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The Hollow Months

conrad oxford x reader summary: loss has changed the trajectory of your life in ways you are still only beginning to understand, but forces outside of your control will not allow you to grieve forever a complete (mostly) canon compliant rewrite of the king's man (no knowledge of the movie is necessary to read) tags: period misogyny, grief, swearing, descriptions of violence, unresolved sexual tension, angst rating: mature | wc: 8.3k a/n: i have so much research on random things that only appear in a sentence or two (including a very badly hand-drawn family tree of the oxfords). george remains my favourite character to write. @batchilla is the best beta reader ever and any mistakes are mine part 4 | series masterlist | ao3

The king attends Conrad's funeral. A relative not so far removed as to not deserve the honour, but not so well loved as to have earned the privilege in life. Rippled murmurs accompany the man's entrance but you sit, unmoved, in the church pew. Too late, whispers a voice in your head. It sounds suspiciously like Conrad's.

The service is beautiful. Beautiful but terrible. Conrad's father speaks, rages really. My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: That it is sweet and proper to die for one's country.His anger is contagious, dripping cold rage like poison into your ears. Not even a year ago you sat in this same church, in the same mourning clothes, only now you are not seated up front with the family. You should be.

You do not weep this time. All of your tears have already been spent. There is no need for the lace edged handkerchief pressed into your hand with a worried look by your mother's lady maid this morning. It simply gathers more wrinkles in your loosely clutched fists. There is no burial. What is left of him has already been laid to rest in France.

A shell, Polly had told you, tall backed and watery eyed. He went back to save one of his wounded men. He didn't— he didn't make it back but Lance Corporal Reid did.

How badly did it hurt, you wonder. A shell, an explosive tearing his body apart at the seams, scattering him into pieces. Was it quick? You press your fingers into your shoulder, remembering the aching concussive force of the rifle’s kickback, Conrad’s smiling face praising you for a job well done. That same force tearing inwards, shattering bone and rending the soft flesh of his smile in two.

The idiot had gotten the Victoria Cross. Had made everyone so proud, you think to yourself wryly. What a barren comfort it is. It very nearly touches your shroud wrapped husk of a heart.

Ever since Polly had torn up the world as you knew it by the roots with a single sentence, a cold, cottony detachment had wrapped its way around you. Sound travels from a great distance to reach your ears. Your body moves on it's own, marionnetted by a force of will you do not understand nor have the interest to examine further. Food is tasteless. Shovelled into your mouth at the behest of your mother's needling. Numbness shrouds you from the world so much that all is missing is a coffin of your own. A ghost that doesn't understand how it's still living.

Time, so much, time. Stretching out in front of you in an endless road that you must walk alone now. Years for you to finish growing up, grow old while Georgie and Conrad never see twenty. Grass will grow thick over the graves they aren't in. Your back will bow, hairs turn to gray, hands grow weak and wrinkled while they'll be cursed to eternal youth. After a decade or five, will you even remember their faces properly? Their voices? Aren't you blessed to have so much fucking time?

It is a gift you do not want and so you squander it. Allow the days to run into each other in a haze of curious detachment and listless misery. Day runs into night into dawn into evening. It is a curious, shadowy realm you find yourself in, one where reality does not press down like shattering glass for every stolen inhale.

You'll miss him when he's gone, like there's no air but you're still breathing.

Those moments, the ones where reality lies thin, that's when you dream. Awful, wonderful dreams where the figures lurking at the corners of your vision aren't just your wishful projections but real. Dead, your boys are more alive than you are still living. The laughter isn't only in your head but ringing through empty rooms, the steady presence at your side not the bastard child of memory and delusion but physically there.

Living like this, the ghosts more real than the people fussing over you, is a heady dangerous thing. You know this, and yet you can't let them go. You speak and you can hear their responses, know the exact phrases they'd say. It's not enough. Replaying the same conversations, imagining words that never came out of their mouths, it grows to ring hollow. Insubstantial. Their ghosts growing into the pale shades of your own wants, not the men they were. Should still be. Aren't.

You need something real. Tangible. Leftover evidence that they existed outside of the foggy mists of your grief. That once there was laughter. Your hand rests on the door knob of Georgie's room. The door doesn't open.

Is it bravery or just the desire to poke at an open wound to savour the pain as proof of existence that sends you to the Oxford estate? You have no answer. It remains though that into the first flush of spring you step, trembling hands folded tight.

The sun is blinding. It shouldn't be. It should have gone grey and dull and weak the same way your world has been drained of all vitality. The journey takes too long and yet not long enough because far too soon Shola is opening the door to you and Polly is unlocking the door to Conrad's room.

