Chapter One #2
Yet, despite the crushing weight of her past pain and her determination to rip that fateful night from her memory completely, her thoughts slipped to the Cross family.
She imagined their mourning—once thick as the black wool they must have worn, heavy with solemn silence.
Back then, since the late duke had been sick for a while, many would have brushed his death off, but Adam…
Adam would have to carry the burden. He always carried more than his share.
And now, with him finally taking his seat, the burden was a title.
He would never be just Adam again, the boy sitting across the dinner table with a smile at the ready for her. A friendship lost.
Yet it felt like she’d lost more. She pressed trembling fingers to her lips, her remorse eclipsed by an ache she couldn’t name.
Just a year ago, they might have had a wedding, and instead, there had been a funeral.
Had Adam felt heavy stepping into those shoes?
To bury a father and become the head of a family and a large estate in the same breath?
But she couldn’t ask him.
She never spoke to him again after that dreadful night.
Charlene sucked the air in and pinched the bridge of her nose.
If she could shed her skin and become someone else, she’d do it in a heartbeat.
But she couldn’t. This was her life and a girl of her standing, the daughter of an earl, her reputation felt more fragile than the antique Chinese vases at the British Museum.
And yet, somehow, it was intact—even if just on the outside.
Charlene sighed, curling her arms around her knees.
Well, his return didn’t change anything. She’d steer clear of him. She’d flit about to her heart’s content. And she would not get entangled with a Cross ever again.
Not this time. Not even the handsomest young duke.
*
A few streets east in Mayfair…
Adam folded his apology, slipping it into his pocket.
He had rewritten it countless times, stripping it of words and explanations more and more—there was nothing he could say to erase his failure.
A mere apology still felt inadequate. He needed a lifetime to live down the shame of that night.
Adam was ashamed for his brother. What David had done was inexcusable.
He couldn’t blame Charlene for not speaking to him.
And yet, especially on this day, he needed Charlene more than anyone else in the world.
But he didn’t know how to go to her.
How do we go back to how things were?
Charlene,
I failed you. I miss you.
Adam Cross, Duke of Rotheworth
The scent of ink wax had long since cooled.
A flicker of unease stirred in his chest—not just a dissatisfaction with words, but something far deeper, a clawing awareness that words alone could not repair what had been broken.
And on this day, the weights pulling his heart into the abyss seemed unbearable.
And when he stepped out of his study and walked through the hall, even the family chapel loomed, its familiar stillness offering no comfort despite the flowers and respects Mother paid his late father there every day.
Beeswax candles flickered in sconces along the stone walls, their flames listless, casting shadows that bled into every crevice.
Dampness clung to the air, sharp and tangible, as though the earth itself mourned within these stones—his childhood home had become his responsibility.
His burden. He breathed deeply, but the taste of smoke and damp only drove the knot in his chest tighter.
A faint prickle settled at his nape, a sense of being watched, though he knew he was alone.
I have to fix this alone, too.
His eyes drifted upward, tracing the muted hues cast by the stained-glass windows.
Colors that had once seemed vibrant in his youth now dissolved into pale shards of sunlight across the floor, fractured and distant.
His jaw tightened as he dropped his gaze to the limestone beneath his boots, the dull surface cracked in places, worn by years of footsteps far heavier than his own.
He shifted his weight, the faint leather scuff breaking the oppressive quiet.
Beyond the closed oak doors came the faint tread of footsteps, distant but deliberate, a sound that set his senses on edge. Movement would not change the truth. Nor would it quiet the growing sense of failure clawing at him from the inside out.
I wish I could speak to Charlene.
But the price of keeping the scandal at bay had been to keep his distance from her.
How cruel, he thought, that he shared a face with the man at the root of this misery. His twin brother, who didn’t even have a heart, unleashed such heartbreak.
He closed his eyes, just for a moment, as the weight in his chest pulled, dragging his thoughts into an unfathomable depth he could not name.
This was not mere doubt or frustration with poorly chosen words.
No matter how well one masked it, this was deeper, rawer, the kind of pain that festered.
A lump rose in his throat, unbidden and unwanted, and he swallowed hard against the sensation.
