Chapter Nine
“I am quite capable of managing on my own, Miriam.”
Charlotte’s words were spoken gently, though a trace of frustration coloured them as she adjusted her bonnet before the looking glass.
“Yes, Your Grace,” the maid replied mildly. “His Grace instructed that I am to accompany you whenever you go in the village.”
Charlotte met the girl’s reflection. It was earnest, deferential, and far too young to have become the symbol of her husband’s control. She sighed.
“Then I suppose I must endure it. Come along, Miriam. The hungry will not wait upon the Duke’s permission.”
The maid seemed satisfied as she dipped into a small curtsey. “Yes, Your Grace.”
It was a bright but brittle morning, with the sunlight cutting across the fields in thin blades that failed to warm the air.
The carriage rattled down the long road toward the village, and Charlotte sat in silence, watching the bleak sweep of land roll past. Duskbourne Hall loomed behind them like a shadow that refused to lift.
When they reached the parish church, the familiar rhythm of charitable work began, but it felt different now.
The air inside the church was thick with the scent of stew and wood smoke, with the faint hum of voices as villagers gathered for their midday meal.
Charlotte removed her gloves, set them aside, and began directing the preparations as she always had.
“Mrs. Pritchard, take these loaves to the children’s table, if you please,” she said. “And see that the broth is shared fairly, we don’t want anyone left wanting.”
The widow smiled gratefully, taking the bread. “Aye, Your Grace.”
The title struck her like a foreign word. It still felt borrowed, ill-fitting, as though it belonged to some other woman entirely.
She worked steadily, ladling soup, speaking with the tenants and widows who came to thank her, but the ease she had once known was gone.
Before, she had come here as Charlotte Montclair, who was unobserved and known simply for her kindness.
Now every word was weighed and every glance deferential.
The townsfolk bowed and murmured Your Grace, while their gratitude was tempered by awe, or perhaps caution.
And Miriam stood near the doorway, as a constant reminder of her husband’s command. The girl’s presence was discreet but suffocating all the same.
Charlotte offered a reassuring smile to a mother with a babe in her arms, her heart twisting as she did. The same work, the same people, and yet everything had changed. The invisible thread of freedom that had once bound her to this place had been cut, replaced by the silken cords of duty.
When the crowd thinned, she leaned lightly against one of the church pews, wiping her hands with a cloth. The sound of children laughing echoed faintly through the open door, and she felt it then, that hollow ache of a life that was no longer quite her own.
A few hours later, Miriam approached her. “Shall I fetch the carriage, Your Grace?”
Charlotte nodded, forcing her composure into place. “Yes, Miriam. It’s time we returned to Duskbourne.”
As Miriam stepped away to summon the carriage, Charlotte moved toward the church gate. Her gaze drifted across the square, and then her breath caught. There, beside the apothecary’s shop, stood a figure she had not expected to see.
Edmund Larke.
He was speaking with another man, gesturing animatedly, and he had that same affected smile curving his lips that he’d worn the day she’d last seen him. He looked unchanged, save for the faint shadow of stubble and the easy, careless grace that had first fooled her.
The world seemed to tilt for a moment.
He had told her, once, that he was forever traveling to Bath, to London, to the Lakes, that the life of a poet was restless, rootless, haunted by inspiration. And yet here he was, standing in the same village square she had known all her life.
He never left at all.
Charlotte’s gloved hand tightened around the iron gate. A tremor of humiliation coursed through her. It was not the sharp, fresh sting of betrayal, but something duller and deeper. She recognized it immediately as grief for her own foolishness.
She could not imagine now that she had ever believed a word that he told her, that she had once poured her heart into words for him, words she had never spoken aloud to anyone else. She had built a dream upon lies by offering her trust to a man who never deserved it.
How had she ever thought she loved him?
Her chest tightened, though the pain was quieter than it had once been.
Now, after some time had passed, it was less the cut of a wound, and more the ache of an old scar.
She realized, with a shiver, that he had never truly known her either.
To him, she had been a name, a purse, a foolish woman who mistook his counterfeit verses for love.
Edmund laughed at something his companion said. The sound drifted faintly across the square, a ghost of a voice she had once longed to hear.
He did not see her.
And yet Charlotte could not help but wonder… Did he know? Did he read the announcements, see her name in print beside the Duke of Duskbourne’s? Did he wonder why his letters had gone unanswered, why the woman he had planned to deceive had vanished so completely?
Her pulse quickened, as unease prickled at the back of her neck. She turned sharply as Miriam approached.
“Your Grace?” the maid asked quietly, following her gaze. “Is something amiss?”
“No,” Charlotte said at once, gathering herself. “It’s nothing at all. Come, Miriam. We should return.”
She stepped into the waiting carriage without looking back. But as the horses started forward, she could not shake the image of Edmund standing there in the pale morning light, so ordinary and so small.
Once, he had shattered her world. Now he was merely a man in a grey coat on a street she no longer belonged to. And that, she realized with quiet certainty, was its own kind of freedom.
The road back to Duskbourne wound through the lush fields. Inside the carriage, the air felt stifling. Charlotte sat rigidly with her gloved hands folded in her lap, but her mind would not still. She turned toward Miriam, who sat across from her, with her eyes focused on the window.