Time has frozen here. The months, weeks, minutes do not unspool at a breakneck pace here the way they do for you, carrying you off in the current. It feels like the most awful invasion of his privacy to be here now when you had never been allowed in during his short life but here you are. Polly had taken one look at the gaunt hollows of your eyes, your picked at hangnails and cracked lips and sighed before bringing you here. None of your ghosts follow you here, to this place. To this room, echoing mausoleum like.

Not a speck of dust dares mar the space and yet it feels ready, waiting for its occupant to one day return. A perfect, crystalline moment that will never come. The clocks will never tick forward in this room. Fresh flowers might be exchanged for the dying ones on the desk, a perfect, constant loop. The wicker chaise will never have its new damask cushions creased by the weight of its inhabitant. Light from the windows will never fade the print of the pale green wallpaper because the curtains will never be thrown open again.

Nearly dizzy with the thought of Conrad's last days preserved in the amber stillness of the room, you stagger to the window. Your fingers dig into the painted white lip as you steady yourself, the soft white fabric bunching thick in your fists momentarily before you are blinded by the light. It cuts through the gloom, a silent inhale at the reminder of the world beyond. You pant as though the light exertion was something monumental. It feels like it was.

Under the new light, the thick air of melancholy is alchemized into something desperately wistful, or perhaps that is merely the projection of your own feelings onto the canvas of the room. What you had before taken for a rumpled cushion on the chaise is revealed to be a stuffed bear. A few tentative strides, and then gingerly you are picking it up. It's velveteen nose is rubbed nearly bare and one of it's arms hangs rather awkwardly but it is loved, so clearly well loved. The worn fabric under your palms sends a dull pang of something through your chest, the cotton wool of your own grief too thick for you to identify the emotion. With reverence, you place the toy exactly as it had been left by its owner.

Eyes wandering to the side table, you reach next for the small picture frame settled upon it. The metal of the tintype is cool to the touch. A woman, her dark hair piled high on her head cradles a swaddled baby in her arms. She looks at the child with such palpable devotion that not even the paintings of the apostles decorating the local church can compare. This must be Emily, you think, ghosting a finger over the image of her gentle face. And Conrad. Grief has long been a resident of this house.

Next to the picture's pride of place is a carved ivory box, scrimshaw work carved so delicately it seems unnatural. Inside the box lies a rope of pearls, the same as the ones worn by the woman in the photo. Did Conrad do this too? Go looking for some trace of a life torn away to cling to, even as time and distance buffeted the memories of them around until they became worn down into nothingness? With a firm click, the lid of the box closes shut on that train of thought.

The bed covers are still rumpled. With a tentative hand you trace the wrinkled sheets, long gone cold from the warm body that made them. The irritatingly bright sun has found it's way in here too. Beams trace the books on the nightstand and so you give in to the urge to run your fingers over the pages that once knew his touch. Treasure Island, The Secret Garden, The Scarlet Pimpernel. Your fingers come to a stop on a familiar spine. The Collected Works of Propertius. There is no air in the room to breathe.

Fingers clenching spasmodically, you work up the courage to lift the book out from underneath the pile. Caress the worn clothbound cover, the embossed letters so familiar to you. You lift up the cover and your knees collapse from underneath you, only the edge of the bed saving you. There, in a hand so familiar to you from years of passing notes, is Conrad's name etched below yours.

Your hand goes to your mouth to muffle your gasp tears pricking hot and insistent at your eyes. Hands shaking, your world narrows down to the book in front of you as frantically you flip to the next page looking for more—

"What do you think you're doing?" The words crack through the air like a whip, soft and hurting.

Mouth dry, you nearly lose your grip on the book. Nearly.

Conrad's father stands in the doorway, knuckles white around the wooden frame. He is haggard, eyes bloodshot and scruff growing unevenly around his chin. There are suspicious stains on his smoking jacket. The Duke of Oxford is the very picture of unfettered grief.

"I'm sorry I— I was simply looking for a keepsake," you mumble, voice thin from disuse. Ghosts don't need words to be said aloud to hear them, after all. "I'll leave you in peace."

Book clutched to your chest, you move to brush past the haggard man. Whatever is left for you to discover of Conrad, his thoughts and unsaid words, that is a private bitter joy to swallow. Faster than you can follow, a hand reaches out and grasps at the book, your whole body rocking to a halt.

"Leave it," the Duke says. You tug on the book.

"No," you answer crossly. You tug again.

With a strength you did not think the wiry man possessed, the Duke attempts to wrestle the book out of your hands. You refuse to let him.

"I said leave it," he barks, more harshly this time. "It belonged to— to him and I will not have thieves take any more of him from me!"

"It's mine!" you cry, wrenching away with a gasp. Fingers scrabbling you open it up to the first page. "It was mine first—" your voice comes out a plaintive cry "—mine then his for only safe keeping."

