She Walked Away Silently After Broken Engagement — Minutes Later, Duke’s Royal Carriage Came After..

Chapter 8

They walked through the snow for what felt like hours. The wind cut through their clothes, and the cold seeped into their bones, but they did not stop. Maximilian held her hand the entire way, his grip steady and sure, guiding her through the white landscape.

The keeper’s lodge was a small stone building nestled in a copse of pines, its windows dark, its chimney cold. Maximilian broke the lock with the butt of his revolver, kicked the door open, and carried her inside. He built a fire with practiced efficiency, his hands moving with the precision of a man who had done this many times before.

She sat on the floor, wrapped in a threadbare blanket he had found in a chest, watching the flames catch and grow. He sat beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his body.

“Your arm,” she said, noticing the blood seeping through his sleeve. “You are hurt.”

“It is nothing.”

“Let me see.”

He hesitated, then allowed her to roll up his sleeve. The wound was a deep gash, still bleeding, but not dangerous. She tore a strip of fabric from her petticoat and bound it tightly, her fingers gentle against his skin.

“You are good at this,” he said, watching her.

“I had three brothers. I learned to bandage scraped knees and broken hearts.”

“Which is harder?”

“Broken hearts,” she said, tying the bandage. “They take longer to heal.”

He looked at her, his gray eyes soft in the firelight. “Tell me about him. The man you thought you loved.”

She was quiet for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “I met Thomas when I was eighteen. He was charming, attentive, everything a young girl dreams of. He told me I was beautiful, and I believed him. He told me he loved me, and I believed that too. I spent five years loving a man I had invented — a man who did not exist. The real Thomas was always there, hiding behind the mask, but I did not want to see him.”

“And now?”

“Now I see clearly. He was never capable of loving anyone. He loved the idea of love — the status, the security, the comfort of having someone who belonged to him. But he did not love me. He loved what I represented.”

She looked at him, her gaze steady. “What about you? Have you ever been in love?”

He stared into the fire for a long time. “Once. When I was young. She was the daughter of a viscount, beautiful and kind and full of light. I thought she was the answer to every question I had ever asked.” He paused. “She married my cousin. A safer choice, she said. She did not want a life of danger and uncertainty. She wanted a man who would come home for dinner every night.”

“And you?”

“I have never been home for dinner. I do not know how.”

She reached out, taking his scarred hand in hers. “You could learn.”

He looked at their joined hands, his expression unreadable. “Why did you marry me, Genevieve? The real reason, not the one you told yourself.”

She considered the question carefully. “I married you because I was desperate. I married you because you offered me revenge and I was too angry to refuse. I married you because I did not know what else to do with my life.” She paused, her thumb tracing the scar across his knuckles. “But I stayed because you saw me. That day in the rain — you saw me, Maximilian. Not as a discarded woman, not as a cautionary tale. You saw me as someone worth saving.”

“You saved yourself,” he said. “I just gave you a carriage.”

She laughed, a soft, surprised sound. “I think that is the most romantic thing you have ever said.”

He looked at her, and something shifted in his expression — the walls he had built so carefully, so deliberately, beginning to crack. “I do not know how to be a husband,” he said, his voice low. “I do not know how to be soft, or gentle, or open. I have spent my entire life building armor, and I do not know how to take it off.”

“Then keep it on,” she said simply. “I do not need you to be soft. I need you to be honest. I need you to trust me. I need you to stop treating me like a guest in your life and start treating me like a partner.”

He was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

“I will try,” he said.

It was not a declaration of love. It was not a promise of forever. But it was a beginning, and that was enough.