Chapter Twenty-Six
Cassian needed to find Charlotte now. Edmund Larke was inside Duskbourne, and no locked door was safe any longer.
Charlotte needed to know. She needed to be warned. She needed to be protected.
He strode to her sitting room first, but it was empty. Then, he checked the morning parlour. It was also empty. He checked the terrace, the gallery, even the library where she often escaped to read alone, with the same result.
Cassian’s urgency sharpened into unease. At last, he found Miriam holding a stack of linens in her arms. Cassian approached her in three swift strides.
“Miriam,” he inquired, “where is your mistress? I must speak with her at once.”
The maid seemed startled by his intensity. “Your Grace, Her Grace went riding.”
Cold spread through Cassian’s veins.
“Riding?” he repeated slowly. “Alone?”
Miriam faltered. “She said she wished for air and would go only around the grounds. She promised to return quickly. It has only been… well, over an hour now. She said she would be back in half that.”
Cassian closed his eyes, feeling fury and dread coursing through him in equal measure.
She was alone after Edmund stood in these walls.
He opened his eyes again, sharper than steel. “Listen to me carefully,” he said. “Charlotte is in danger, whether she realizes it or not. Edmund Larke has breached the manor. We must assume he is still nearby.”
Miriam gasped, colour draining from her face. “Your Grace…”
“Her brother is in my study; inform him of it immediately,” Cassian ordered. “Tell him to send word for my best men, no more than five, and do so quietly. If Edmund is on the grounds, I will not have panic or rumour driving him deeper into the shadows.”
Miriam bobbed a shaky curtsy and fled. Cassian didn’t wait.
When he reached the stables, he barked an order before the stablemaster could even bow. “My horse. Now.”
Within moments, Cassian was mounted, with reins tight in his fists. At that moment, Nicholas arrived.
“Miriam told me everything,” he said breathlessly.
“Charlotte rode out alone,” Cassian echoed. “I’ll take the eastern paths. You take the ridge. Send two men to sweep the south fields and one to the old orchard. No one rides alone except me.” Cassian met Nicholas’s gaze. “He wants her, Nicholas. And if he has seen her—”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.
Nicholas nodded once. “Bring her home. I’ll cover the rest.”
Cassian spurred his stallion forward. The farther he rode, the more the woods thickened, with branches clawing at his coat as though nature itself were trying to slow him.
Then, suddenly, he heard the thunder of hooves.
Cassian reined in sharply just as a horse burst through the trees ahead, riderless, wild-eyed, and lathered with sweat.
It was Charlotte’s mare.
Cassian’s heart stopped.
“Easy,” he murmured, catching the bridle as the frightened mare danced sideways. The animal trembled beneath his hand.
Something happened… something violent.
He released the reins, gave the horse a firm slap on the flank, and sent it galloping back toward the manor, away from danger. Then he turned his stallion in the direction the mare had fled from.
He found signs almost immediately. A snapped branch led to a glove crushed into the earth. There were hoof marks scattered in panicked circles, and on the ground, a patch of churned soil as though two people struggled there.
Cassian dismounted in one fluid motion and knelt. His fingers brushed the disturbed ground. He could see the imprint of a boot heel not belonging to Charlotte. It was male.
Edmund.
Cassian straightened slowly. His pulse was no longer racing. It was pounding, brutal, and steady, like a war drum.
“She fell,” he whispered, seeing scuffed earth where knees and palms had dug in. “And he took her on foot.”
He spun, scanning the tree line. Branches broke in a path leading east, toward the thickest part of the woods and, beyond that, the southern fields.
Cassian mounted again, dug in his heels, and shot forward.
He would follow every footprint, every crushed blade of grass, every snapped twig until it led him to Charlotte.
He rode like a madman, like a man who had nothing and everything to lose, until he finally burst through the last line of trees and into a clearing.
What he saw turned his blood to fire.
Edmund was dragging Charlotte by the arm, her hands bound. Her dress was torn at the sleeve, and she was stumbling against the uneven ground as she struggled to resist him.
Cassian’s pulse roared in his ears.
“Edmund!” he bellowed, allowing his voice to ring through the clearing.
Both Edmund and Charlotte whipped around. For one suspended heartbeat, they stared at each other: predator and prey, hunter and target.
Edmund’s expression twisted. “Stay back!” he shouted, pulling Charlotte against him as a shield. “She is mine! She chose me!”
Cassian’s reply was a growl. “Release. Her. Now.”
