She drew a line through them.
Edward,
The intimacy of his name in ink made her breath catch, but she did not alter it.
She thanked him for shelter. For belief. For protecting her without hesitation. She told him she would pursue the truth regarding William and her parents and that the information he had uncovered would guide her. She apologized for the scandal that had followed her into his home.
Her pen paused before the final lines.
Lady Victoria is a good and kind woman. She would make a gentle mother for Julian.
Her hand shook as she finished the sentence.
It cost her something to write it, but she wrote it, nonetheless.
Love, she was learning, was not possession.
It was protection.
She sealed both letters before doubt could undo her resolve.
Clara stood beside her in silence.
“When?” Clara asked.
“Before luncheon,” Charlotte replied. “While the house is occupied elsewhere.”
Clara embraced her then, fierce and unrestrained. “Come back,” she whispered against her shoulder.
Charlotte managed a faint smile. “If I return, it will be with truth.”
She lifted her case.
At the doorway, she turned once—only once—to look at the room that had become the first place she had felt something like belonging in years.
Then she left.
Not because she wished to leave.
But because she loved too deeply to stay.
***
Charlotte arrived at Beatrice’s well after nightfall.
The journey had felt longer than it was. Every mile away from Ashford had tightened something inside her chest rather than easing it. When the carriage finally rolled to a stop before the modest townhouse, she hesitated only a moment before stepping down.
Beatrice herself opened the door.
One look at Charlotte’s face was enough.
No formal greeting. No questions in the doorway. Beatrice pulled her inside at once and wrapped her in an embrace that smelled faintly of lavender and hearth smoke.
“You look exhausted,” Beatrice murmured. “Come in. Sit. Tell me everything.”
They settled in the small sitting room, a fire burning low but steady. The space felt intimate, human in a way Ashford had not—less grand, more lived in. Charlotte had not realized how much she needed that until now.
She told her the truth.
