Chapter 13 - The Prodigal Duke’s Last Request
Winter arrived early in the mountains of upstate Vermont, burying the small village of Blackwood in knee-deep snow.
In a modest wood-framed cottage on the edge of town, William Carter sat near a cast-iron wood stove.
His hands, once pristine and pampered by private manicurists, were rough, calloused, and lined with dirt from splitting logs.
He worked five days a week as a clerk at the municipal water utility, filing permits for septic systems and residential pipes.
Nobody in the village knew he had once been the Duke of Ashbourne, owner of ocean tankers and private islands.
To the townspeople, he was simply Bill Carter, a quiet, broken middle-aged man who rarely spoke and never took alcohol.
Every evening, he walked to the general store to purchase the national newspapers, searching for three specific names.
He had clipped every article published over the past eighteen months regarding his former family.
One article showed Sophia winning the national junior debate championship, standing tall beside state senators.
Another featured Clara’s architectural sketches, which had won a historic design grant for urban green spaces.
A third showed Lily laughing at a private equestrian show, holding up a blue ribbon with Evelyn smiling behind her.
William had pasted every clipping onto the wall beside his narrow iron bed, creating a shrine of his own catastrophic regret.
He knew he could never speak to them again; the contract he had signed with Julian Vance was ironclad.
If he crossed the state line or attempted contact, Vanguard would call in the seven-million-dollar default note immediately.
One Tuesday morning, William collapsed while hauling wood into the utility warehouse.
At the local regional clinic, the country physician gave him the diagnosis without sugarcoating the news.
Years of unchecked heavy drinking during his aristocratic days had eroded his liver beyond surgical repair.
He had six months, perhaps eight, before his system shut down entirely.
William did not panic; in fact, a quiet, melancholic peace settled over his exhausted mind.
He did not want medical heroics, and he certainly did not want Vanguard’s expensive private specialists saving him.
He wanted only one thing before his life ended in obscurity: to say what he should have said on that rainy night.
That evening, he took a clean sheet of cheap ruled notebook paper and began to write with a plain ballpoint pen.
He did not write about money, titles, ancestral lands, or his ruined social standing.
He wrote three separate letters, one to each daughter he had cast out into the dark.
To Sophia, he apologized for mistaking her brilliant, sharp intellect for female weakness.
To Clara, he apologized for never stepping into her art studio because he thought sketches were trivial nonsense.
To Lily, he apologized for not being there to watch her ride her first pony, trading her laughter for an illusion of pride.
Finally, he wrote a single page to Evelyn.
“You told me I would remember that night when I realized what I had actually traded away,” he wrote.
“You were right.”
“I thought I was giving up daughters, but what I actually gave up was the only real family I ever had.”
“Do not send flowers, do not send money, and do not attend my burial.”
“Just ensure they know that their father’s greatest crime was not that he failed them as a Duke.”
“It was that he failed them as a human being.”
He sealed the four envelopes, walked to the local post office, and addressed the package directly to Julian Vance’s office.
May you like
He attached a formal medical power of attorney surrendering all claims to any future estate claims.
Then he returned to his cold, quiet cabin, sat by the crackling stove, and closed his eyes in peace for the first time in years.
