'Hullo, Charlie,' Ben let out on a sigh as he removed his coat and set it to the ground to use as a barrier between his light breeches and the grass. He sat down, leaning against the great grey tombstone, the only sound penetrating the night was the steady chirping of crickets. 'I'm-I'm sorry it took me so long to visit.'

'I've been busy, but it's no excuse. I keep trying to come up with a good reason, but there is none..... The truth- the truth is that it hurts too much to come here. This damn house of death. The place where I failed you.' He confessed, the only witness to his words his many ancestors already in the ground. 'I've made most of our estates profitable again, but I also have stakes in two shipping companies, an iron works factory, and some mines here and there. I do not want anyone else in our family to feel like they have no options. I even managed to throw together a respectable dowry for Ophelia, she's married now. I gave her away at her wedding. We missed you. We always miss you. You should have been there....... I would give anything for you to have been there.'

The light of his lamp flickered as a gust of wind swept through the graveyard on the Chatwick grounds, he repressed a shiver. He had wanted to come here alone, but he wished for the comfort of his wife's company. Rutland had prepared separate bedrooms for them but tonight Ben would sleep in hers for she would already be asleep by the time he returned.

'They were setting up the summer fair, I saw as we drove in and wondered.... What did I gain by not letting you sneak Ophelia out to see it at night when we were younger? What did I gain by telling you that it simply wouldn't have been proper, that we ought to act as we were expected? Even when I wanted to go just as badly as the two of you did. I wish I could hear you say 'Come on, Ben! It will be a grand old time!' just once more. I won't roll my eyes, I won't try to resist, I won't lecture you on what it means to be the heir of a dukedom. There's enough time for seriousness later.'

Ben was silent for a moment, savoring the peace. If he closed his eyes he could almost hear the sound of Ophelia playing with her dolls in the gardens, of the three of them racing their horses, of Charlie taking tea with Ophelia and her dolls. The sound of his mother reading to him on these very grounds.

'I have a goddaughter now, her name is Charlotte and she is all but a week old. I haven't met her, for my Duchess and I arrived rather late in the evening and the babe was already asleep.' Ben grinned, 'I have a feeling that I am going to be terribly indulgent. I have bought an unreasonable amount of toys, many of which she is not yet old enough to play with. God help me when....if I have my own.'

In the quiet of the night, Ben could hear the thumping of his own heart. Felt the sad twist it took all the more keenly.

'You know, I never thought I wanted them. I thought it was out of the cards for me, I was married to a woman I was so sure was nothing more than a title hunter. But then I got to know her. Christ, Charlie. You would have liked her. As a sister, mind you. She was never meant to be yours, I would have spoken to her just once and I would have known. Would have fought you tooth and nail for her.' He smiled a little sardonically, 'It would have been nice to fight about something other than the drinking and gambling for once.'

Benedict was rambling, he knew it. These were such new sensations and feelings. Things he would have spoken only to Charlie about. Perhaps it was why it was all coming out now, disjointed and awkward and distracted.

'Shocked you into silence, have I? Yes, we've been getting along as of late. Blindsided by that, aren't you? So was I. By God, I adore her. She's a professed Christian but blasphemes like an infidel. God help you if you ever get her drunk. Can you ever imagine any woman of our acquaintance saying bitch?' He chuckled, shocked by his own lack of affront at his wife's lack of polish. 'I digress. Children. I never contemplated them much, but then I saw her one day and she was holding a child and Charlie, let me tell you, I have never in my life felt so certain about anything. It has to be her. She is improper, and hilarious, and beautiful and she is mine. I just have to convince her to trust me.'

'She bought me a cat! And we've been doing the most peculiar things. And I do them for you, as much as for her. Because I haven't been living the way you'd have wanted me to. And she looks at life the way you did.' Moisture slid down his cheeks, unbidden. He was silent for a moment as he finally gathered the courage to voice the one thought that never left him.

'It feels like the biggest damn betrayal,' he said so softly that even the dead couldn't hear him, 'to be happy in a world where you are gone. I tried to stop it. I really did. But she wouldn't let me. And I am, Charlie. Happier than I have been in my entire life.'