The Duke pauses, then reaches for the book again, catching hold of the cover. Desperate you pull back, locked in a childish game of tug of war with one of the most distinguished peers of the realm. You feel the binding start to give.

"Stop! Stop it!" you shriek at him, tears blurring your vision. "Stop it will—"

A letter falls from the pages. Shocked, the Duke's hold weakens and with a cry you wrest the book from him. He is not quite fast enough to hide the sender's name, scribbled on the back of the envelope, from you.

"That's my brother's letter," you murmur, slack-jawed and awed.

"And that is my son's book," he replies. Scrubbing his hand over his face, he seems to arrive at a decision. "Come. I need a drink for this."

He takes off down the hallway, the letter still in his hand, his stumbling gait clearly the result of an obviously early start with the whisky bottle. The hard corners of the book dig into your chest, the cotton wool keeping the world at bay fraying under the pressures. You follow him.

The door to the Duke's study is ajar and the man has already knocked back a glass, the smell of the liquor wafting off of him. He pours another. Vaguely you remember seeing the same bottle in your own father's study, his murmured words about savouring only a few fingers of the expensive alcohol. The Duke does not savour. He only puts down the full tumbler long enough to careless tear the envelope open before settling back into his seat and taking a long draught.

He begins to read.

"Dear Brother,"

You cave and pour yourself your own drink, just as full as his. The first gulp burns as it slides down your throat, the first thing you've actually tasted in weeks. He clears his throat and starts again.

"Dear Brother,

There! I bet that got your attention didn't it? "Oh but George," you say, "we're not related at all!" To which I will reply, "Not yet we aren't!" Which I am sure clears up very little for you, for as much as I love you (like a brother! with the exception of the rhubarb custard incident which my darling little sister will NOT be hearing about), you can be quite blind to the obvious even when it has been staring you in the face. For years."

You choke out a laugh. It's Georgie, Georgie's voice clear as a bell. The Duke's slurred pronunciation does not hide your brother's dry wit or teasing tone, his voice blurring with the one that echoes at the edge of your sleep and through all of your memories.

"So. To help drag you into the light, I am going to be honest with you. Brutally and completely. I was not honest with Harry about many things before he died, and that will forever be to my regret. I do not want you to have that same regret.

Many months ago now, I gave you my blessing for something. Now, whatever you thought it was I was giving you my blessing for, I have no idea since you never actually did the thing I told you to do. I am going to plainly and clearly tell it to you now: I give you my blessing to marry my sister."

The alcohol burns as it's forced through your nose. You heave and hack through your surprise, the Duke pausing to turn a blearily drunken eye to your direction. He does not offer you help and you could not stand to be touched in this moment anyway.

"Now, I'm sure you're quite shocked by this!" the Duke continues. "But George, you say, still in denial. I haven't shown any interest in her, how can you immediately leap to marriage? To which I say, oh yes you have."

You stare pointedly at the empty fireplace grate, the weight of the Duke's stare heavy on your face. You take another drink and feel it finally start to take affect.

"You have been in love with my sister since at least you were 14. I'm fairly certain it was much, much earlier but I was away at school and you blasted fools never would explain half of your little anecdotes or private jokes and so I shall simply have to speculate in vain. At the very least I know you loved her in some measure when you lied for her about falling from the tree at 12 (yes, she did tell me about it)."

Tears fall in heavy, steady streams from your eyes. They splash onto the one hand still clutching the book to your chest, burning hot. Your glass is empty. You stand and pour yourself another one. The Duke thrusts out a hand with his own empty glass and you fill it too.

"I know that what you feel for her is not the simple affection you have for me for an endless list of reasons but I have a limited amount of paper and so I shall be brief. Whenever she walks into a room, your eyes immediately go to her. You are driven most often and most intensely to laughter by her (though I shall always contend that I am by far the more amusing sibling). You match her machinations with aplomb and mischief. You care about her enough to know her well. You have never met her wit and intelligence with anything but enthusiasm and interest. Where a lesser man might grow resentful for not being thought the smartest in the room, you meet her with excitement. You notice her little habits and mannerisms and fuss when you notice a change in their patterns. You wish for her happiness constantly and you go to great lengths to assure it. You — and I shudder to think on this too long — are deeply affected by her presence and attentions.

You idiot. You fool. Conrad Oxford you are deeply and irrevocably in love with my sister and it is high time you realized it. TELL HER.

If she writes me one more time in tears lamenting how loving you pains her, brotherly affection be damned I shall have to knock your block off. Please see that it doesn't come to that. If this war has taught me anything, it is that life is too short and fleeting to waste time pretending love does not exist where it so clearly does. Love her well for me won't you?

