Breathing.
Small. Steady.
Her fingers tightened reflexively, seeking confirmation that the sensation was real.
The anchor stirred.
Julian.
He lay curled beside her on the narrow bed, his hair mussed, lashes dark against his cheeks, his small body pressed close in unconscious vigilance. One hand remained wrapped firmlyaround hers, fingers laced with surprising strength, as though even sleep had not convinced him she would remain if he let go.
The sight struck her harder than any pain.
A chair had been drawn close to the bed; one of the Pennington maids sat there, head bowed forward, dozing with the stubborn devotion of someone determined not to fail at her post.
A blanket had been placed carefully over Charlotte’s legs. Someone—Edward, she thought, and felt her chest tighten—had seen to that.
Memory returned in fragments rather than sequence.
The garden. The sudden tilt of the world. The sharp, nauseating sense of falling inward rather than down. Strong arms, steady and sure. Edward’s voice, low and urgent, speaking her name.
Then darkness, folding in.
Julian shifted beside her, blinking awake. When he saw her eyes open, the transformation in his face was immediate and devastating—relief flooding him so swiftly it looked like pain giving way to light.
“You’re awake,” he whispered, reverent, as though she might break if he spoke too loudly.
“I am,” she murmured. Her throat felt scraped raw, her voice thin with disuse. “Did I frighten you?”
His head shook violently, curls bouncing. “Papa said you’d be alright,” he said, but his grip tightened, nonetheless. “I stayed just in case.”
The words undid her.
Emotion swelled fast and threatening, climbing into her throat before she could stop it. Charlotte closed her eyes and pulled him closer, pressing her cheek to the crown of his head, breathing him in—the faint scent of grass and soap, the unmistakable warmth of life and stubborn hope.
She had promised him.
“I need to tell him,” Julian said suddenly, already scrambling off the bed, urgency propelling him upright. “He’ll want to know.”
“Julian—” she began, but he was already gone, bare feet slapping softly against the floor as he ran for the door.
The maid startled awake at the sound, rising at once and hurrying out after him, murmuring assurances over her shoulder.
The door closed.
Quiet rushed in to take their place.
Charlotte lay still, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling, dread creeping back into her chest now that Julian’s presence no longer held it at bay. Her limbs felt weak, her thoughts sluggish, as though she had been hollowed out and not yet filled again.
Edward came only moments later.
She sensed him before she saw him—the shift in the air, the weight of his presence filling the room. He dismissed the maid with a single look, then closed the door behind him methodically.
His expression was composed.
Too composed.
The warmth she remembered from his arms the day before—the instinctive way he had held her, steady and unthinking—wasnowhere to be found. In its place stood the Duke of Averleigh, contained and distant, every line of him held in restraint.
