His pulse hammered the whole way, each hoofbeat its own frantic prayer that he wasn’t too late.
His hand never left the leather satchel that held everything he had fought for.
The Warrant.
The Trust.
The License.
The documents that could change their lives forever.
After three relentless days on the road, William reached the Hamilton Estate at last. The sun had long since slipped below the horizon, and the tenant fields lay silvered under rising moonlight.
Nathaniel stepped out before he could even dismount, crossing the front sweep with wide, startled eyes.
“Good God,” he breathed, gripping his shoulder. “I thought you’d gone for good.”
William swallowed hard.
“How is she?”
Nathaniel didn’t pretend not to understand.
His expression softened with worry.
“Not well,” he said quietly. “We’ve hardly seen her since you left. Her father says she keeps to herself. Works. Sleeps… and not much beyond that.”
He hesitated, as though weighing whether to speak the truth aloud.
“It broke her, William. Whatever happened between you—it broke her.”
William closed his eyes briefly.
He had known.
But hearing it aloud was another wound.
Nathaniel squeezed his shoulder once more.
“Go to her.”
William nodded, thanked him, and left before fear could make a coward of him again.
The walk to her cottage stretched before him, each step heavier than the last.
He practiced the words he meant to say—the ones he had rewritten a hundred desperate times in his mind.
Apologies mean nothing.
I cannot change the past.
His grip tightened on the satchel.
But I can change her future. Lily’s future.
The leather felt impossibly heavy.
I used the only power left to me to make her safe.