“Tell me, Miriam,” Charlotte said after a long silence, needing to fill the silent void with something. “How long have you served His Grace?”
The maid blinked, obviously surprised by the question. “Three years, Your Grace.”
“And… he is a good master?”
Miriam hesitated a fraction too long. “Yes, Your Grace. The Duke is fair.”
Charlotte arched a brow. “Fair? That is all?”
The maid’s gaze flickered to her hands. “His Grace is particular about his household. He expects things done properly. But he is not unkind.”
It was the sort of answer that told her more than it said.
Charlotte looked out the window again, watching the moors blur before focusing on her reflection in the glass. “Does he spend time with his staff? Or with anyone, for that matter?”
“No, Your Grace,” Miriam said quietly. “He keeps to himself.”
Charlotte’s lips curved faintly. “Yes. I have noticed.”
Silence fell again, broken only by the steady rhythm of the wheels against the rutted road. The maid’s reserve began to chafe, for it was a reminder that even here in her own carriage, her husband’s influence reached her.
“You are very careful with your answers,” Charlotte said at last, turning back to Miriam. “Has His Grace instructed you not to speak freely?”
Miriam’s hands folded more tightly in her lap. “No, Your Grace. Only… the Duke values discretion.”
Charlotte regarded her for a long moment, then gave a small, rueful smile. “As do I, Miriam. But I also value honesty. Should I ask you something directly, I would prefer the truth, not the version you think will please him.”
The maid’s eyes lifted, uncertain but sincere. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Charlotte nodded, satisfied enough, though the unease did not leave her. She leaned back against the seat, but the passing images were not enough to distract her. Behind her calm exterior, her thoughts churned.
She was married to a husband she barely knew. Together, they lived in a house full of rules and silences, among servants who spoke in careful half-truths. And the ghost of a man she once thought she loved was still haunting the streets she used to call home.
The carriage jolted as it turned onto the long road leading to Duskbourne Hall, as its grey silhouette rose against the clouds like something ancient and watchful. By the time the carriage rolled into Duskbourne’s sweeping courtyard, the sky had faded to pewter.
Charlotte dismissed Miriam with a faint smile and a polite excuse about needing solitude. She needed to breathe without being observed, to think without the careful composure expected of a duchess.
The great hall was silent save for the slow tick of a clock and the distant murmur of servants in the kitchens. She hesitated at the base of the staircase. She could return to her chambers, or she could wander through the house that was now hers.
Her steps turned toward the east corridor almost of their own accord.
The air grew cooler there, scented faintly with old paper and smoke. She had intended to find the library, which the Duke had mentioned only briefly, but the directions had been lost in memory. The hallways stretched and branched like veins, throbbing endlessly around her.
You are not lost, she told herself quietly, though her steps slowed. You are the mistress of this house. You cannot be lost.
The sound of her own footsteps seemed almost impertinent in the hush. The deeper she went, the heavier the silence grew, as though the house were holding its breath.
It was then that she realized where her steps had carried her… the forbidden wing.
Her pulse quickened. Cassian’s words came back to her with cold precision: You are not to enter. Ever. But something stronger than reason stirred in her chest. The silence here was different, not simply neglect but reverence. Grief, perhaps, preserved in air and dust.
For a long moment, she stood before the heavy double doors, her hand poised but not touching the latch. The wood was dark, the brass fittings dulled by age. Every instinct told her to turn away. And yet…
She pressed her palm against the handle, and it gave way with a soft, reluctant sigh.
The scent of old roses and faded linen met her at once, faint but unmistakable, as if the room had been sealed around a single memory. The light from the hall stretched thin across the floorboards, catching on motes of dust that drifted like ash.
She stepped inside.
The chamber was beautiful in its decay. A canopied bed stood beneath the window, with the drapes drawn halfway.
A dressing table sat nearby, and its surface was scattered with small relics: a brush, a silver hand mirror, a perfume bottle long emptied.
The fabric of a gown hung over a chair. It was pale ivory that had turned yellow with time.
On the far wall, she could see shelves of books that lined a small alcove. There were volumes of poetry and music, their spines faded from the sun that no longer reached them. All pointed to a woman’s life, paused mid-breath.
And beside the hearth, half-hidden beneath a shroud of dust, stood a cradle. Charlotte’s breath caught.
A child. His child.
She glanced around, half expecting that same child to jump out of one of the dark corners and waddle over to her, giggling. But dark silence soon swallowed that thought, and her lit candle focused on the curious object before her once again.
The cot was simple, carved of dark wood, and there was a fine blanket still folded within it. The sight pierced something deep in her, stirring a sadness she could not name.
Then, suddenly, she heard the unmistakable sound of boots striking stone. Charlotte froze, and she felt all the air leaving her lungs. The sound grew nearer, echoing down the corridor beyond the open door.
It was him. Of course it was.
Panic surged inside of her. It was too late for escape, too late even to hide the open door or her trespass. She stood motionless in the half-light of the shuttered room, surrounded by the ghosts of his past, feeling caught exactly where she had promised she would never be.