Chapter Fourteen — Ghosts and Steam

The room hadn't changed.

Not a single thing.

The carved oak desk, the dark green wallpaper, the window seat where he once spent countless hours sketching sun-drenched orchards and moonlit fountains — it was all there, untouched. As though time itself had refused to move forward in his absence.

Lady Ashbourne stood in the doorway, watching her son walk in and hesitate. Jason took two steps inside… and then stopped.

His shoulders shook before the first sound escaped him — a guttural sob that tore through the quiet room.

"Jason…" his mother whispered, stepping forward, arms already wrapping around him.

He let her hold him as the storm inside cracked wide open. The pain he had buried under years of distance and silence came out like floodwater — heavy, hot, suffocating.

"You left without a word," she said softly, brushing a hand through his hair. "You vanished. No letter. No goodbye."

Jason clung to her like a boy, like he had so many times as a child, but the man in her arms was no longer small. He was tall, powerfully built — a man of the world now, but fractured.

"I had to," he said hoarsely. "I couldn't breathe here."

"Because of Henry?" she asked. "Because of… Adele?"

He didn't answer. But his silence was enough.

Lady Ashbourne pulled back slightly and cupped his cheek, eyes searching his with the clarity of a mother who had always known the truth — even if it was never spoken.

"Oh, Jason. I always suspected. The way you looked at her even as children…"

Jason closed his eyes, jaw clenched.

"She's not for you," his mother continued gently. "She belongs to your brother now. I know that wound is cruel, but you mustn't reopen it."

"I didn't come to—" he began, but his voice failed him.

She touched his chest softly, above his heart.

"You must be strong. Find love somewhere else. A woman who's free to love you in return. You deserve that… not this torment."

He gave her a brief, broken smile. "I'm just tired, Mother. That's all."

Understanding that her son was retreating again, she nodded.

"All right," she said, stepping back. "Rest. We'll talk later. And Jason…"

He looked up at her.

"Don't ever be ashamed of who you are. You were born of love, not disgrace. And you will always be my son — no matter what your father's pride refused to accept."

With that, she slipped quietly from the room, closing the door behind her.

Jason stood in the silence for a long moment, his fists clenched at his sides.

Everything felt too much — too full, too unchanged. Too familiar.

He peeled off his coat, his shirt, his boots, as though trying to shed the weight of memory along with the layers of travel and grief.

In the ensuite chamber, he turned on the shower. The old brass pipes groaned, and hot water poured down with a hiss.

He stepped in, letting it scald his skin.

Tall and broad-shouldered, Jason carried the kind of strength that made women look twice. His torso was sculpted by years of manual labor and long travels — the kind of lean, muscular grace forged by real work, not vanity. Water carved down the ridges of his abdomen, over the curve of his back, the defined V of his hips.

But he wasn't thinking of any admiring glances.

He was thinking of her.

Adele.

The way her eyes still carried that quiet fire. The way her voice trembled ever so slightly when she saw him. The soft curl of her hair that clung to her neck in the garden breeze. The tenderness with which she looked at her son.

Their son.

No — Henry's son, he reminded himself with a grimace.

But even that truth didn't wash away the feeling.

Not the longing.

Not the ache.

Not the way his body responded when he thought of her smile, her scent, the brush of her fingers against his sleeve years ago.

He leaned forward, hands braced against the cool tiles, water pounding down his back as if it could beat the memory of her from his skin.

But she wouldn't go.

Adele had never left him — not really.

And now, she was no longer a ghost.

She was real. Within reach.

And Jason didn't know how long he could resist the gravity of that truth.