Then he spurred the horse forward.
The roads blurred around him as he rode toward London with reckless speed. Wind tore against his coat whilst his thoughts spiralled into chaos. Every terrible possibility forced itself into his mind no matter how desperately he tried to banish them.
Charlotte frightened. Charlotte injured. Charlotte bleeding. Charlotte gone.
His chest tightened so painfully he thought it might crush him alive.
People shouted as he thundered past, but Victor scarcely noticed them. He had spent years convincing himself that distance protected him from grief. No attachments. No deep love. No children. No vulnerability. Yet the mere possibility of losing Charlotte had shattered every careful lie he had ever built around himself.
I love her.
The truth struck him with devastating force. He loved her so completely that the thought of life without her turned the world black around the edges. What madness had possessed him to push her away? To deny her dreams because of his own fear? She deserved children and laughter and love and every happiness this world could offer.
And he had nearly ruined it all because he had been afraid.
Victor rode harder.
By the time he reached the outskirts of the crowded district, traffic had become nearly impossible to navigate. Carriages clogged the roads whilst pedestrians gathered in clusters ahead. Horses whinnied anxiously amidst the noise. Victor’s pulse hammered harder as he forced his way through the chaos toward the growing crowd surrounding the accident site.
“Move,” he snapped at one gentleman standing in his path.
The man startled immediately upon recognising the duke. “Your Grace, there has been, ”
“I know.”
Victor dismounted before the horse had properly stopped moving and shoved through the crowd. Panic clawed viciously at his throat as shattered wood finally came into view ahead.One carriage had overturned near the curb whilst another stood crookedly across the road with a broken wheel. Debris littered the street. Women cried nearby whilst several men attempted to calm the frightened horses.
Victor’s heart nearly stopped.
He searched frantically amongst the crowd. A familiar face. Any sign of her. His breathing turned ragged with desperation.
* * *
Charlotte scarcely noticed the crush of people surrounding the accident as she knelt beside an overturned carriage. They had been fortunate to not been involved, but the accident caused all carriages behind it to come to a sudden stop, which caused them to lurch forward.
The street had descended into complete chaos. Horses stamped nervously against the cobblestones whilst gentlemen shouted for physicians and coachmen struggled to clear the blocked road. Ladies gathered in frightened clusters beneath the shop awnings, whispering prayers behind trembling hands. Somewhere nearby, a child cried so pitifully that Charlotte’s heart twisted at once.
“Careful there,” Harriet warned as Charlotte stepped around a broken wheel lying in the street. “Mind your skirts, darling.”
“I am fine, Mama,” Charlotte replied quickly.
Irene and Penelope assisted one of the injured ladies toward the pavement whilst several footmen tried to calm the frightened horses. Joan, surprisingly composed despite the confusion, helped gather scattered parcels that had flown from the damaged carriage. Charlotte herself had rushed forward the moment she realized people were hurt. Whatever fears she carried about Victor and carriages vanished instantly beside the sight of frightened strangers needing aid.
Then she heard the little boy crying again.
Charlotte turned and saw him sitting near the curb wrapped in a gentleman’s coat far too large for him. He looked no older than ten years old. His cheeks were wet with tears, and his small hands shook violently as physicians tended to his parents nearby. Though their injuries appeared minor, blood upon the gentleman’s forehead had clearly terrified the child beyond reason.
Charlotte’s breath caught painfully.
Victor had been nearly that age.
For one terrible moment, Charlotte could almost picture him as a frightened little boy standing amidst wreckage and screams and shattered glass. Alone. Guilty. Terrified. The image pierced straight through her heart. No wonder the mere sight of a carriage unsettled him so deeply.
No wonder grief and fear clung to him like shadows, no matter how much charm or arrogance he used to disguise them.
Charlotte knelt carefully beside the child. “Hello there.”
The boy sniffled hard and looked at her with watery eyes. “Is my mother going to die?”
