Updated Apr 18, 2026 • ~13 min read
Chapter 17: The Forbidden Wing
Emmeline
Emmy’s curiosity about the locked west wing at Ashford Hall has been building since Mrs. Winters first warned her away from it during her initial tour of the estate—those forbidden chambers that contain the nursery and Caroline’s personal effects, the spaces the Duke hasn’t entered since he locked them five years ago—but she’s respected the boundary because violating the Duke’s explicit prohibition seemed cruel when he’s already struggling with so much grief.
But after four weeks of the Duke avoiding her following their kiss, after endless London social events where they perform devotion publicly while maintaining complete distance privately, after the Duke admitting he’s capable of loving her but too terrified to try—Emmy’s patience for respecting boundaries has worn thin, and her need to understand what’s keeping him trapped in his grief outweighs her reluctance to violate his privacy.
She waits until a grey April afternoon when the Duke is in London meeting with his solicitor about some estate matter, ensuring she’ll have several hours alone at Ashford Hall without risk of him discovering her trespass, and then she makes her way to the west wing with the key she found weeks ago hidden in Mrs. Winters’ office—a skeleton key that opens most of the older locks in the house including apparently the one barring entry to the forbidden chambers.
The lock clicks open with surprising ease, and Emmy pushes the heavy door inward with growing trepidation because she’s violating the Duke’s most explicit boundary, invading the space where his greatest trauma lives, and if he discovers her here he’ll be furious in ways she’s never seen from him.
But she needs to understand.
Needs to see what he’s preserving in these locked rooms.
Needs to know what’s haunting him so thoroughly that he can’t move forward even when he wants to.
The west wing is dim—curtains drawn over windows that haven’t been opened in five years, dust covers over furniture that hasn’t been used, air stale and cold in a way that makes Emmy shiver—and everything feels frozen in time like the Duke locked these rooms and walked away leaving everything exactly as it was on the day Caroline died.
Emmy finds the nursery first—a beautiful room decorated in soft yellows and creams, clearly prepared with love and anticipation for the child who never got to use it—and her chest aches looking at the empty cradle that was meant for Thomas, at the tiny clothes hung in the wardrobe that were never worn, at the toys arranged carefully on shelves that were never played with.
This is where the Duke’s son was supposed to sleep.
Where he was supposed to grow and thrive and eventually become the heir the Duke desperately wanted.
Instead Thomas died on Christmas Day after living only an hour, and this beautiful prepared room became a shrine to loss that the Duke couldn’t bear to see.
Emmy moves through the nursery carefully—touching nothing, just observing—and she understands suddenly why the Duke can’t bring himself to try for another heir, why the thought of Emmy becoming pregnant terrifies him, why he’s kept such careful distance from anything that might lead to conception.
Because this room represents his greatest hope transformed into his worst devastation.
And risking it again means potentially creating another nursery that will remain empty.
She leaves the nursery and continues exploring—finding several other locked rooms that appear to be guest chambers or storage—until she discovers the door that clearly leads to what must have been Caroline’s private suite, and Emmy hesitates before opening it because invading Caroline’s personal space feels more intrusive than just seeing the nursery.
But she’s already here.
Already trespassing.
And she needs to understand the woman the Duke actually loved if she has any hope of competing with a ghost.
Caroline’s chambers are beautiful—elegantly decorated in soft rose and cream, clearly the rooms of someone with refined taste and significant wealth—and Emmy wanders through sitting room and bedroom feeling like an intruder in a shrine to a woman she never met but whose memory controls her entire marriage.
She finds Caroline’s portrait hanging over the fireplace in the sitting room—a beautiful woman captured in paint, delicate and blonde and ethereal in ways Emmy will never be, holding an infant who must be Thomas in her arms—and Emmy stares at it trying to understand what made Caroline so special that the Duke can’t move past her death five years later.
She was beautiful.
Clearly that’s part of it—Caroline looks like exactly the kind of woman a duke should marry, refined and elegant and perfect in ways Emmy with her dark hair and average features can never match.
But there must have been more than beauty to make the Duke love her so completely that losing her destroyed him.
