Page 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

E velyn folded a gown with care, her hands trembling only slightly as she laid it into the open trunk. The sound of a drawer closing echoed softly behind her. Matilda was helping though the silence between them stretched taut like a drawn bow.

Evelyn smoothed her hands over the silk of the next gown. “You don’t have to help, you know,” she said lightly though her voice lacked conviction.

Matilda didn’t respond right away. She was wrapping a shawl with deliberate precision before placing it beside the other neatly packed items.

Finally, she looked up, her brow furrowed. “Why are you doing this?”

Evelyn paused with her hands resting on the edge of the trunk. For a moment, she couldn’t find her voice.

Then, with a small sigh, she spoke quietly.

“We had an arrangement, Matilda. Robert and I. From the beginning. We were to spend a month together, after our wedding. Once he uncovered the truth about what happened to his family, I believed that arrangement might change, but he didn’t say anything.

So, now, all that is left if for us to go our separate ways.

Discreetly, of course. We’d remain married in the eyes of society but nothing more. ”

Matilda turned fully toward her, eyes wide with disbelief. “But… Evelyn. You love him.”

Evelyn smiled faintly, a sad sort of smile, and folded another chemise with practiced grace. “Yes,” she said softly. “I do.”

“Then why…” Matilda’s voice cracked. “Why would you leave?”

“Because he hasn’t said anything,” Evelyn replied, her voice calm but edged with pain. “Not a word about what he wants. About us. He has what he needs now. Closure. Justice. And I… I was just a part of the journey that got him there.”

Matilda stared at her, helpless. “But you hoped.”

Evelyn nodded, slowly. “I did.” Her fingers curled slightly against the fabric she held. “I hoped that somewhere along the way, something would change. That maybe… maybe he’d look at me not as a partner in an arrangement but as someone he wanted to stay.”

Tears pricked at the corners of Matilda’s eyes, but she blinked them away. “You’re just going to leave without speaking to him?”

“It would be too painful,” Evelyn said quietly. “To see him. To say goodbye and still walk away. I couldn’t bear it, Matilda. Not now. Not after everything. So, I’m doing what’s best for both of us. I just want him to be happy. Even if that life doesn’t include me.”

Matilda crossed the room and hugged her fiercely. Evelyn didn’t resist. She closed her eyes and let her sister hold her, swallowing down the grief pressing hard against her chest. Then, they simply continued packing, as if that didn’t symbolize the end of Evelyn’s happiness.

The soft rustle of gowns being folded and the occasional snap of a trunk latch were the only sounds that filled the room. Matilda worked beside her in silence, her movements quiet and methodical, but Evelyn’s hands slowed with every item she packed. Her mind, however, would not still.

She kept thinking of him.

Robert… his voice, his quiet smiles, the way his eyes softened when he looked at her. The way he’d kissed her forehead before charging off into the night, fury burning in his gaze, purpose in his stride. Her chest ached at the thought. Had he slept at all? Had he eaten?

She didn’t know. And the not-knowing gnawed at her.

Her fingers lingered on the last of her belongings, which was a ribbon he had once tucked behind her ear during a walk in the gardens, laughing as the wind tried to carry it away. She held it for a moment longer than necessary then laid it atop the others and closed the trunk with finality.

“That’s everything,” she managed to muster.

Matilda gave her a look, hesitant and searching, but Evelyn offered only a small smile. “Go on ahead. Wait for me in the carriage. I’ll be only a few minutes.”

Matilda hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Evelyn said gently. “I just need to write a note. Something for Robert. He deserves… something. I don’t know if I can make it a proper goodbye but at least an explanation.”

Matilda opened her mouth to argue but then closed it again. With a nod, she slipped from the room. Evelyn stood alone in the quiet chamber, her eyes sweeping over the space that had become a home, however briefly.

She moved to the writing desk by the window, the one with the ink-stained blotter and the neatly stacked stationery she often used to write to Cordelia and Hazel. She took up a sheet of cream-colored parchment, dipped the pen in ink, and paused.

Her heart beat a little faster.

She assumed he was still with the constables, handling the legal unraveling of the Viscount’s crimes. There must have been a tangle of lies and bribes to sort through. That was why he hadn’t returned, why he hadn’t come to her, why he hadn’t said anything.

It had to be.

She touched the tip of the pen to the paper and began to write carefully and sincerely, words she wasn’t sure he’d ever truly hear.

My dear Robert,

By the time you read this, I will be gone. Please do not take this as a farewell born of bitterness or regret, for it is not. Rather, it is the only way I know how to preserve what we had without clouding it with awkward goodbyes or unspoken questions.

When we married, we did so with an understanding. A shared purpose. We would walk together only for a while until the shadows of the past allowed you peace. I never expected anything beyond that.

