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"The vicar does not travel at such a pace."

The vehicle rounded the bend in the drive—a travel-stained carriage coated in road mud, its horses lathered and the coachman leaning forward over the box. It was a turnout that had clearly been driven hard without rest.

A young footman came hurrying down the garden path, his face flushed from running.

"Miss Ashbourne!" he called out breathlessly. "Miss Ashbourne, a carriage has just pulled up to the main steps!"

Adelaide felt a sudden wave of vertigo. "Who is it, William?"

The footman skidded to a halt, struggling to catch his breath. "It is His Grace, miss—the Duke of Ravensmere. He has arrived hours ahead of any expectation!"

Adelaide stared at him as the morning seemed to tilt beneath her feet. Cassian spoke beside her, but his words blurred into a dull hum against the single name echoing in her mind.

Julian.

He was here now—not in two days, not after she had prepared her mind, selected a proper dress, and rehearsed her words. He was standing at her front steps covered in road dust while she stood in the garden with soil on her shoes and no idea how to face him.

"Adelaide," Cassian said firmly, taking her arm. "Adelaide, look at me."

She turned her head, her face feeling entirely numb.

"He is here," she whispered. "Now?"

"Yes."

"I am not prepared."

"You do not need to be prepared. You need only walk to the house and receive him as a guest. That is all this requires for the moment."

Yet she knew it was far more. She understood with absolute certainty that seeing Julian Hawthorne again threatened to shatter the quiet, orderly life she had spent thirteen years constructing.

Pulling her arm free from Cassian's grip, Adelaide smoothed her skirts and lifted her chin.

"Very well," she said steadily. "Let us greet the duke."

She turned toward the house, her heart beating heavily against her ribs as every step carried her closer to the man she had spent thirteen years trying to forget.

CHAPTER 3

"I—I am dreadfully sorry. For the intrusion. And the hour."

Julian heard the sudden hesitation in his own voice and hated it. Thirteen years spent addressing tribal elders and negotiating passage through mountain passes, yet he stood in a country drawing room sounding like an unpracticed youth caught out of bounds.

Adelaide paused in the doorway.

For a long moment, neither moved. The mantel clock ticked with a slow cadence, while somewhere beyond the window, a magpie called across the damp lawn. Thirteen years of silence collapsed into the narrow space between them; every month, every unanswered question, every letter he had failed to write.

She had changed. The girl he remembered—given to quick laughter, with grass stains on her hem and hair escaping its ribbon—stood before him as a woman of quiet, formidable composure.

Her chestnut hair was pinned simply, her dress well-made without unnecessary ornamentation. And her hazel eyes, the exact shade he had recalled a thousand times over pressed petals or sunlit fields, met his with steady scrutiny.

Thomas's eyes had possessed that same quiet depth.

The thought struck Julian like a physical weight. Thomas—his brother, dead these thirteen years—and here stood Adelaide with the same calm dignity Thomas had carried, the same stillness that brought order to a room simply by her presence.

Guilt settled heavy and familiar in Julian's chest; he had no right to dwell on her eyes, nor to feel the sudden, disorienting warmth that accompanied her presence.

He straightened his posture and clasped his hands behind his back, forcing himself into the rigid, distant posture of a nobleman receiving a stranger.