“Speak.”
He nodded.
“I learned the truth of what happened that last Season only weeks ago. My mother confessed everything.”
A bitter laugh escaped her. “How convenient.”
“It wasn’t,” he said, pain tightening his features. “It shattered every illusion I had about those months. She admitted she intercepted our letters. Every one of them.”
Violet’s eyes narrowed. He had said as much at Nathaniel’s estate, and she still wasn’t sure she believed him.
“She admitted,” he continued, “that she sent you away without my knowledge. That she chose the Hamilton lands because they were close enough to banish you quickly, and far enough that we should never cross paths. She told me she invented the tale of your being a war widow so the village would ask no questions, and to protect the Ashford name when she purchased this cottage.”
Her crossed arms tightened, pressing hard against her ribs as if she could hold herself together by force alone.
“That last Season,” he went on, “I felt I was being pulled apart. My parents told me our finances were failing. That the estate might be lost. They pressed me—every day—to secure a match with a woman whose dowry could save Ashford.”
He swallowed hard.
“And when nothing came from you—though I wrote constantly—I thought…”
His voice dropped, fraying at the edges.
“…I thought you had changed your mind first.”
Violet’s chest tightened, a sharp inward squeeze she refused to let show.
“I wrote you so often that Season,” she whispered. “I checked the post every day.”
“I know that now,” he said, the regret unmistakable in his voice. “I’ve held your letters in my hands. Read every word. At the time… your silence was all I had to go by. And I—God help me—let myself believe you no longer wanted a life as my countess.”
The words seared, but she kept her face cold. She refused to let him see how much they hurt.
“And so you let me go,” she said.
A flicker of pain crossed his face.
“My parents insisted there was no choice,” he said. “They paraded heiresses before me. Reminded me constantly of the tenants who would suffer. I let myself believe them. I let myself believe you did not want me. And that made what I did… easier to stomach.”
His gaze, heavy with sorrow, held hers.
“It does not excuse it. Nothing ever will. But I want you to understand the full weight of what you could not have known.”
Silence pressed close around them—the tick of the clock, the hum of the cottage.
“I married her,” he said quietly, “because I believed I had no choice. But I told her the truth from the beginning—that I loved another, that my heart was already bound, that she would have my name and my title but never my affection.”
Violet’s breath caught, a small, sharp break in her composure she hated him for noticing.
“She accepted it,” he continued, “though she said she was sure I would change my mind.”
He dragged a hand through his hair.
“After the wedding, when I returned to Ashford Manor, I realized I had not seen you on the grounds. At first I told myself you were avoiding me. But when I finally asked after you, your father told me you had left. That you had written you could not remain and watch me bring home my new bride.”
His voice roughened.
“Violet… I cannot describe what it did to me. The weight of it—of all I had done—fell at once. I was disgusted with myself. I could hardly look at my own reflection.”
