silence. Only once her expression had steadied fully would she descend to supper and read the letter aloud.
Her voice never trembled, posture never faltered.
Yet there were evenings when she lingered by the windows long after candles had burned low, gaze fixed upon horizons too distant to measure.
The house, however, did not pause. Children grow whether war waits or not.
Laurence
At eleven, Laurence had stood at the terrace watching his father ride away.
He had not cried.
He had not called out.
He had stood tall, jaw set, shoulders squared as though absorbing something unseen and irrevocable.
At twelve, something in him began to sharpen.
The boyish softness in his features receded. His jawline grew more defined; cheekbones more pronounced. His limbs lengthened steadily — awkward for a season, elbows and knees appearing before coordination caught up — then settling into proportion.
By thirteen, he stood noticeably taller than Maxim and nearly level with Charlotte.
By fourteen, he surpassed her fully.
Training intensified in Theodore's absence.
Instructors were stricter, sharper, less forgiving — as if determined that distance would not produce weakness. Laurence met every demand without complaint. He rose before dawn, breath clouding in winter air, blade flashing in cold light.
His body did not broaden like his father's.
It refined.
Muscle formed along his arms and shoulders — lean, defined, deliberate. He was not stocky or heavy. He was sculpted. Controlled. Efficient.
His movements changed.
Where once he had walked like a boy imitating command, he began to carry it naturally. He did not raise his voice. He did not demand attention.
Yet when he entered a room, servants no longer looked past him toward adult authority.
They looked to him.
He noticed everything.
Accounts. Tenants' expressions. The condition of the stables. The timing of harvest deliveries.
He did not yet interfere. But he observed.
Stored. Measured.
And when he spoke, his voice had deepened just enough that it no longer cracked under emotion.
Sophia noticed most of all.
At two years old, she no longer crawled but ran — slightly unsteady, curls bouncing wildly behind her. She still sought Laurence first in every room.
If he stood at the far end of the hall, she crossed it.
If he knelt in the gardens, she abandoned her toys.
But now, when he lifted her, she had grown heavier.
And he had grown stronger.
He carried her easily.
She would press her small hand against his cheek sometimes — as she had done in infancy — and study him with quiet concentration, as though cataloguing the changes.
"You are taller," she once informed him gravely at three.
"Yes," he replied.
"Will you stop?"
"No." a slight grin formed on the corner of his lips.
She considered this with solemn dissatisfaction.
Maxim
Maxim matured differently.
Where Laurence's growth was visible in stature and aura, Maxim's was visible in posture and restraint.
At nine, then ten, then eleven, he began accompanying Charlotte during estate rounds — not because he was required to, but because he asked.
He listened when stewards reported grain yields.
He stood still when tenants spoke of repairs.
He absorbed tone and practiced control.
His golden hair darkened slightly as he aged, though it retained its warm fairness. His features sharpened into thoughtful symmetry. He did not possess Laurence's quiet intensity — but he possessed steadiness.
If Arthur spoke out of turn, Maxim corrected him with a glance rather than a reprimand.
If Fredrick's curiosity edged toward irreverence, Maxim intervened gently.
He did not attempt to replace Laurence, instead looked to support him.
Already, the seeds of command were taking root — not flamboyant, not loud, but unwavering.
When younger children at tea parties quarrelled and could not find a resolution, they gravitated toward Maxim instinctively to help them solve their dispute. He did not shout. He did not threaten.
He simply stood and order returned.
Charlotte noticed.
Laurence noticed too.
They did not speak of it.
They did not need to.
Fredrick
Fredrick's mind accelerated.
At eight, he dismantled small mechanical clocks under supervision — and reassembled them correctly.
At nine, he began questioning why cannon trajectories curved instead of traveling straight.
At ten, he corrected a tutor's arithmetic mid-lesson — respectfully, but undeniably accurately.
His golden hair was finer than Maxim's, his eyes sharper, often distant as though calculating invisible equations. He spoke less in groups, but when he did, it was precise.
He asked about the physics of war in ways that unsettled Charlotte.
"How far does a musket ball travel?"
"What determines its path?"
"Is it wind or weight?"
"Does gravity favor the stronger?"
He did not ask from fascination with violence.
He asked from fascination with truth.
Sophia adored sitting beside him while he explained shapes and shadows and stars. She did not understand half of it, but she watched the way his eyes lit when ideas aligned.
