She knew that now. The moment Edward had entered the library, she should have risen, offered a polite apology, and withdrawn. That would have been proper. Safe.
Instead, she had seen his face.
Not the duke’s face. Not the composed mask he wore so easily by daylight. But something raw beneath it—disoriented, strained, familiar in a way that had stilled her feet before she could think better of it.
She knew that look.
The dislocation of waking somewhere unfamiliar. The sense that the past was not past at all, merely waiting for you to lower your guard. She had lived with it since the accident. Since splintering wood, screaming horses, and the moment the world had torn itself in two.
So she had stayed.
And in doing so, she had said things she rarely allowed herself to voice aloud. About the crash. About the sound of it. About how the memory surfaced without invitation, sharp and unyielding.
She had not expected him to answer her in kind.
That was what unsettled her most.
By the time she reached her door, her chest felt too tight for comfort, as though she had been holding her breath without realizing it. She closed herself inside quietly and leaned back against the wood, eyes shutting for a moment as she exhaled.
“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
Charlotte startled.
Clara Bennet sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed, her hair unbound, a half-folded stack of linen abandoned beside her. She had been humming softly to herself, but the sound faltered the moment Charlotte entered.
Charlotte pressed a hand briefly to her chest, as if steadying something that had come loose. “I didn’t realize you were here.”
“That much is obvious,” Clara replied lightly. “You glanced right past me like a woman bound for the gallows.”
Charlotte managed a weak smile and crossed the room, setting her shawl aside. “I was … delayed.”
Clara’s brows lifted. “By?”
Charlotte hesitated.
It surprised her how easily the words came once she allowed them space.
“The duke,” she said. “In the library.”
Clara went very still. “At this hour?”
“Yes.”
“And you survived,” Clara observed. “That alone makes it remarkable.”
Charlotte sank onto the chair by the hearth. The fire had burned down to embers, casting more shadow than warmth. “We spoke.”
Clara tilted her head. “You never merelyspeaklike that.”
Charlotte let out a soft breath. “I told him about the accident.”
Clara’s expression gentled at once. “Oh.”
“I don’t know why,” Charlotte continued, troubled by the admission even now. “I have avoided the subject for months. With everyone. And yet with him it simply … happened.”
“And did he recoil in horror?” Clara asked dryly.
“No,” Charlotte said. “He told me about the war. About his brother. About his wife.”