Your future brother,

George d'Orcy

P. S. Please only name your first daughter after me as two Georges will simply be confusing."

You weep. Openly. For the first time since Conrad had died, you cry, Georgie's words having cut you open. Filleted and wriggling around in the rotting remains of the woollen indifference that had kept you whole.

"I don't— but Georgie said— he said—" the words are garbled, strangled noises, not true speech at all.

"Is it true?" Conrad's father asks. "Did he love you?"

"I don't— I don't know!" you wail, cut crystal glass tumbling from your hand to roll on the carpet. You clutch at the book, the fine weave of the cloth embossing itself into your skin. "Georgie— Georgie said he was going to— to write to him and if Conrad didn't— didn't feel the same he wasn't to say anything so we could keep on being friends. Only— only Georgie never wrote that and— and Conrad never read it. I don't know."

A tear drips onto the back of your hand, rolling off too quickly for you to catch it before it damps the worn edges of the book. Scrabbling through your pockets you locate your handkerchief and try to stem the tide. The embroidered initials catch under the pads of your fingers. C.O. A kind gesture given but never returned in the wake of your brother's departure.

"I don't know," you mumble over and over again until the words of lost their meaning and are simply first of air across your tongue. Hugging the book to your body, you rock back-and-forth in the beautifully upholster seat. The full glass makes a clinking noise as it is set on the table beside you. You sob yourself wretched.

"How do you— how do you keep on living?" you manage to ask finally. "When the ones that you love the most are gone?" You do not draw attention to the tears streaming down the Duke's face or the way that the light makes the portrait of Conrad's mother over the empty fireplace glimmer with unshed tears. "Because I've got nothing left, no hidden corner of the soul for respite where their lives have not changed mine." You sigh, fingers tightening in the damp handkerchief, the book perched in your lap. "All that love, rotting inside me into grief. And I can't wish it away because that would mean to never love them at all. But I don't know what to do with it, all that grief."

The moment stretches out, not quite the taut pull of a bow string, but the long drawing of water out of the well.

"You drink," he settles on finally. "So that the grieving doesn't hurt and the forgetting doesn't kill you."

Polly finds you in the paddock, mud and grass staining your skirts as you stare up at the too blue sky. Everything is amusing. Polly's long suffering expression, the whuffle of Morgana's whiskered muzzle as the mare roots around the crown of your head. It's been ages since that beautiful bottle of whiskey had emptied but still you feel it keeping you warm in the spring air, a fermented giddiness that keeps your skin buzzing. The car ride home nearly sees you sicking up at the side of the road. You laugh at your mother's horrified expression, her angry words about smelling like a distillery. All so amusing.

What is less amusing without the fresh glow of alcohol replacing the shroud that you had spent the last few weeks experiencing the world through, is the splitting headache. Your mother's lady maid forces an absolutely vile concoction down your throat that at least does you some good in return and then forces you down to take tea with the absolutely last person you wish to speak with. Blessedly your mother holds her tongue until you have downed enough cups of tea to resemble something marginally human. The toast, you decide, is a step too adventurous when she begins to speak.

"We missed you at lunch yesterday," she says over the top of her teacup. "And at tea." The question of where were you goes unsaid.

"I was….out," is what you settle on, eager to avoid the interrogation you know must be coming.

She sets down the teacup. "You went missing. For hours. No one knew where you were or if you were— if you were safe." Her lower lip wobbles. "And then you come home, three sheets to the wind and smelling of a distillery with the Oxfords' nanny of all people who took great pains to offer His Grace's apologies for returning you in that state." She settles her hand over yours, gaze softening. "There was mud on your skirts. One of your petticoats was torn."

Heat gathers under your collar. You can see the vast amorphous shape of her worries but you do not know how to assuage her fears.

"Georgie wrote Conrad a letter and the Duke offered me a glass of something to steady my nerves enough to read it. I must have over done it but that is all," you tell her.

"There are not many options," she continues, eyes still so horrifically gentle, "but if he has hurt you, if he has taken any liberties—"

"That is all," you insist more firmly. "I must have slipped in the mud walking to the paddock to see one of the Oxfords' mares but nothing worse than a drunken fall." You take her clammy hands in yours and squeeze. "I swear it."

She smiles back at you thinly. It almost seems as if she will start to cry when suddenly she snaps her head to the side with a gasp, shaking her head as if to clear it. She pours herself a new cup of tea.

"So—" she clears her throat. "So, there was a letter from George, was there?"

Heat floods your face, echoing the blood thrum in your head. This is a decidedly safer awkwardness to face.

"The Marquess Bolebec never read it but Georgie was urging him to— to propose," you murmur the words, eyes lowered. Your fingers pick at the toast, crumbs falling away.

