Air refused to come properly. Each breath scraped shallow and fast, lodging somewhere high in her chest, useless and thin. The house, moments ago familiar and quiet, felt altered, its walls closing in, its corridors suddenly too narrow to contain the weight of what she had done.
Wilhelm’s face rose unbidden in her mind, followed swiftly by Tessa’s. This place, this fragile heaven, had been hers to endanger. Her presence here was no longer invisible. It had a cost.
Her stomach lurched. She bent slightly at the waist, one hand braced against the nearest chair as a cold, trembling weakness slid through her limbs. The knowledge settled deep and merciless: she had not escaped her past at all. She had led it straight to their door.
She folded the scandal sheet with shaking hands and did not bother to return it to the envelope. Her body moved before her mind could catch up, skirts gathered as she left the drawing room and took the stairs two at a time, heart pounding so hard it seemed to echo through the corridor.
Wilhelm’s chambers were at the end of the upper floor. She ignored the servants, intent only on reaching him to deliver her urgent message.
She pushed the door open and stepped inside without knocking.
“Wilhelm.”
He was standing near the window, coat discarded, sleeves rolled back as though he had been pacing. The fire cast long shadows across the room. He turned at the sound of her voice, surprise flickering briefly across his features before sharpening into concern.
“Madeline? What is it?” He took a step toward her. “You look?—”
She crossed the room in a rush and thrust the folded paper toward him. “Read this. Please.”
He frowned and took it, unfolding it with a quick, economical movement. His eyes scanned the page and the change in him was immediate, his jaw set, his grip on the paper hardening until his knuckles stood out stark and white.
“I will see that no further copies circulate,” he folded the paper once more, slowly as though restraining himself through the motion. “This ends here.”
“No.” She stepped closer, panic flaring anew. “You cannot stop what has already been read.”
He turned fully toward her, anger blazing now, no longer contained. “They have accused you of being my mistress,” he snapped. “I can make certain that anyone tempted to profit further from this understands that my household is not a subject for speculation.”
Her chest felt too tight, her breath shallow and erratic. “This is my fault. I never should have come here,” she said, the words tumbling out. “I never should have let myself believe that I could be safe.”
“Madeline.” His voice softened, the edge blunted by concern, though the anger still lived beneath it. “You are safe here.”
The words struck her and she knew, at that moment, she was something fragile, easily shattered.
“No,” she whispered, and the sound broke in her throat. “I am not.”
She turned away from him then, as though the weight of his gaze pressed too heavily against her already splintering resolve. Her shoulders drew inward, her arms folding instinctively across her middle as a tremor worked its way through her.
“I cannot do this anymore,” she said, each word dragged out of her with effort. “I cannot keep lying to you.”
The confession left her hollowed out, exposed in a way that made her chest ache. She stood very still, bracing herself against the inevitable response, the disappointment.
Silence filled the space between them, dense and suffocating. She could hear her own pulse, loud in her ears, counting out the seconds she no longer had the strength to endure.
When Wilhelm finally spoke, his voice was no longer merely angry. It had sharpened, honed by something colder, more intent. “What do you mean?”
She closed her eyes, lashes burning, and for a moment allowed herself the smallest, weakest wish that she might still turn back, still gather the pieces of herself and retreat into the careful half-life she had constructed. But there was nowhere left to hide.
She drew in a breath that barely steadied her and stepped forward into the breaking point she had avoided for so long. “My name is not Madeline Watton.”
He stilled completely, as though the room itself had gone rigid around him.
“It’s Enright.” The name left her lips with a strange finality, a sound she had not spoken aloud in months, perhaps years, and it seemed to echo heavily between them. She turned back to face him then, forcing her spine straight even as her knees threatened to give way beneath her.
“Madeline Enright,” she said, and her voice wavered despite her effort to steady it. “I took Watton because I needed to disappear.”
His eyes searched her face, dark and intent, absorbing the weight of what she had just confessed. “Disappear from whom?” he asked quietly, as though he already sensed the answer.
“My mother.” The word tasted of bitterness and old terror, of nights spent lying awake listening for footsteps, of smiles that never reached the eyes that measured and judged and withheld. Saying it aloud sent a sharp tremor through her.
