Madeline smiled faintly. “She makes it easy.”
Edith’s gaze sharpened with quiet intelligence. “Children rarely do. You should give yourself credit.”
Madeline demurred, the familiar deflection automatic, but the carefulness of the comment lingered.
Across the room, Wilhelm spoke with Laurence in low tones. Their conversation turned inevitably to land and trade and politics, but Madeline noticed the way his gaze drifted toward Tessa again and again, the way his attention fractured whenever her laughter rose too high.
When the children returned flushed and breathless, Edith rose to help them wash up, and Madeline followed without thinking, the rhythm of caretaking as natural to her now as breathing.
That night, as she lay in bed once more, Madeline stared into the darkness and faced the truth she had been avoiding. She was waiting for Tessa to be safe enough without her. Waiting for Wilhelm to find a woman who could take her place without leaving a wound behind.
And in the meantime, she was breaking her own heart one careful, disciplined day at a time.
CHAPTER 25
“Miss Madeline Watton.”
She turned at the sound of her name, already wound tight by the hour and the silence of the house, and found the butler standing just inside the drawing room, his expression unreadable in a way that unsettled her.
“Yes?” Her voice sounded steadier than she felt.
He crossed the threshold and extended a folded note upon a small silver tray. “This was delivered a moment ago. The messenger said it was marked urgent.”
Madeline’s stomach tightened. There was no seal she recognized, only her name written in careful calligraphy.
“Thank you,” she said, and reached for it with fingers that had gone faintly numb.
The butler inclined his head and withdrew. The soft click of the door closing behind him sounded far too final in the sudden quiet.
Madeline remained standing where she was, the note resting in her palm. She told herself she was being foolish, that not every letter held a threat, that she had been safe here, protected, cherished even. But she knew something was wrong.
She broke the seal. The note contained no words, only a single folded page. The print was bold and unmistakable even before she fully unfolded it.
The headline leapt out at her, cruel and gleeful, ink pressed hard as though the words themselves delighted in their own venom.
’While no name has yet been formally offered to the public, sources close to the household whisper of a young woman residing beneath the Duke of Kirkford’s roof, installed not as family, but under the respectable guise of governess. Respectable, that is, until one considers the peculiar privileges afforded to one serving in her position.
This governess, it is said, enjoys a degree of access and favor quite unusual for one of her station. She is seen frequently in His Grace’s company, attends meals beyond what duty requires, and moves through the house with a confidence more befitting a mistress than an employee. Such indulgence has not gone unnoticed by servants, visitors, or the ever-watchful eye of Society.
Her vision blurred.
“No,” she whispered, the word scraped raw from her throat.
Someone had wanted her to see this. Someone had wanted her to know, with precision and cruelty, that she had been found. That the safety she had built here was no longer invisible, no longer sheltered by distance or discretion.
Her gaze dropped to the narrow slip of paper folded neatly inside the scandal sheet, so easily overlooked it might have been mistaken for a printer’s mark.
I see you.
The handwriting was unmistakably her mother’s and the certainty hit her like a physical blow. She had not imagined her face at the ball. Her mother had been there, watching her.
Madeline swayed, one hand flying out to catch the back of a chair before her knees gave way. Her breath came shallow now, too quick, her thoughts scattering as panic finally broke through the careful composure she had maintained for so long.
If her mother had found her, then Captain Hale would not be far behind.
The knowledge settled in her chest with cold finality. Hale did not need an invitation. He never had. He would come as he always did under the pretense of concern for the household.
Her fingers slipped on the edge of the paper. She caught it just in time, knuckles whitening as the room seemed to tilt, the floor suddenly too far beneath her feet. The words blurred, ran together, swam before her eyes until she pressed the heel of her hand hard against her sternum, as though she might steady the frantic, uneven beat of her heart by force alone.