The taste of ink lingered faintly on his tongue, a bitter reminder of his morning’s toil.
Somehow, he had to make up for his failure to prevent all this.
If only I could turn back time.
And still, the note he’d written to Charlene burned against his chest, its presence more cutting than any accusation.
An apology undelivered was no less heartfelt—and yet it was like a spell uncast. Unless he delivered the apology, Adam knew it had no effect.
And yet, all year, he hadn’t given it to her—for how could mere words grasp what he felt so deeply?
He had drafted so many versions before he finally poured a bare string of words onto its surface, but no flourish, no sentiment could carry the weight of what he meant to convey.
Words that could never undo what had already been shattered.
They could not rebuild what had crumbled in his hands the day he had failed her.
After a year of mourning, a year of carrying the apology with him that he never sent or delivered, the cleft was even larger.
How could he approach Charlene and rekindle their relationship?
After a lifetime of friendship, he’d missed her.
More than a friend missed another though…
Despite his brother’s transgressions separating them, he longed to know how and where she was. And especially, if she was willing to be with him.
The day wore the trappings of ceremony, but even now that his father’s tomb had been erected, nobody from the Fieldings had come to stand with him. It was most unusual—until a year ago—that the Fieldings and the Crosses wouldn’t stand together.
The black crepe armband on his coat felt like a stranger’s, and he was ready to rip it off already. His father was gone, just like many other things. Adam was Duke of Rotheworth now, at age five and twenty, a title he had not asked for, an inheritance that felt premature and impossibly large.
He adjusted his cuffs, his gaze drifting upward to the chapel’s stained-glass effigy of Saint George, sword raised high.
Duty. Honor. These were the virtues his father had prized, had drilled into him.
But Adam’s chest tightened as he thought of Charlene, no, Lady Charlene Fielding, and the note now tucked away.
Those ideals seemed hollow when matched against the confusing mess of desire and shame within him.
Just over a year ago, he had danced with Charlene at a merry gathering before his brother cut in.
Her laughter had been warm enough to make his pulse leap in ways it shouldn’t have.
The same way shivers blew down his spine and he forgot himself whenever her eyes met his across a glittering ballroom.
Forgot the discipline, the carefully measured steps he was meant to take.
All of which didn’t include her. Not in that way.
Yet their connection had shattered when he caught his brother, David, with his arm around her waist, while Charlene tried to escape, his intentions unmistakable.
Fury had exploded within him.
There might be some unspoken rules between them as twins, but David had acted rashly, as always—this time, inexcusable.
Adam’s jaw tightened at the thought of David’s reckless behavior.
Charlene deserved better than his brother’s schemes.
No, she deserved better than any Cross man.
Yet here Adam was, holding fast to a thread of hope he could not untangle.
At least he had sent his brother away. It had been all he could do at the time. And keep the secret.
Hope, however, was a fragile thing. The Fieldings had been absent at his father’s funeral, conspicuously so.
Charlene he could understand. But her father and brother should have been present at the cemetery, offering their condolences and upholding the decades-long bond between their families.
But they were not. Adam could not blame them either, not after David’s behavior, and not after Charlene had so clearly distanced herself from them.
Though what she told her family, he didn’t know.
No one had shown up to demand a duel. Still.
The distance between him and Charlene had gnawed at Adam for a year.
Although his father’s passing hadn’t come as a surprise, the timing of it had, and how deeply affected Adam was struck him to his core in a way he’d never seen coming.
He let out a heavy sigh.
The duties of the day awaited him, but his thoughts stayed stubbornly with Lady Charlene. No title, no inheritance, no oath to his family could root out the memory of her voice, her touch when they danced, or the way her lips had almost curled into a smile when she teased him.
Everything he’d cherished before David had ruined everything.
She’s everything I miss in life.
He paused near the corridor, his hand brushing the folded letter in his pocket.
Perhaps it was madness to seek her out again.
Because, for all his uncertainty, there was one thing he knew with painful clarity.
Whatever shame his family had brought upon the Fieldings, he would spend the rest of his days making it right.
And he would start with their friendship.