Emmy is examining the portrait more closely—trying to read something in Caroline’s painted expression that will help her understand—when she hears a voice behind her that makes her jump with guilty alarm.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Mrs. Winters says, and Emmy turns to find the housekeeper standing in the doorway with an expression of clear concern. “His Grace explicitly forbade anyone from entering these rooms.”
“I know,” Emmy admits, because there’s no point denying her trespass when she’s literally standing in front of Caroline’s portrait. “I know I shouldn’t be here. But I needed to see. I needed to understand who she was. Why he’s so completely devoted to her memory that he can’t move forward even when he wants to.”
Mrs. Winters sighs and enters the room properly, moving to stand beside Emmy in front of the portrait.
“She was kind,” Mrs. Winters says quietly. “That was what made her special. Not her beauty or her refinement, though she had both. But the kindness. She treated everyone—from dukes to scullery maids—with the same gentle consideration. Made people feel valued just by speaking with them.”
“The Duke loved her,” Emmy observes, making it a statement rather than a question.
“Desperately,” Mrs. Winters confirms. “They met at a country party—both of them trying to escape London society’s demands—and it was one of those rare love matches among the aristocracy. He adored her. She adored him. Everyone thought they would be blissfully happy forever.”
“And then she got pregnant,” Emmy continues the story.
“And then she got pregnant,” Mrs. Winters agrees. “His Grace was overjoyed. Caroline was more cautious—she’d always been delicate, prone to illness—but she wanted to give him an heir so desperately that she ignored her own fears. The doctors warned it might be dangerous for her to carry to term. His Grace insisted on the best physicians, the most careful monitoring. But ultimately none of it mattered.”
Emmy can imagine it—the Duke desperately trying to keep Caroline safe, arranging the best care, doing everything possible to ensure a healthy pregnancy—and failing anyway because sometimes tragedy happens regardless of money or power or desperate love.
“He blames himself,” Emmy says, understanding clicking into place. “He thinks if he hadn’t insisted on an heir, Caroline would still be alive.”
“He knows rationally that pregnancy was Caroline’s choice,” Mrs. Winters clarifies. “But emotionally—yes. He blames himself for wanting an heir badly enough that his wife died trying to give him one. And now the thought of risking another wife for the same purpose terrifies him.”
“So he married me to produce an heir but can’t bring himself to actually attempt conception,” Emmy observes. “Because getting me pregnant means risking my life. Which means potentially losing another wife. Which he can’t survive.”
“Exactly,” Mrs. Winters confirms. “You understand the impossible position he’s put himself in.”
Emmy looks at Caroline’s portrait—at the beautiful delicate woman holding her doomed infant, both of them frozen in paint before tragedy struck—and she feels something complicated twist in her chest that’s part jealousy and part sympathy and part desperate wish that she could have met Caroline and maybe understood what the Duke lost.
“Tell me what happened,” Emmy requests. “The specifics. I know they died on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but I don’t know the details.”
Mrs. Winters hesitates, clearly debating whether sharing the full story is wise, but finally she settles into one of Caroline’s dusty chairs and begins speaking with the careful tone of someone recounting trauma.
“Caroline went into labor on Christmas Eve afternoon,” Mrs. Winters says. “Three weeks early. His Grace immediately sent for the physicians, but the labor progressed quickly—too quickly for the doctors to manage safely. She was in terrible pain. Screaming for hours. And His Grace stayed with her through all of it even when the doctors suggested he wait elsewhere. He held her hand while she suffered.”
Emmy’s chest aches imagining the Duke watching Caroline die slowly and painfully over hours, unable to do anything to help her, helpless despite all his wealth and power.
“The baby came late Christmas Eve,” Mrs. Winters continues. “A boy—Thomas. Alive but weak. The physicians said he had hours at most. And Caroline—she was hemorrhaging. Dying. She held Thomas for a few minutes while His Grace stayed beside them. She told him she loved him. Told him to be happy after she was gone. Told him the baby’s name should be Thomas after his father. And then she died while His Grace held her.”
Emmy is crying now—she can feel tears on her cheeks while Mrs. Winters recounts the Duke’s worst trauma with quiet painful detail—and she understands suddenly why he can’t let go of Caroline’s memory, why these rooms have remained locked and unchanged, why he’s so terrified of caring about Emmy enough to risk the same devastation.