"Oh darling," she sighs and there really isn't much more to be said.

Shola is the one that makes the trek to your house this time. If it had been Polly, you aren't quite sure that your mother would have let her in. But Shola is allowed entry and it is Shola that in his own stoic way summons you back.

"Morgana refuses to eat." He stands in the drawing room, tails immaculate and back straight. Still the miasma of grief clings to him.

"I don't know that I'm understanding your point. What is that to do with me?" you ask, reluctant to go back to that haunted house.

"She has refused her feed from the day that you came to visit her," he insists. Your stomach bottoms out. "I would not impose to ask such a favour if I did not think it was necessary. Please. She is all that His Grace has left of his wife. His son."

You look down at your hands. The handkerchief, laundered many times over and tucked up your sleeve. It is not such a very hard choice after all.

Morgana is very pleased to see you. If not for the skeptical looks the stablemaster and Shola give you, you'd almost think the tales of her sullen behaviour were greatly exaggerated. She is warm an solid under your hands, her lips twitching with an uncomplicated joy as you scratch behind her ears, take a hard brush to her short coat. You are here, and so she is content. You stand by her stall and keep her company and she is happy to eat. It is such a simple thing to make her happy, an ease that seems so foreign to you now.

Agreeing to come back is even easier than it was to agree to try. The unspoken, well-known fondness you have for the mare driving you out of your bed and the sticky clinging malaise of melancholia into the fresh air. Not every day, for that would be far, far too much. Propriety strains and bends under the mere thought. But every three days you will visit, spend time with Morgana's warm horsey smell filling your nose, her contented huffs and sighs a soft balm on the newly exposed edges of your self. She requires nothing more from you, no manners or sense of self-restraint. Wind tangling up your hair from riding Morgana bareback, it is almost like being a child again.

America enters the war. Your father murmurs the news over breakfast on bruse summer morning but you are fare more interested in slipping away as quietly as possible. One day the war will end but you've already paid a far too steep price. The sun beats down brutally for the first time that summer. The berries rot on the vines or are eagerly snapped up by wild creatures. You are not one of them any longer but with your hands tangled in Morgana's mane you feel a little less civilized.

Polly is the one waiting at the front of the house, hands folded primly in front of her. She invites you in to the house proper, lures you more like, with the promise of a wet towel and a cool drink. She treats you with a firmness that borders on brusqueness but that has always been her way and so you appreciate more than any coddling pity. Polly sits with you in the sunroom, will not have you tracking mud and horseshit through the house proper, but she says nothing about the animal smell your sweat has no doubt clung to you.

The glass of lemonade is cool where you press it to the nape of your neck, perspiration beading on the glass. It goes down far more easily than the liquor had. With the back of your hand you feel your cheeks and tut at the dry, feverish heat. A hat would probably have you saved you some but alas. Polly hands you a dampened cloth without speaking. A cloud passes by the window, bloated obscenely in the heat of the day against the cerulean of the sky.

"Dear, what have you done with the report—" the Duke comes to a sudden, shocked standstill at the realization that Polly is not alone. "Oh. What are you doing in my house?"

You throw back the dregs of your lemonade, grittily sweet from where all the sugar has settled at the bottom and Polly kindly refills your cup.

“I told Conrad I’d haunt him if he died before keeping a promise to me, but it seems like I’ve only got you left to haunt,” you tell him flatly.

Polly snorts. "If you'd paid attention to anything beyond the bottom of your bottle, you'd have realized that the young miss is over regularly to get that spoiled mare to eat."

"—I see," the man mumbles wrong footedly.

"Oh leave the girl be," Polly dismisses him — him! — and without another word he turns and awkwardly shuffles from the room. "Take your time dear, that'll teach him to pay more attention to the state of his household. Would you like a biscuit?"

Lemonade and biscuits with Polly becomes rather a routine part of your days with Morgana. Another reason to leave the suffocating clutches of your room fogged heavy with memories and half-remembered dreams. She does not talk, much, and neither do you, but there is a kind of silent comradeship built on your long years of acquaintance through those that no longer visit with you. When the two of you do converse, she asks about your studies. If you had kept up with your translations and your reading for she had remembered your interest. To your shame, you admit that you haven't. Polly simply smiles and brings a slim collection of poetry to your next teatime.

It is too late for bluebells now. Their flowering season has ended, all the blooms withered away on their stalks. You murmur a quiet apology to Georgie as you lay the harebells down on his grave. If he has any complaints on the matter, he keeps them to himself.

"I miss you Georgie," you tell him. Only the wind answers back.