He steadily got to his feet, dusting off his coat and shrugging it back on. He bowed his head in sadness, wondering if there would ever come a day his heart didn't break. The words on his tombstone were short and simple and it hurt that this was all his brother had been reduced to.

Lord Charles Mathew Montgomery
Beloved Son and Brother
1788-1814

Charlie had been so much more than just that. Vivacious, friendly, extroverted, and hilarious. Loyal. Flawed. So very deeply flawed.

Dead at twenty-six. Just.....gone.

Come January, Ben would be older than Charlie ever got to be. Charlie, who had been the life of their family, Charlie who had forced Ben to be adventurous, Charlie who had never once acted like his younger siblings were a hindrance.

Charlie, who should have had a wife who made him laugh, who could love him in the way that he deserved. Children with his coloring running around these estates. Charlie should have been here to advise Benedict on how to make things right with his wife. He would have known how to make Minerva see how right she and Benedict were for each other.

'Please tell me that you forgive me.' Benedict beseeched one last time before he turned to head back to his lodging, his shoulders somehow lighter than they had been in years.

'Ben, Ben!' His wife's voice cut through his slumber. He felt the pleasantness of her soft body tucked against his own, his leg and arm thrown possessively over her.

'Mhmmmm?' He grumbled, having arrived to bed long after she had slept.

She shoved at him, muttering something in that bossy way of hers, which his half-asleep brain processed as Please kiss me, husband!

'Mmmm,' he concurred. Really, it was a capital idea. He thought he kissed her, but in reality, his mouth just vaguely collided with her shoulder before he dropped his head and dozed off again.

'Ben I am not meeting the Duchess of Rutland with only your cat for my company. Get. Up.'

'When did you come to my room?' He groaned, throwing a pillow over his head to block out the daylight seeping in through the window.

'You, sir, are in mine!' She snapped, hitting his torso with a pillow. 'You came in the middle of the night and snuck into my bed! Without asking for permission, might I add!'

Ben quirked a curious eyebrow at his wife once she had snatched the pillow away from his head, she was trying to squirm out of his hold but he just tightened his arms.

'Let me go, you oaf! I have had quite enough of you!' She wriggled against him, which really was not the smartest thing to do to a man who had just risen. Now other parts of him were rising as well. Her outraged eyes snapped to his as she felt him harden against her thigh. 'Behave yourself, you fiend!'

'Come now, this is hardly my fault. I've already warned you about the wriggling.'

'I wouldn't need to wriggle if you would just unhand me!' Ben's hand snaked up her leg to grip her thigh, using the leverage to haul her on top of him. 'You, sir, have become too bold!'

Duchess/Athena let out an offended yowl at all the movement and hopped off of the bed, prowling over to the chair in front of the fire and finding a more comfortable resting place.

'Stop acting as if you don't like it, woman.' He sank his fingers into the flesh of her thigh left exposed by her nightgown. 'Why the devil are you being so prickly today?'

'Oh? And are you the only one who is allowed to be prickly?' She grumbled but came into his embrace readily enough as he half sat and put his arms around her, running a soothing arm up and down her back.

'What is the matter, Wife?'

'I......' She began and then paused as if she thought better of it. He wrapped one finger around a lock of her hair and tugged gently in insistence.

'Well, if you must know!' She snapped, burying her face in his chest in order to avoid meeting his eye. 'I do not wish to make a bad impression upon your friends. I know that my actions reflect upon you and I.... well I find myself caring about it. Unfortunately!' She added the last one with more zeal than was necessary, but he was too busy being stunned to care. It felt as though his chest had cracked open and was being filled with warmth and giddiness.

She wanted to please him! He realized dazedly. She cared!

Surely this was a positive sign?

Surely, surely this meant that he was winning her over.

'Do you think they shall hate me?' Her sapphire eyes, he had seen them sad, joyful, teasing, and furious. But now, the vulnerability threatened to be his undoing.

'If they hate you, they are fools. But they won't, I will simply forbid it.'

That managed to get a watery laugh out of her, 'High-handed man.'

'Hmmmm,' he greed graciously, 'but you like me well enough.'

'I do not like you even a little!' She replied haughtily.

'Liar.'

She did not confirm or deny, but she did press her lips to his mouth in a quick kiss and then proceeded to shoo him and his cat out of her room so she could get dressed.