Chapter Ten
Cassian had been returning from his study, intending only to retire for the night, when a faint light caught his eye. His heart stilled momentarily.
The forbidden wing.
For a moment, he simply stared, as disbelief turned to a cold, swift fury that coursed through him like blood. Then he was moving, his stride in the rhythm of barely contained rage. The sconces along the hall seemed to shudder as he passed.
As soon as he reached the open door, he did not need to look inside to know. He could feel it, the disturbance in the air, the violation of something sacred.
He stepped through the threshold. Charlotte stood in the middle of the room, with her pale gown brushed by the dim light of the lamp she had dared to bring.
Cassian froze. “What do you think you are doing in here?” The words struck like lightning.
Charlotte stuttered. “I…”
“I gave you one command,” he hissed, stepping closer, his anger finally breaking through the layers of discipline he wore like armour. “One! That you would not enter this wing!”
“I… I was lost, and I was looking for the library,” she barely managed to reply. “Besides, this is my home now… You brought me into it, and you can’t bar me from it.”
“It is not your home!” The words burst from him before he could stop them. The outpour of rage was raw and violent, and there was no stopping it now. “Not this place and certainly not these rooms!”
Charlotte flinched, but she did not retreat. “Then what is it you guard so fiercely? What could be so terrible that I cannot even know it exists?”
He was taken aback by her question. It caused him to laugh, but it was a hollow, bitter sound that startled even him. “Why would you want to know?”
“I do,” she told him. Her entire body seemed to be trembling before him, yet she refused to yield. “You shut every door between us, every question, every feeling, and call it duty. What are you hiding, Cassian? What could be worse than this endless silence?”
The name, his name, on her lips struck him like a blow. His fury snapped, giving way to something darker.
He turned from her, his hand dragging across the edge of the cradle as though to steady himself. “You want truth?” he demanded, feeling as though his heart was breaking all over again. “Then hear it. My wife died in this room. And my son… my only son, died before he ever drew breath.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened, and her lips parted in stunned silence.
Cassian’s gaze burned into the portrait above the mantel. “This was her chamber. Her bed. Her books. It is her laughter that is woven into the walls of this house.” His voice cracked, the edges splintering into grief. “And finally, this was, in a way, her mausoleum.”
He turned on her then, his expression wild with fury and pain. “Are you happy now?”
Charlotte shook her head, utterly stricken by the truth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think—”
“Yes, you didn’t think,” he interrupted her furiously, still snarling. “You had no right to invade this place and to touch what is left of her.”
He crossed the room in three strides and seized the lamp from her hand. Then he faced her one last time, with eyes that had never been colder or more distant.
“Do not ever come here again.”
The door slammed behind him with a noise that threatened to destroy the entire house, yet it stood. He didn’t care that he left her in complete darkness. For a moment, he stood on the other side, with his hands braced against the frame.
His eyes burned, though no tears came. He had not wept in years. He would not start now.
Cassian strode down the corridor until he reached the familiar door of his study.
He entered, shutting it behind him with finality.
He crossed to the sideboard, poured a glass with a trembling hand, and drank it down in one swallow.
The liquid burned its way to his chest, but it did nothing to still the pounding in his skull.
Another pour. Another swallow.
He set the glass down too hard. It cracked at the base but held.
His gaze lifted to the fire. The flames licked at the grate, the same restless motion as the thoughts he could not suppress.
Her hands on Eleanor’s things. Her eyes on that room.
He gripped the edge of his desk until his knuckles turned white. Charlotte had meant no harm. He knew that. But the very sight of her standing there amidst Eleanor’s things had torn open something he had buried too deep to ever touch.
He saw it all again: the blood, the stillness, the physician’s face, and finally, Eleanor’s hand slipping from his. In a single moment of torment, he relived the night that had ruined every one to follow.
He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, forcing the memories back into the darkness where they belonged.
You cannot go back. You cannot fix it.
Then, a soft knock broke through his thoughts. He didn’t say anything.
“Your Grace?” Her voice, quiet but trembling, drifted through the wood. “May I speak with you?”
He still said nothing. He could picture her on the other side of the door, small and uncertain, her hand perhaps still resting against the panel. The same woman who had looked at him with fire in her eyes moments ago now stood seeking forgiveness.
The thought tore at something inside him.
He drew a slow breath, straightened, and when he spoke, his voice was even, but cold enough to cut. “There is nothing to say, Duchess. Return to your chambers.”
A pause. Then, she softly continued. “I only wished to say I’m sorry.”
He shut his eyes. The words struck him like a knife. For one dangerous, human moment, he wanted to open the door and tell her that he knew she hadn’t meant to wound him, that it was not her fault the past was made of glass and grief.
But he could not.
“Go,” he said at last. “Please.”
What followed was silence, then the faint sound of retreating footsteps fading down the corridor.
Cassian’s shoulders sagged. He sank into the nearest chair, his elbows braced against his knees.
He stared into the fire until his vision blurred.
The flames wavered, casting ghosts against the walls.
Eleanor’s silhouette intertwined with Charlotte’s pale figure, two lives colliding in the ruin of one man’s guilt.
He reached for the glass again, his hand unsteady this time. The brandy caught the firelight, dark and shining like spilled blood.
He drank.
The storm within him did not fade.
He feared that it never would.
***
“Are you ready?”