“And Thomas?” Emmy asks, even though she already knows the answer.
“Lived through Christmas Eve and died early Christmas morning,” Mrs. Winters says. “December twenty-fifth. His Grace held him the entire time. Watching his son struggle to breathe and then just… stop. Like Caroline had hours before. Both of them dying on the holiday that used to be his favorite. Both of them leaving him alone with grief he had no idea how to process.”
“How did he survive it?” Emmy asks, because the Duke she knows is so carefully controlled, so determined to maintain emotional distance—how did that man survive watching his wife and infant son die within hours of each other?
“He didn’t,” Mrs. Winters says simply. “Not really. The man you know isn’t the man who married Caroline. That Sebastian died with his family on Christmas. What’s left is someone who’s learned to function through careful management of anything that might make him feel the grief he’s still carrying five years later.”
Emmy looks at Caroline’s portrait through her tears, and she sees something important—this woman isn’t her rival, isn’t her enemy, isn’t even really a ghost haunting her marriage.
Caroline is just a tragedy.
A woman who loved the Duke and died trying to give him what he wanted.
And the Duke is trapped by guilt and grief and inability to forgive himself for surviving when Caroline and Thomas didn’t.
“I can’t compete with this,” Emmy says quietly. “With this kind of love. With this kind of loss. He loved her desperately and she died, and now I’m just… I’m just the inadequate replacement who’s supposed to somehow make him forget what he lost.”
“You’re not supposed to make him forget,” Mrs. Winters corrects gently. “You’re supposed to help him remember that life continues. That loving someone new doesn’t betray the memory of someone lost. That he’s allowed to move forward even when moving forward feels like leaving Caroline behind.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” Emmy admits. “I don’t know how to compete with perfect dead wife who was beautiful and kind and everything I’m not.”
“You’re not competing,” Mrs. Winters says firmly. “Caroline is his past. You’re his future. There’s no competition there. Just the Duke struggling to let go of one so he can embrace the other.”
Emmy wants to believe that—wants to think that eventually the Duke will choose her instead of Caroline’s ghost—but standing here in Caroline’s sitting room surrounded by evidence of the Duke’s first great love makes it hard to imagine he’ll ever care about Emmy with even a fraction of that intensity.
“He needs to see these rooms,” Emmy says finally. “He needs to confront his grief instead of just locking it away and pretending it doesn’t exist.”
“He’ll be furious if he discovers you were here,” Mrs. Winters warns.
“I know,” Emmy agrees. “But I can’t help him move forward if I don’t understand what’s keeping him trapped in the past. And now I understand. So maybe—maybe I can help him finally let go.”
She leaves the west wing feeling gutted and exhausted and more sympathetic to the Duke’s struggles than she’s felt in weeks—because he’s not just grieving a lost wife, he’s carrying guilt for her death, terror about repeating the tragedy, inability to forgive himself for wanting an heir badly enough that Caroline died trying to provide one.
And somehow Emmy has to help him understand that loving her doesn’t betray Caroline.
That moving forward doesn’t mean forgetting.
That building new happiness is possible even when old happiness ended in tragedy.
But first she needs to tell him she violated his boundary.
Entered the forbidden wing.
Saw Caroline’s portrait and Thomas’s nursery and all the evidence of the life the Duke lost five years ago.
And risk his fury to explain that she understands now.
Understands him.
Understands why he’s so terrified.
And still wants him anyway.
However damaged.
However broken.
However impossible he makes loving him.
She’ll wait until he returns from London.
And then she’ll confess her trespass.
And hope that understanding his grief will somehow help her reach him despite all his walls.
Because the alternative—giving up on their marriage, accepting that the Duke will never move past Caroline—is unbearable now that Emmy has seen the depth of what he lost and understands the enormity of what he’s asking her to compete with.
Not a perfect woman.
Just a perfect tragedy.
That’s all Caroline is.
And maybe—just maybe—Emmy can help the Duke understand that tragedy doesn’t have to define the rest of his life.
If he’ll let her try.
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