This wasn’t just about glossing over a ridiculous scandal anymore.
Damn it all. Malum straightened, his hands clenching at his sides. This couldn’t go on. He was sick of the endless investigation, sick of waiting, sick of hoping for some damning piece of evidence to simply fall into his lap. Crossings had slipped through his fingers too many times. Malum had been patient, cautious, deliberate—but patience had its limits.
His jaw tightened as he cast one last glance at Ernest before striding toward the door. The time for hesitation was over. It was time to act.
Tomorrow, when he met with the rest of the Rakes of Rotten Row, they would finalize a plan. Crossings was desperate, paranoid, his funds running dry. They needed to push him now, while his erratic behavior and dwindling resources worked to their advantage.
With this resolve driving him, Malum sat down at his desk to make preparations. But before he could even begin, a knock at the door interrupted him. He glanced at the clock—ten minutes past three in the morning.
Raising an eyebrow, he called for the visitor to enter.
Tipton, looking a little bleary-eyed, ducked his head through the door. “Pardon the late hour, my lord, but there’s a gentleman here to see you. Mr. Leopold Beckworth.”
WHAT NOW?
The morning air drifted into Melanie’s room through the curtains, cool but not fresh, just a little smoky—and one more reason to keep her window closed in the future.
Her chest squeezed as she lay staring at the ceiling, replaying the events of the previous night in her head for the nine-hundredth time. So many impressions—fragments of words shared while she and Harry had been entangled in the grass, the glimmering light of the candles as she’d watched Lord Northwoods with dear Josie during dinner…
And later still—when Malum’s playful flirtations abruptly turned cold—cutting words spoken into the open air between their two windows. It all tumbled together, sharp and unrelenting, refusing to fade.
What should have been remembered as a night of wonder and joy, of stolen kisses and whispered promises, had indeed become unforgettable, but not for the reasons she’d dreamed of. Instead of a future she’d been stupid to hope for, she was left with…
Nothing.
No, it was worse than that. She was left feeling rejected, confused. Naïve.
Foolish.
It didn’t make sense. None of it did.
He had made love to her!
It had been… breathtaking. The kind of experience she’d read about in novels, the kind that left a woman—her!—forever changed. His touch had been so tender, even when it had grown insistent and demanding, and she’d thought… she’d thought that the look in his eyes had been one of unspoken devotion, oflove.
Melanie squeezed back her tears.
He’d awakened something she hadn’t known existed. She’d felt cherished, adored, as though she were the only woman in the world.
How could she be alone in her feelings? How could she not have seen it?
The curtains rustled in the breeze, reminding her—“There is no us.”
As if she could ever forget.
He’d seemed to understand her in ways no one else ever had, seen her when others hadn’t. And then?—
“There is no us.”
The memory stole her breath anew. She’d left the window open all night, hoping—foolishly, and yes, perhaps naïvely—that she might hear him calling for her again, that he might come back and undo the cruel finality of his words. But the night had remained silent, save for the occasional tapping of muted footsteps on the cobblestones and a few passing carts.
She hadn’t fallen asleep until just before dawn, and even then, her ears had strained for a sound that never came.
Her throat ached—not from tears, though they hovered dangerously close, but from the fierce effort it took to hold them back. She wouldn’t cry. She couldn’t. Crying felt too much likesurrender, and she refused to lose him and herself in the same breath.
Because, after a year of sleepwalking through life, she was finally waking up… Even if she lost him, she knew she had gained something irreplaceable. Something no one—not even him—could ever take from her again.
It wasn’t something she could name, not exactly, but it was there. Strength, a defiant confidence in herself. She didn’t have to hide anymore. She could step forward, step into the light, and know that she could simply… be.
