The estate had flourished under him.
Edward pushed back from the desk and stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. He crossed the room and reached for the decanter on the sideboard, pouring himself a small measure of brandy. He rarely drank during the day—but today—
He stopped, glass hovering in his hand.
No.
It was too early for that. Too early to surrender, even in so small a way.
With a sharp exhale, he set the glass aside untouched and returned to the desk. He picked up his pen, straightened the stack of papers before him, and forced his attention back to the accounts.
Duty first. Always duty.
Outside the window, Julian’s laughter rang out again—too loud, too wild—but Edward did not look up.
He bent over the ledger and wrote his name at the bottom of the page with firm, deliberate strokes, as though the act itself might steady him.
Duke of Averleigh.
The ink dried dark and permanent on the page.
Chapter 3
The carriage rattled as it turned onto the long drive toward Ashford Manor, its wheels protesting every frozen rut in the road.
Charlotte steadied herself against the seat, fingers tightening around the small leather bag at her feet. It was all she had brought with her—everything she owned now contained within it.
The jolt of the wheels sent a faint tremor through her, sharp enough that her breath caught before she could stop it. She told herself it was nothing. Just cold. Just unfamiliar ground.
And yet her shoulders remained tense, her spine too straight, as though bracing for a blow that never came.
She had not ridden so far since the accident.
The thought arrived unbidden, unwelcome. The memory of wood splintering, of the lurch and scream of horses, of sound tearing itself apart in a single, violent moment.
Her pulse quickened. Charlotte pressed her palm flat against her thigh and forced herself to breathe slowly, deliberately, until the tightness eased.
Bare trees lined the approach like silent sentinels, their branches stripped and reaching, black against the pale winter sky.
Fog lingered low over the ground, curling lazily around the trunks, as though the land itself were reluctant to wake. When Ashford Manor finally came into view, Charlotte’s breath caught.
The house was vast, gray stone rising stark and solemn from the earth. Ivy crept along its walls, clinging where it could, though much of it had withered and browned with the cold. The gardens, visible beyond the drive, lay dormant—beds overgrown, paths half-swallowed by frost and neglect.
It was not the grandness that unsettled her.
It was the stillness.
The carriage slowed. A groom appeared, stiff with formality, and opened the door. Charlotte stepped down carefully, skirts gathered in one hand, the cold biting instantly through the soles of her boots.
Snow drifted softly around her, brushing her cheeks, settling in her hair. She welcomed the sting of it. It made her feel present. Real.
She lifted her gaze.
For just a moment, she thought she imagined it—a movement behind one of the tall windows above.
Then she saw him clearly.
A man stood motionless within the frame of the glass and gloom, outlined by the dim interior light. Dark hair. Broad shoulders. Stillness that felt deliberate rather than idle. His expression was too distant to read, as though whatever thoughts occupied him were turned inward, unreachable.
