walking into the drawing room after an absence always brought back the first time he’d come here as a boy: shaking, frightened, sticky with his own blood, his face aflame with pain and his heart as badly torn. Gareth had brought him home and told him he was safe. Catherine had given him tea and fruit cake, found him a clean shirt, gently dabbed the dried blood away. They had given him refuge in the worst moment of his life, and Luke would never be able to repay that but he was bloody well going to try.