"I miss you so, so much. I'm sorry it took so long for me to come back. Isn't it funny? We spent so much of our lives apart — you away at school, then at war — and now that you're right here in the village I haven't been down to see you for, oh it must be months now." The wind in the tree branches echoes like a laugh. His laugh.

"I don't— I don't know how to go on without you missing like a limb," you confess. The wind tugs at the hat on your head and you have to clutch at it before it goes free.

"But I think— I think I have to find a way back to the living now Georgie. I've got to live this life for the both of us, see, and I've been doing a rotten job of it so far. You wrote to me, once, that I wasn't to fret over you so much that I forgot to live my own life. If you could see what an awful job I've done at following your instructions, you'd probably rip into me something dreadful. But I'm trying now, Georgie, I'm trying. For you. For us."

The wind whips away the tears that have started to fall unconsciously from your eyes. It seems that ever since the dam has broke, the gauze fallen from your eyes, the tears have been impossible to stop.

You sit there for the rest of the visit in silence, finally feeling the warmth of the summer sun on your skin. The bees hum as they hover flower to flower, the birds in the trees break out into period song. One day, you hope to have the strength to make this trek to the other side of the cemetery, to sit in silence with Conrad in the same way, at peace if not in joy.

Months have passed and it is only now that you have worked up the fortitude to once more crack open the collected works of Propertius that had once been yours, then his, then yours again. You laugh even through your tears at his near illegible scrawl, questions and half-wrong translations mixed in with jokes and ruminations of his own. It is this book that you bring with you one, many days, until the courage to bring it fourth finds you and you pass it to Polly, shy now at her reaction.

Polly accepts the book with a smile that very quickly drops off her face as she flips open the cover. She says very little, shocked for the first time you've known her, into silence.

"It was mine," you hasten to explain. "And I lent it to him when I thought I'd be having…different kinds of lessons."

"Oh," she replies, blinking rapidly. "Have you read it yet?"

"I did," you nod vigorously, hands playing with the cool glass in your hands. "I thought you might like to as well."

She squeezes your hand firmly, once, then flips over to the next page.

Reading his notes again with Polly beside you is like rediscovering them all over again. She laughs at different parts than you had, or points out little things of interest that you had skimmed over, not understanding their importance. Polly traces over the words with her fingers, murmurs his words under her breath. With Polly, he becomes a living, breathing mind again.

Her finger comes to a stop at poem 15 and her brows raise into her hairline.

"My, these were certainly very…passionate poems the two of you were exchanging," she comments. You can feel a creeping heat working it's way up your neck and cheeks.

"Purely for intellectual purposes, to practice Latin translation," you say, defensive.

"I'm sure," she humours you, a sardonic twist to her grin. "Oh!"

"What is it?" You crane your neck over her shoulder for a better view of the pages.

"This—" she taps her finger on a phrase, underlined three times. "—I taught him this, to underline something three times while repeating it to remember it better."

huius ero vivus, mortuus huius ero

"I am this alive, dead I am this?" you sound out slowly.

"Close— hers am I living, hers will I be in death," she corrects you. Your mouth is suddenly dry.

"Oh. D'you think— do you think he liked the poems?" you ask nervously. You are almost afraid to know what her answer might be.

She settles you with a wry look. "I think he was very much in love with you, even if he didn't know it or how to say it. He gets that from his father."

The arrival of the Americans in England before they continue on to the Continent bring with it more and more letters from Mr. Thomassen that are promptly swept into the bin. The sky is blue, your brother and Conrad are dead, and the letters will not stop coming. Still they do not consume too much of your time. Polly has finally convinced you of the folly of knowing Latin and none of its modern counterpart and you are as eager to learn from her as she is to teach again. It is not so different as to be impossible but not so easy to render you bored.

You've had not quite a breakthrough but rather a shift in understanding in the night, one that you are excited to demonstrate for Polly. It gives you an energy to your step, an enthusiasm that brings with it a shade of who you used to be. The feeling is not the same as finally understanding Georgie's ramblings about motorcar engines or Conrad's laugh when you get to an answer faster than he can but it is close. The grief does not swallow you any less, the gaping hole in your chest still threatens to collapse in on you. But you have learned to live by skirting around those edges. To find the memories with sweetness still wrapped inside them and swallow them whole until their glow is brighter than the pit. To let that sweetness in the midst of all that sorrow find you.

Breakfast is the rushed affair it always is these days when you have the Oxford estate to look forward to. A flurr of moments, food shoveled into your mouth until your mother will nod in assent that you might excuse yourself. Today, you are nearly late and the reason why has you gritting your teeth in anger.

A visitor, unexpected and barely announced had interrupted just as you stood to leave, cloth napkin dropped onto your chair neatly. The odious Lucius Thomassen strolls in, hair just as shiny as his shoes and smile just as false.

