“It was published?” Charlotte asked, her voice distant.
“Yes. I think it began as a clerical notice—something dry and dull—but it caught attention when it became clear it involved you two. There was a full account in The Morning Chronicle. Some speculation about your wife being the ‘other sister,’ though it stopped short of naming you, Charlotte. I suppose your departure made it difficult to confirm anything. Still, the consensus has been that the marriage stood—and more importantly, that it satisfied your late father’s will. The marriage contract itself—”
“—was never rescinded,” Seth finished, his voice faint. “And if two more copies were sent, then Monkton had no legal grounds without a formal objection from the bride herself…”
Reginald nodded slowly. “Exactly. And since no such objection was made...” He narrowed his eyes at the pair of them now. “I, and almost all of London, I should add, had presumed you had settled elsewhere to avoid the fallout. You mean to say, all this time, you thought…?”
Charlotte found herself staring into the fire, not quite seeing it.
The storm, the lost opportunity, the terrible guilt of preventing her husband from maintaining his birthright—all of it had sat like stone in her chest for months. But now... that weight had shifted. It had never needed to be carried at all.
“We thought...” she began, then faltered.
Seth stood suddenly, unfolding the letter from Blythe with a briskness that betrayed his hands weren’t quite steady. He read it in silence. A moment passed. Then another.
“What does it say?” she asked quietly.
Seth looked up, eyes shadowed with disbelief. “It says that tenants in Hillcrest have begun their spring petitions, some details of business closures, and that I should return when next I have the chance.”
Charlotte rose as well, walking to his side.
They stood together, shoulder to shoulder, and she took the letter from his hands, scanning the lines.
The familiar handwriting. The mundane details. As though nothing extraordinary had happened at all over the last two months. As though it were only natural that they would return.
“What will you do?” Reginald asked, quieter now, clearly unsure whether he’d brought news or upheaval.
Seth’s answer was delayed. Slow, deliberate, and laced with something unreadable. “I’ll… think about it.”
Charlotte placed a cup of tea into Seth’s hands, her fingers lingering against his. His gaze met hers, and something unspoken passed between them—something vast and complicated and quietly astonishing.
“I won’t intrude any further,” her cousin abruptly said, standing and drawing on his coat. “I am headed back to London. Or Scotland. I’m not entirely sure. I’ll find Victoria and tell her I did what she asked. Now, whether she will accept me, I have no idea. But I rather think she’ll enjoy rejecting me in person.”
Charlotte couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at her lips. “Safe travels, Reginald.”
He nodded, more sincere than she’d ever seen him, and stepped out into the fading afternoon.
The door clicked softly shut.
Charlotte turned toward her husband, who was now staring into the fire like a man who had just realized his entire world had tilted underfoot.
The shadows moved across Seth’s face, but she saw his eyes—clear and unfocused, staring somewhere not into the hearth, but far beyond it. Perhaps to the long drive at Hillcrest. The scarred writing desk in the study his father used to sit behind. The long corridor of ancestors in oil and dust.
She reached out and touched his wrists. “I never thought we’d have to choose.”
Seth’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “Neither did I.” He looked down at her, the weight of something heavy—not regret, not quite—resting behind his gaze. “When I left it all behind, I thought I was giving up a life. A legacy. But what I see now is... it was just waiting for me. As if it knew I’d return.”
“But do you want it?” she asked gently.
He didn’t answer. Not yet.
Charlotte let her hand slide into his. “You don’t have to know this minute. We don’t owe them anything—not tonight. We can still choose.”
His fingers curled around hers. His voice was quiet. “Do you think we have been cowards?”
She shook her head. “I think we were brave. We walked away from everything, and we built something real on our own.”
He nodded slowly, almost to himself. “And yet, Blythe writes as though I’ve merely been delayed at the coast. As if… as if the world expects us to return, slip back into our places without remark.”
