The mansion sounded different these days. Archie noticed it most in the mornings, standing at the top of the grand staircase, listening to sounds that had never once filled these halls during his childhood. Laughter drifting up from the kitchen. Music playing softly somewhere in the sitting room. The occasional bark of the golden retriever puppy Fiona had insisted on adopting three months into their marriage, despite Archie's initial half hearted protests about mess and chewed furniture.
The house had become, slowly and completely, exactly the kind of home he'd once described to Fiona over a disastrously burnt dinner, loud and warm and full of the things that mattered.
Thea had retired properly six months after the wedding, settling into a small, comfortable cottage on the mansion ground