"Oh I'm sorry to intrude—" the man clearly isn't. "—but I'm so glad to have caught you. I've been meaning to look in—"

"I'm sorry but I'm late for an engagement," you interrupt, unable to stand the man's presence a moment longer.

"Oh perhaps next—"

You do not stay long enough to hear the rest of his sentence though you know that there is nothing important that could ever come out of that man's mouth.

Polly is just as proud of you as you'd hoped but it does nothing to soothe the bee sting annoyance of the morning. Even Morgana's steadying presence is not enough to settle you. The memory of the last time you had seen the man, flanked by Georgie and Conrad sticks in your throat.

Scrubbed clean of the day and made presentable for dinner, you resolve to put the visit out of your mind unless it presented some kind of actual problem.

"That Mr. Thomassen, he seemed certain that he had sent you a rather steady stream of correspondence," your father remarks, cutting into his roast rabbit with economical motions.

"America is a long way off," you demure. "Post gets lost."

"Well then," he says. "Let us hope that the mail within England is far less susceptible to going astray."

You meet your mother's gaze. She simply turns away and takes a long, deep draught of her rich red wine.

"I am not certain that it is an acquaintance I wish to continue," you retort. The rabbbit tastes like dust in your mouth, fat a slimy choking film on your tongue.

"The man is rich, from a good family, and his business is set to grow even more with the contracts to supply the Americans with steel for the war. A bonafide war hero." The knife scrapes the plate, shiny with dripping fat. "Has he given any cause for offence?"

"Is my desire not to know him better not enough?" You ask, voice tight. Very precisely you put down your utensils.

"Not if the man has not actually done anything to inspire such a response," he returns, dabbing at his mouth primly.

"Georgie— Georgie hated him," you try. The footmen bring in the next course.

Your father sighs. "Your brother was a good boy. He would have hated any man showing serious interest in you, as a decent brother should. But he was your brother and as your father my duty is different. My duty is—"

"Dear, why don't we leave such heavy topics for a more appropriate time?" Your mother cuts in, staring idly down at her plate the whole while.

Nothing more is said for the rest of the meal.

Every bit of life you had clawed back for yourself slips through your fingers. You cannot enjoy any of it now, not when there is that nebulous sense of maybe hanging over your head at every moment. Morgana's presence is no longer comforting because it will come to an end. Polly's company, her teachings, cannot lighten your mood because you will always leave her behind at the end of the day. Leave and return to your house where Mr. Thomassen haunts you.

He has learned from his first day's blunder and now only returns on the days you do not spend at the Oxford estate. Someone must have informed him of social etiquette because his calls do not last longer than the appropriate time but each minute is a minute too long. The man looks at you with an arrogance that makes your hair stand on end. His patronising tone turns your answers short and monosyllabic. He feels entitled to your time and so he is. He desires your presence and so it is procured for him. Resistance is a many-layered spiky thing that cuts you as often as it cuts him.

"I was sorry to hear of your brother," he says one day that you cannot flee as you wish to. "Bit of a stickler for silly rules but I imagine he is missed."

"Georgie was very dear to me," you reply flatly.

He leans in conspiratorially and you lean back. " Well yes, I'm sure. But we can't really choose our relatives can we, and they must be dear to us all the same." He winks and you try to constrain your grimace.

It is on another trying day of entertaining his terrible jokes and assumptions of intimacy where there existed none that he brings up the subject of Conrad. Your mother sits at the other end of the room, going over the details of the week with her lady's maid Collins in a farcical illusion of privacy.

"Your friend…" he begins leadingly. You rise out of your chair and busy yourself with the tea tray. Anything not to look at his face as he brings up a topic that does not deserve to be sullied with his mouth.

"You'll have to be more specific I'm afraid— I've many." A lie, but he does not have to know it.

"The Duke— no Marquess, the one that was quite rude the few times we met?"

You stir your tea more vigorously.

"I am not in the habit of memorizing every person's attitude towards you," you retort.

"You will be," he mutters and you whirl around to face him, nostrils flaring.

"Pardon?"

"Maybe," he ventures with a slick look of thoughtfulness, "his name was Bolebec? The young man who claimed all of your dances that first night. In any case, I heard the man got himself blown up and yet they still awarded him some kind of medal! Standards must be slipping if even failed missions can get rewarded now." He chuckles but all you can see is red.

"He did not 'get himself blown up'," you grit through your teeth so violently that your mother's head snaps towards you. "He was killed trying to save another man's life and he is worth far more dead than you are alive!" With every word you jab your finger at his chest. Attempting to escape your accusatory words and fingers he scurries back until he hits the seat back.

"I believe it is time for your visit to end," your mother cuts in before you can unburden yourself anymore. "Collins will see you out."

