Every cold word. Every rejection. Every time he’d chosen fear over courage.
The gallery. Her touch against his scar. The way she’d looked at him with love so obvious he’d nearly believed he might deserve it.
And his response?
I apologize, Your Grace. This cannot happen.
Then tonight. The final blow.
You are nothing more than convenience.
Four words that had shattered everything.
Edmund set down his glass. Pressed his palms against his eyes. Drew breath that felt like drowning.
He’d done this. Destroyed the best thing that had ever happened to him. Proved himself exactly as broken as he’d always feared.
And now Isadora was gone. Disappearing into winter darkness while he sat alone in his study like the coward he’d always been.
The clock struck one. Then two. Edmund remained in his chair. Couldn’t seem to move. Could only sit there and feel the full weight of what he’d destroyed pressing down until he could barely breathe.
This was his life now. This cold, empty isolation. This grinding loneliness. This slow death by degrees.
This was what he’d chosen by pushing away the only woman who’d ever loved him despite every reason not to.
And Edmund Ravensleigh—the Dangerous Duke who had spent ten years hiding from life—finally understood that perhaps he’d been dangerous all along.
Not because of some duel. Not because of James’s death or society’s judgment or the scar that marked his face.
But because he destroyed everything he touched. Everyone who dared to care. Everything good and warm and full of life.
He was dangerous because love itself became poisonous in his hands.
And Isadora—brave, stubborn, magnificent Isadora—had finally realized it.
Had finally understood that loving him meant slow destruction.
So she’d left. Before he could damage her beyond repair.
Edmund sat alone in his study as dawn began to break over Yorkshire. Sat with whiskey and guilt and the terrible knowledge that he’d lost everything that mattered.
And that this time, there was no one to blame but himself.
CHAPTER 23
“You’re destroying everything, you know.”
Tobias’s voice cut through the club’s evening hum with the sort of brutal honesty only twenty years of friendship could justify.
Edmund didn’t look up from his whiskey. Simply stared at amber liquid and wished his friend would leave him to drown in peace.
“She’s gone, Tobias. What more is there to destroy?”
“Lillian, for one. Your reputation, for another. Whatever shred of decency you might still possess.” Tobias settled into the chair opposite. “Though I suppose that last bit departed along with your wife.”
The words landed like blows. Edmund’s hand tightened around his glass.
It had been a week since Isadora fled. Seven days of prowling Rothwell Abbey’s empty corridors while guilt consumed him from within. Seven days of watching Lillian weep at her lessons, of seeing invitations mysteriously vanish, of feeling the walls close in as society’s judgment grew sharper.