The words sounded strange, as they were the first three words he had said to her in the past two days.
After so long, his voice sounded as if it belonged to someone else.
Cassian waited in the doorway of Charlotte’s chamber while she stood by her looking glass, making the final adjustments to her hair.
Slowly, Charlotte turned to face him. She had dressed for the afternoon in a gown of pale blue silk, her hair caught up in a coiffure less severe than her usual ones. She looked damningly beautiful.
“I am almost ready, Your Grace,” she said carefully. “Although I didn’t think you intended to accompany me.”
Cassian met her gaze briefly, then looked past her, toward the polished wood of the doorframe. “It would be unseemly for you to attend your nephew’s first birthday party without me. One’s private affairs should remain private, and this family celebration is hardly the place for speculation.”
Her brow furrowed faintly. “Speculation?”
“The world loves a whisper of marital discontent, Duchess,” he said curtly. “If we do not give them cause, they will invent one.”
Charlotte blinked, clearly taken aback. “Of course,” she murmured after a pause. “Thank you. I didn’t expect—”
He cut her off before the sentence could form. “Do not thank me. I’m not doing this for you.”
The words landed harsher than he intended, the edge sharper than he’d meant to draw. He saw the flicker of hurt in her eyes. It was there and gone in a heartbeat, and something in his chest twisted painfully.
Still, she inclined her head with quiet dignity. “Then I thank you for your consideration, Your Grace,” she said softly.
Was that the faintest trace of irony in her tone he could trace? Not that it mattered.
Cassian looked away. “Be ready in ten minutes. We leave at the quarter-hour.”
He turned sharply, heading down the corridor. He hated this necessity of cruelty, and even more, he hated the way it burned in him even as he wielded it. But distance was the only weapon he had left.
A few minutes later, Cassian found himself standing beside the carriage, with gloved hands clasped behind his back.
The horses shifted restlessly as their breath steamed in the cold air of the afternoon.
They could sense something, he was certain of it.
When Charlotte appeared, wrapped in a dark cloak, he inclined his head.
“Shall we?”
She gave a small nod and let him help her into the carriage. Her fingers, cool against his, trembled just slightly. He released her hand as soon as decorum allowed and settled opposite her, signalling the driver without another word.
The road to Hawthorne was short, but neither of them spoke.
The only sound was the steady rhythm of hooves and the low creak of the wheels.
Charlotte was sitting with her profile turned to him, as if she had discovered something immensely eye-catching in the distance.
Cassian told himself the silence was preferable, that it was safer this way.
When they arrived at Hawthorne House, the great house blazed with warmth and light. Cassian could not ignore the stark contrast between this home and his own. Servants came forward at once, and Nicholas himself met them at the steps.
“Duskbourne,” Nicholas said with a nod. “Charlotte.”
Cassian returned the greeting with equal civility. “Hawthorne.” He offered his arm to his wife and led her up the steps with composed formality.
Inside, the air was bright with chatter and the faint scent of wine and sugared cakes. Lydia greeted them with genuine warmth. “You both made it! Charlotte, you look lovely. Your Grace, it’s an honour as always.”
Cassian inclined his head. “The honour is mine, Your Grace.”
He felt Charlotte tense faintly beside him, perhaps feeling the weight of the guests’ stares gathering near the doorway.
So, he did what society demanded and what instinct compelled.
He reached for her hand, threading his fingers through hers in a gesture of practiced ease.
Her surprise was subtle but unmistakable.
The crowd’s attention shifted almost imperceptibly. He had learned long ago how to control a room without raising his voice: one touch, one gesture, precisely timed.
When they were shown to their seats in the dining hall, he made certain to remain close beside her. He offered a word here, a polite smile there, playing his part to perfection. Yet every glance from her scraped at his composure like fine wire. It was easier to face Parliament than this.
He turned slightly toward her, his voice low enough for only her to hear. “You are trembling,” he murmured. “Smile, Duchess. Everyone is watching.”
Her lips curved so obediently and beautifully that the motion felt like a blade sliding between his ribs.
As if it wasn’t enough that this dinner was a glittering, suffocating affair.
Laughter rang too loudly, candles burned too brightly, and Cassian felt as though every flicker of light in the room turned its gaze upon him.
Still, he kept his composure, as always.
“Your Grace,” Lydia said kindly, “I cannot tell you how delighted we are that you came. It has been far too long since we’ve seen you in society.”
Cassian inclined his head with the faintest of smiles. “As I grow older, I prefer solitude, my lady.”
Lydia laughed lightly, though her eyes darted to Charlotte. “Then perhaps Charlotte will change that.”
Charlotte’s fork stilled briefly against her plate before she replied. “I doubt even I could coax Duskbourne into the light.”
Cassian turned his head slightly toward her. “Nor should you try, Duchess,” he said evenly, the words polished but sharp beneath their courtesy.
A brief silence followed, one Lydia hastily filled with cheerful chatter about her son’s first year. Cassian nodded in the right places, spoke when addressed, even smiled once or twice, but he could feel the weight of the room pressing down.
He could sense the subtle unease that always followed him, magnified now by the brittle tension between him and his new wife.
No matter how perfectly he conducted himself, the strain beneath their fa?ade felt visible, vibrating in the air like a drawn string.
As he looked around the candlelit room, at the familiar faces and soft murmurs, he could not shake the certainty that every person there could see through him.