It had all seemed so distant then—love, the possibility of truly belonging to someone. She had wished for it with the desperation of a girl standing on the edge of the world, asking the stars to hear her.
And now...
Kitty glanced at her reflection in the mirror—the same face, but not the same girl. She looked older, yes. Changed. But not lonelier. Not hollow.
Because she had found it. The kind of love that uprooted a life, that rewrote futures, that burned too brightly to be denied. The kind of love her father had once crossed oceans to forget.
Her throat tightened, but it was not sorrow that filled her chest. It was wonder.
She folded the letter carefully and slid it into the drawer beside her hairbrush, a reverence in the act. She would not write back today. Perhaps not tomorrow. But someday. When her heart was ready to remember what had happened without mourning it.
And in the quiet, with the rain falling steadily against the windowpanes and the fire still burning somewhere below, Kitty finally let herself cry.
Twenty-Four
The sky had opened above London as if in mourning—an endless downpour, cold and punishing. It soaked through Norman’s coat and hair, turning the world silver, muffling the clatter of hooves and carriages in a gray, dreary fog. But none of it mattered. He did not feel the rain. Not really. His thoughts were louder than the storm, and the ache in his chest had long since drowned any sensation of cold.
He had been a fool.
An absolute, irredeemable, pride-blinded fool.
The sort of man who mistrusts the sun for shining too kindly. Who pushes away the one person brave enough to stand at his side, only to watch her vanish beneath the weight of his own doubts.
Kitty.
She was leaving.
The carriage was already being prepared at the door of Lord Balfour’s townhouse. Trunks were fastened to the back. Footmen dashed between the iron railings and the covered walkway. And there she stood, wrapped in a traveling cloak of deep blue, her bonnet pulled low against the rain. She stood a little apart from Jane and Richard. Alone.
Just as he had made her feel.
Norman reached the townhouse gates like a man possessed, ignoring the glare of the butler and the shocked exclamations of the footmen. He hadn’t even worn gloves. His fingers were raw from the cold, clenched at his sides as if by sheer tension he could hold himself together.
He didn’t want to think of what might happen if she refused to speak to him.
Did he deserve her forgiveness?
God, no.
But he would beg for it anyway.
Richard, stepped forward the moment Norman made it to the stoop.
“You are not welcome here.” Richard’s voice rang like a bell in the quiet space between thunderclaps. “My daughter is done with you. You’ve made certain of that.”
Norman opened his mouth, but no sound came. He hadn’t expected the strength of the wall between them. A man like Richard did not bluff. His eyes—clear and cold as river ice—held the kind of fury that only a father could possess on behalf of a wounded daughter. Norman respected it, even admired it, but he would not yield.
“I need to speak with her,” Norman said hoarsely. “Just five minutes.”
“You’ve already taken too much of her time.”
“Then let me earn five more.”
Before Richard could reply, the sweetest voice came from behind him.
“Let him speak.”
Norman’s head whipped up. There she was, standing in the open doorway now, rain misting over her cheeks, eyes like fire beneath her bonnet’s brim.
