This invisible, youngest son to a family blessed with wealth but cursed to live under an abusive patriarch. Elliot is an intelligent, stubborn, soft-hearted and romantic man who is trying to recalibrate to a life without his father. Sometimes lost in overly optimistic daydreams of the future, he has his head in the clouds in hopes of one day making his family proud.
With a mother who died in the birthing bed and an indifferent father, Fitzwilliam was raised primarily by nannies and the gentling influence of his older half-sister. Warm, charming and self-confident, he stepped easily into the role of Viscount upon his father’s death, despite being only eighteen at the time, although he relies almost entirely upon others to manage his affairs. He is known to be flirtatious and reckless with the reputations of himself and others, but recommends himself through his fierce loyalty to his family, and particular protectiveness of his sister.
Despite having been prepared to become Baron Seaford his entire life, two years after his father’s death, Elton is still uncertain how he is meant to play the part. Part of him always imagined his father — Sturdy, harsh, and recklessly abusive — would live forever. Faced now with being the head of the family and all that entails, he struggles daily with the plain fact of his responsibilities and spends too much time out on the town drinking and carousing with friends and his uncle.
Married young to an abusive husband, Esme spent over thirty years grounding herself and doing her best to raise her sons: Elton, born when she was still a teenager, and Elliot, the long-awaited spare. Whatever storms the Viscount Seaford threw their way, Esme was determined to raise boys who were nothing like him. Two years ago a fever took the Viscount, but his death was not the instant relief Esme had always imagined — Now out of mourning, she is having to recalibrate her entire life and guide her sons, now men, through what it means to stand on their own two feet.
