For a moment, she could not reconcile him with the man she had once believed herself destined to marry.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
He chuckled, low and indulgent, as though she had asked something charmingly naïve. “I might ask you the same.” He took a step closer. The smell of spirits clung to him, sharp and intrusive. “Imagine my surprise. I was told this was a most respectable gathering.”
Her heart hammered painfully. “You should not be here.”
“That is hardly for you to decide.” His gaze dragged over her, lingering too long, assessing. “You look well. Thinner, perhaps. But grief will do that.” He tilted his head. “I feared the worst, you know. When you vanished.”
“I did not vanish,” she said tightly. “You left.”
He waved a careless hand. “Circumstances intervened. Matters required my attention.” His mouth curved, self-satisfied. “Your father would have understood.”
Her stomach clenched. “Do not speak of him.”
William frowned faintly, as though puzzled by her tone. “You always did grow overwrought when emotions were involved.” He stepped closer again. “I meant to write, Charlotte. Truly. But things became … complicated.” He gestured vaguely, as though that single word absolved months of silence. “You must understand. A man cannot always be tied down by sentiment.”
Revulsion surged, swift and unforgiving.
“There is nothing to understand,” she said, retreating another step. “Whatever you believe once existed between us is finished.”
Confusion crossed his face—brief, genuine—before irritation took its place. “Finished?” He laughed once, sharply. “After all we planned? After everything your father and I agreed upon?” His tone shifted, sharpening. “You were to be my wife.”
“Do not,” she said, her voice cutting cleanly through the night, “speak of my father again.”
That seemed to amuse him.
His smile returned, slower now, edged with something that made her skin crawl. “Still sensitive,” he murmured, reaching for her arm with careless familiarity. “Some things never change.”
The touch never landed.
Charlotte tore away, fear lending speed to her limbs. Her pulse roared in her ears as she fled down the path, skirts gathered in trembling hands. She did not look back. She did not slow until the house loomed before her, its windows glowing with borrowed warmth.
She crossed into the light as though escaping a grave.
She had just reached the shadow of the corridor when another voice stopped her.
“Miss Westbrook.”
It was old. Tremulous. Certain.
Charlotte closed her eyes briefly before turning.
An elderly woman stood near the doorway, wrapped in a heavy shawl, her face lined with age and memory. She peered at Charlotte with unmistakable recognition, her gaze softening with something like sorrow.
“I knew it was you,” the woman said gently. “I would know you anywhere.”
Charlotte’s throat tightened. “I beg your pardon—”
“Oh, child,” the woman interrupted, stepping closer. “You look so like your mother.” Her voice wavered. “We were all so dreadfully sorry. Your parents—such a tragedy. They were good people. Respected. Admired.”
The words struck like blows.
“I did not realize you were here,” the woman continued, unkindness absent from her tone. “What are you doing at such a gathering?”
Charlotte could not breathe.
The garden, the laughter, the fragile sense of belonging—all collapsed in an instant, replaced by the weight of truth pressing down upon her ribs.