She once told him solemnly, "Your thoughts are loud."
Fredrick blinked, considering.
"Yes," he agreed. "They are." pausing for a brief moment to contemplate on whether he should leave it at that or if a greater lesson is to be learned. The latter of course was an obvious choice to Fredrick.
"All great men think," he exclaimed, as if trying to convince Sophia of his greatness, "and to voice your thoughts aloud means one is not afraid of appearing wrong! You should be more critical of a man who does not share his thoughts, than one that does."
Sophia sipped her tea and stared into the distance. She wished she never said anything, because she knew how long Fredrick would ramble on and in the distance, outside the window she saw Laurence taking great strides across the garden while two aides followed behind him, asking for his opinion on estate matters.
Fredrick not quite taking the hint continued, "If you ever come across a man who isn't sharing his thoughts and just stands there listening or always nodding in agreement, then he has no thoughts nor spine and is not a man worthy of any ladies time." his frustrations were now starting to show, for he did not want Sophia's fate to placed with such a man.
"Or he is hiding something!" Fredrick exclaimed.
"Like what?" Sophia asked in amusement.
Fredrick again went into deep thought, for he didn't know yet what a man could hide. He was still a boy despite trying to appear like a knowledgeable scholar.
"I'll have to investigate..." was his last response as he pondered over such a simple question.
Arthur
Arthur grew wilder.
Not cruel, nor disobedient.
But restless.
Without the Duke's imposing presence, his energy expanded like an untethered sail. He climbed trees higher than permitted. He ventured closer to estate boundaries than allowed. He spoke of distant lands with romantic conviction.
"I shall travel," he declared at six, standing atop a hay bale as if addressing Parliament. "Farther than Father ever rode. Across hills, mountains and valleys, on horseback! Eastwards!" as he pointed his index finger west.
Maxim rolled his eyes.
Fredrick corrected his geography.
Laurence simply watched.
Arthur's spirit was not reckless.
It was curious.
And curiosity, in some sons, could not be contained by stone walls.
Sophia followed Arthur often — though Maxim ensured she did not follow too far.
By three, her features had begun to refine.
Her curls fell longer now, darker at the roots. Her eyes — warm brown flecked with amber — held expression far beyond her years. She did not speak excessively, but when she did, her words were deliberate.
She observed before she reacted.
Absorbed before she responded.
Sophia
If Laurence was winter and the golden brothers were summer, Sophia became something in between.
She did not resemble Charlotte physically — her coloring remained distinct — yet she carried Charlotte's elegance instinctively. By four, she sat straight without being told. She listened carefully before speaking. She studied conversations before entering them.
She had Arthur's curiosity.
Fredrick's quiet focus.
Maxim's composure.
And something uniquely her own — a softness that drew attention without demanding it.
When Laurence entered a room, she turned.
Always.
Not dramatically.
Simply as if aligning herself to a compass.
By fourteen, Laurence stood significantly above Charlotte, shoulders clearly broad, arms defined by relentless training. He moved economically — nothing wasted.
And yet, when Sophia ran toward him across the lawn, he still bent to catch her.
Still lifted her, allowing her to cling.
The difference now was subtle but undeniable.
She no longer fit against him as a small child alone.
She fit as someone growing alongside him.
Her legs were longer, arms stronger and laughter clearer.
And when she leaned into him, it was no longer merely dependence.
It was attachment.
The estate changed quietly with them.
Corridors once filled with childish chaos now carried measured footsteps and structured lessons. Gardens still rang with laughter, but it was layered now — deeper, more complex.
Summer light spilled across the lawns as it always had.
Winter frost still traced the windows.
But beneath the rhythm of seasons, something else moved steadily forward.
Laurences sixteenth year approached.
The conversation could no longer be delayed.
Boarding school.
Then university.
Laurence listened when Charlotte explained.
He did not protest.
He did not argue.
He understood what inheritance required.
Sophia did not.
She stood very still during the conversation, small hands clasped tightly before her, eyes fixed upon Laurence as though trying to determine whether this was another passing matter — like harvest accounts — or something larger.
He met her gaze.
And for the first time in years, something unguarded flickered in his expression.
He had grown into command.
Into stature.
Into inevitability.
But in that moment, beneath the weight of expectation and future, he felt the quiet ache of something he had not allowed himself to name.
Departure.
The seasons had unfolded gently.
But now —
They were about to turn.