Charlotte seized that moment. She stomped her heel down hard on Edmund’s boot. Edmund cursed, loosening his grip. Cassian was already off his horse and charging.
The two men collided with brutal force. Cassian struck first, slamming Edmund back against a tree. Edmund scrambled, looking wild and desperate, swinging wildly. Cassian ducked the clumsy strike and drove his fist into Edmund’s ribs once, then twice, until Edmund gasped for breath.
“You dare touch my wife?” Cassian snarled, seizing Edmund by the collar and slamming him to the ground.
Edmund clawed at him, spitting frantic words. “She was mine! She loved me! She—!”
“Liar!” Cassian roared, landing a final punch that sent Edmund sprawling, stunned and gasping in the dirt. “You preyed on her. You used her. And now you will answer for it.”
As Cassian pinned Edmund, Charlotte moved with sharp purpose.
She darted to the edge of the clearing. With her hands still bound, she pressed her wrists against a sharp branch, sawing and twisting until the rope frayed.
The moment it snapped, she ran back, grabbing the fallen rope and handing it to Cassian.
Cassian wrenched Edmund’s arms behind his back and tied the knots with trained, merciless precision. Edmund fought weakly, still swearing and kicking, cursing both Charlotte’s and Cassian’s names, but the struggle was finished. He was beaten, bound, and no longer a threat.
Cassian hauled him upright and forced him back against a tree, tying the rope once more around the trunk to ensure he could not run.
Edmund glared at them both, madness still flickering in his eyes. “This is not done,” he spat. “You think marriage makes her yours? She will never—”
Cassian silenced him with a cold, deadly stare. “You have lost. You have no claim. Charlotte owes you nothing.”
Charlotte stepped forward then. “I do not fear you anymore, Edmund,” she said.
For the first time, Edmund faltered. The last of his leverage, his fantasy, his control… it slipped from him, visibly and irrevocably.
Cassian turned to Charlotte, cupping her face with his hands. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, though her breath still trembled. “Only shaken.”
He wanted to kiss her, to take her into his arms and never let go, but he couldn’t. Instead, he looked at Edmund again. “The law will take you now, and I will personally ensure it keeps you.”
Edmund didn’t say anything to that. His face was twisted in furious defeat.
At that very moment, a few of the guards arrived, and Cassian instructed them to take him back to the manor house, where he would wait for the arrival of the constables.
Whatever other crimes he had committed, along with staining Charlotte’s name and threatening to kidnap her, would keep him locked up.
Then, Cassian slipped an arm around Charlotte, steadying her as he led her toward the horse.
The danger had passed, but Cassian’s pulse had not yet slowed.
He lifted Charlotte carefully into the saddle, settling her in front of him on his stallion.
Her hands trembled as they gripped the pommel, and without hesitation, he wrapped one arm securely around her waist, anchoring her to him.
“Lean back,” he murmured.
She did. Her head rested against his shoulder, and the moment he felt the weight of her, something inside him cracked wide open. Cassian clicked his tongue, urging the horse forward at a calm pace, keeping her close.
Then, he heard her whisper. “I thought I might not make it back…”
Cassian closed his eyes briefly, and the words tore through him. “Do not say such a thing.”
“It’s true,” she whispered. “For a moment, I thought…” her voice cracked. “I thought I would never see you again.”
He tightened his hold around her, pulling her back against his chest. “You will always come back to me,” he whispered back. “Not because of chance or the perfect moment, but because I will move heaven and earth to make it so.”
Charlotte drew in a trembling breath and turned slightly toward him. “Cassian…”
He looked down at her, at those blue eyes still shimmering with fear, and everything he had held back fell to ash.
“I cannot lose you, Charlotte,” he confessed. “Today I realized something I should have known long ago. I want you… all of you. Not only in the dark, not only in stolen moments. I want your mornings, your laughter, your stubborn opinions. I want every part you have to give.”
Cassian lifted a hand, brushing a stray lock of hair from her cheek with aching tenderness.
“I am in love with you,” he said. “And I will not pretend otherwise for one more hour.”
Her lips parted, but no words came. She turned forward again, but she leaned into him fully this time, her body melting against his, and her fingers curling over his forearm as though anchoring herself to the truth she had longed to hear. Cassian rested his cheek briefly against her hair.
The road stretched before them, winding toward home, but for the first time since their wedding, Cassian felt that home was not a place.
It was the woman in his arms.