Andrew had never wanted the estate. The letter from the solicitor felt more like a burden than a windfall. A sprawling, crumbling mansion miles from anywhere, ivy twisting across cracked stone, shutters sagging on rusted hinges. His uncle’s property was an anchor to the past he hardly cared to revisit.
He remembered Henry Somerton as a stern and solitary man. His father’s younger brother, a mathematics professor at a modest college. Henry rarely attended family gatherings, and when he did, he lingered at the edge, polite but detached, eyes shadowed by private storms no one else could glimpse.