The coward nods, lips pressed into a thin line, then follows Collins out of the room. Your mother turns back to you and gently clasps your balled fist in her hand. You are surprised to find that you are shaking. Wordlessly she unfurls your hand and the crescent moon marks left behind by your nails. She clucks in despair and that is what breaks you.

"Why— why is father pushing for him so hard?" you croak.

Your mother sighs, then squeezes your hands in hers. "He's never confided in me very much and so I can only guess." Your gaze slides away from hers to the floor but she gently grasps you by the chin until your eyes meet hers. "But if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that it has to do with George."

"Geor— what? I don't— I don't understand." She sighs again, long suffering.

"Your brother was not just my son or your sibling, he was your father's heir too. Now, there is no successor to the title Baronet d'Orcy and your father is not dealing well with the realization that as of now the line ends with him. More so than with the loss of George. Whoever your husband is — and if his Majesty allows it — will be given the title and I think— I think your father is terrified of this."

You swallow thickly against the bile rising in your throat. "So what, Mr. Thomassen—" you spit the name like an insult, "—is to be Father's replacement for George? Do I not even get a say in what the rest of my life is to be?"

"Obviously he sees something in the man that makes up for his other…deficiencies," she says. "Your father has always had an exaggerated sense of self and I'd wager he thinks he can train any undesirable traits out of him long before they become troublesome for you."

"This isn't— this isn't what I want," you whisper brokenly.

"No darling, this isn't what I'd want for you either," she sighs, heavily. Resignedly.

Anger, like acid, bubbles in your veins. Burns something horrid in the pit of your belly until you are blinded by it. You have never been allowed your rage, or your grief, unbounded. You have never been allowed to choose for yourself. It is almost laughably stupid to have ever thought that you would be allowed that courtesy of choice for something so momentous as this.

Grey skies and whipping winds reflect back your mood but you are uncaring of the warning signs. You run as fast as your legs will allow you, uncaring of who will see your desperate flight. Moisture lies heavy in the air, the clouds menacing and heavy bellied.

The cemetery is deserted when you get there, hands resting on the wrought iron gate for a moment as you catch your breath. All those with sense have taken refuge from the coming storm, but not you. No, the injustice inside you burns like an afterimage, crowding out any thought but rage.

It is beautiful, the Oxford mausoleum, carved of grey stone and decorated with marble. You do not care. The building is as cold and unfeeling as its now dead occupants. The door is not locked and you slip inside just as the first fat droplets begin to fall from the sky.

Filemone next to Cymbeline, a blank space next to Emily, and finally Conrad, the names carved into the walls. Only dates, no lamentations for the losses or the brief lives these family members had lived. You come to a stop in front of the last name, the dates below it far too short. With an open hand, you strike out at the carved stone. The haze of anger keeps any stinging pain at bay.

"How could you? HOW COULD YOU?" you yell into the interminable silence. "You stupid, bloody fool how could you go off and die?" Your palm smacks the smooth stone again. "I needed you! You! And you fucked off to, what, prove yourself worthy? Show everyone that you're a man now? Well bully for you, you inconsiderate ass. You got what you wanted."

Thunder crashes in the distance but the storm has not reached you yet.

"Did you even think about what would happen if you died or were you just too arrogant to think it could happen to you too?!" you scream yourself raw. "hers am I living, hers will I be in death." you quote sarcastically. "You underlined that three times — three! — in that stupid book and what's that supposed to mean, huh? What, did you think that even if you heroically died with your tragic love unrequited love it would mean something? Because, and here's a jolly fucking surprise for you, it means nothing." Heaving, you swallow the spit flooding your mouth.

"It means nothing because we were both cowards and now it may as well have never happened." You rest your forehead against the cold stone. "You cunt. You were supposed to come home and let me love you," you whisper.

You slide to the floor, knees finally giving out, not heeding the prickling scrape of the stone against your face. The storm washes over mausoleum, just your own storm washes over you. Water pools at the door and on your face, your shirtwaist damp for more than one reason. The soothing drum of the rain on the roof turns hypnotic and you track the time passing by the drying of your tears.

Slowly you unfurl your cramped limbs, pins and needles crawling under your skin. The rain has stopped, or at least paused enough for the walk home and all the vitriol living inside of you has been spent.

"I'm sorry," you tell him, and you hope that wherever Conrad is that he hears you. "The life I would have wanted would have been with you. Next to you. But we don't— we don't always get what we want. No matter what happens, I just— I just need to say it once and have you know I mean it. So: I love you, you stupid, brave, impossible man. I love you and don't you forget it."

Gently, you press your lips to the cold stone carving of his name.

part 6

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both the lover and the executioner