The words but I hoped lingered in her mind, demanding that they be included in the letter, but she refrained from doing so. She didn’t want to make it overly emotional but rather practical, just as he himself was.

I only ask that you be happy. Whatever form that happiness takes, be it vengeance fulfilled, peace restored, or a new chapter begun, may it be yours, and may it be full.

And if, in some quiet corner of your soul, you ever think of me, I hope it is with warmth. I will think of you with the same.

Yours—gratefully, quietly, and always with affection,

Evelyn

When she finished, she folded the letter and sealed it, pressing the wax with her signet ring. Her hands trembled slightly as she addressed it.

To Robert.

She placed it on the desk where the housekeeper would see it the moment she entered. Then, with one last glance around the room that had witnessed both her heartbreak and her hope, Evelyn turned and walked out.

She dared not look back.

Robert burst through the front doors, the echoes of his boots crashing through the entry hall like thunder. Rain still clung to his coat, misting the polished floors as he strode through the house with purpose.

His heart was racing not with fury this time but with the need to see her, to tell her everything. That it was over. That justice had been served. That he could finally look ahead and that he wanted to look ahead with her.

He crossed the foyer and called her name once then twice.

“Your Grace?” the housekeeper’s soft voice halted him as he passed the staircase. She stepped forward, her hands folded over a sealed envelope.

“She asked me to give this to you,” the woman said with her eyes downcast. “She left it in her room. I… I thought you should have it right away.”

Robert stilled. His breath caught in his chest as he reached out and took the letter. He read it once. Then again. And again. By the time he looked up, the housekeeper was gone, and the silence pressed in like a stone weight.

He slumped into the nearest chair in the drawing room, the parchment slipping slightly from his fingers. His hand braced his forehead, his eyes shut tight against the burn behind them.

She was gone.

She had told him before that she never wanted to be controlled, that she would never let a man define her life. He’d admired that fire in her. After all, he had fallen for it without even realizing it. And yet… in his silence, in his delay, he had failed to tell her the one thing that mattered.

That he loved her.

He loved her more than his revenge. More than the bloodline and legacy he had clung to for so long. More than the haunted memories that had ruled him.

And now, she was gone.

He stood suddenly, the letter crumpling in his hand as he walked into his study. The fire had gone out in the hearth. He tossed another log in then struck a match. The flames caught with a sputter, illuminating the room in flickering gold.

He sat at his desk and tried to focus, to think of documents, of titles, of the next steps with the Crown’s lawyers.

But all he could see was her. His mind was plagued was her laughter dancing through his hallways, her fingers skimming across the backs of his books, her voice, soft but unyielding, telling him exactly what she believed in.

He leaned back in his chair, the paper still clutched in one hand, and stared at the fire. He had respected her wishes. He forced himself to do so. But now that he had, he wasn’t sure how to live without her.

Robert sat in the chair far longer than he meant to. Evelyn’s letter lay open on his desk, the ink beginning to blur where his thumb had pressed too tightly over the words. He read it again, slower this time, feeling as each line resembled a blade sinking deeper.

I only ask that you be happy.

But she was his happiness. And he had been too late in saying so.

The study felt stifling now, heavy with her absence.

Her voice echoed in every corner of the house, in the drawing room where she had read beside the windows, in the halls where her laughter had lingered, in the bedroom where she had once told him she would not be a shadow of a wife.

And now, this house was nothing but a shell echoing with everything he had lost.

He rose abruptly. The chair scraped against the floor.

His coat was still damp from the storm the night before, but he didn’t care.

He grabbed it from the stand, his cravat loose, fingers trembling as he fastened the buttons.

He couldn’t stay here, surrounded by reminders of what could have been.

He needed to clear his mind, to think, to act, before he let another moment slip through his fingers.

“Mason,” he muttered under his breath, already reaching for the door.

Within minutes, his horse was saddled. The wind bit at his cheeks as he galloped down the muddy lane toward his friend’s estate, a hard and urgent rhythm pounding under him, the only thing matching the rhythm in his chest.

Mason’s home stood warm and lit, like a welcoming beacon. Robert barely waited for the stable boy to take the reins before striding to the front door and rapping his knuckles hard against it.

Moments later, Mason himself opened the door, his eyes widening at the sight of Robert: disheveled, grim-faced, and wet from the waist down.

“God’s teeth, man, what happened to you?” Mason asked, stepping aside. “Come in before you freeze to death.”

Robert stepped in, brushing past him, dragging fingers through his hair. He paused only once, long enough to say in a low voice, “She’s gone.”

Mason blinked. “Evelyn?”

Robert nodded once, sharply. “She left this morning. Thought it was over. That our arrangement was done. And I…” He stopped, exhaling hard, jaw clenched. “I let her think it was.”

Mason frowned deeply. “What are you going to do?”

Robert couldn’t stop trembling. “The only thing I can do, Mason… let her go.”