The word cracked out of him. He rose so abruptly that the chair shoved back against the carpet with a forceful scrape. All the tension he had been containing since dawn surged into motion at once.
“She is in danger.”
Cartwright’s expression changed at once. “You do not know that yet.”
“I do.” Alexander seized his gloves from the sideboard, then flung them down again because the mere act of putting them on felt like intolerable delay. “If he came to the house—if he has watched us—if he believes I stand between him and?—”
He broke off, because Diana’s face had risen in his mind with such force that it momentarily stole the remainder of the sentence from him. Diana half turned toward a voice she trusted. Diana was exhausted enough to accept comfort when it was offered gently.
His stomach clenched hard.
Cartwright saw it happen. “Go.”
Alexander was already moving.
He snatched up his gloves, shoved them on as he strode for the door, then stopped only long enough to turn back. “Send word to no one until I know more. And if I am correct?—”
“You will not be alone for long,” Cartwright said, his voice steady now, all business beneath the urgency. “But do not wait for me if you have a direction. Go.”
Alexander did not thank him. He was past speech, which was not necessary. He tore out of the house and down the front steps, every beat of his heart striking against his ribs with punishing force.
He swung into the saddle and drove the animal hard back toward Rosewood House.
The city blurred. Alexander hated every inch of it. Hated the congestion, the wasted seconds, the humanity of it.
He had let this happen. He had spent days avoiding her in the name of pride, confusion, punishment, perhaps even fear of his own weakness where she was concerned.
Alexander’s hands tightened viciously on the reins. If Martin had laid so much as one hand on her?—
The thought cut off. He didn’t want to finish it.
Suddenly, with a clarity that struck deeper than any returning memory, he understood.
This—this instinct to take control, to act, to claim what mattered before it was taken from him—had always been there. But so had the instinct to withdraw. To distance. To convince himself that absence was protection. That denial was strength.
He had been wrong.
Every cold, calculated decision that had kept him from her, every moment he had turned away instead of reaching—none of it had protected her. It had only left her alone and vulnerable.
The realization settled hard in his chest, leaving no room for doubt.
He knew now that it had all been his doing. But regret was a useless thing. It would not bring her back to him. It would not undo the damage he had already caused.
He leaned forward in the saddle, breath steadying by force.
He would reach her in time. And whatever awaited him, whatever truth, whatever consequence, he would face it without retreat. Without distance. Without the cowardice he had once mistaken for control.
It was a dangerous thing to stand so close to her and feel so much. But it was nothing compared to the terror of losing her entirely.
His memory had been stripped from him, piece by piece, and in its place, something clearer had taken root.
He had been wrong before. He would not be again.
He reached Rosewood House in a thunder of hooves and barely waited for the groom before dismounting. He took the front steps two at a time and slammed through the doors with enough force to startle the footman on duty into an audible gasp.
“Where is the Duchess?” The question cracked through the hall.
The servants froze. One of the maids carrying a vase near the drawing room threshold went pale. The butler, who had appeared from some discreet distance as though summoned by instinct rather than sound, stopped short.
