Page 7 of How to Seduce a Duke this Autumn
He had drafted so many versions before he finally poured a bare string of words onto its surface, but no flourish, no sentiment could carry the weight of what he meant to convey.Words that could never undo what had already been shattered. They could not rebuild what had crumbled in his hands the day he had failed her. After a year of mourning, a year of carrying the apology with him that he never sent or delivered, the cleft was even larger. How could he approach Charlene and rekindle their relationship?
After a lifetime of friendship, he’d missed her.
More than a friend missed another though…
Despite his brother’s transgressions separating them, he longed to know how and where she was. And especially, if she was willing to be with him.
The day wore the trappings of ceremony, but even now that his father’s tomb had been erected, nobody from the Fieldings had come to stand with him. It was most unusual—until a year ago—that the Fieldings and the Crosses wouldn’t stand together.
The black crepe armband on his coat felt like a stranger’s, and he was ready to rip it off already. His father was gone, just like many other things. Adam was Duke of Rotheworth now, at age five and twenty, a title he had not asked for, an inheritance that felt premature and impossibly large.
He adjusted his cuffs, his gaze drifting upward to the chapel’s stained-glass effigy of Saint George, sword raised high. Duty. Honor. These were the virtues his father had prized, had drilled into him. But Adam’s chest tightened as he thought of Charlene, no, Lady Charlene Fielding, and the note now tucked away. Those ideals seemed hollow when matched against the confusing mess of desire and shame within him.
Just over a year ago, he had danced with Charlene at a merry gathering before his brother cut in. Her laughter had been warm enough to make his pulse leap in ways it shouldn’t have. The same way shivers blew down his spine and he forgot himself whenever her eyes met his across a glittering ballroom. Forgot the discipline, the carefully measured steps he was meant totake. All of which didn’t include her. Not in that way. Yet their connection had shattered when he caught his brother, David, with his arm around her waist, while Charlene tried to escape, his intentions unmistakable.
Fury had exploded within him.
There might be some unspoken rules between them as twins, but David had acted rashly, as always—this time, inexcusable.
Adam’s jaw tightened at the thought of David’s reckless behavior. Charlene deserved better than his brother’s schemes. No, she deserved better than any Cross man. Yet here Adam was, holding fast to a thread of hope he could not untangle. At least he had sent his brother away. It had been all he could do at the time. And keep the secret.
Hope, however, was a fragile thing. The Fieldings had been absent at his father’s funeral, conspicuously so. Charlene he could understand. But her father and brother should have been present at the cemetery, offering their condolences and upholding the decades-long bond between their families. But they were not. Adam could not blame them either, not after David’s behavior, and not after Charlene had so clearly distanced herself from them. Though what she told her family, he didn’t know. No one had shown up to demand a duel. Still. The distance between him and Charlene had gnawed at Adam for a year.
Although his father’s passing hadn’t come as a surprise, the timing of it had, and how deeply affected Adam was struck him to his core in a way he’d never seen coming.
He let out a heavy sigh.
The duties of the day awaited him, but his thoughts stayed stubbornly with Lady Charlene. No title, no inheritance, no oath to his family could root out the memory of her voice, her touch when they danced, or the way her lips had almost curled into a smile when she teased him.
Everything he’d cherished before David had ruined everything.
She’s everything I miss in life.
He paused near the corridor, his hand brushing the folded letter in his pocket. Perhaps it was madness to seek her out again. Because, for all his uncertainty, there was one thing he knew with painful clarity. Whatever shame his family had brought upon the Fieldings, he would spend the rest of his days making it right.
And he would start with their friendship.
Chapter Two
One year ago, on the day Adam’s father’s testament was read to him when Adam became duke…
The study stillhummed with the clipped, precise tones of the solicitor’s voice, the title “His Grace, the Duke of Rotheworth” ringing out with the gravity of a church bell. The will had been read aloud, every word a decree that carved Adam’s future into stone. No invitations for questions, no pauses for grief. Only a litany of duties, each more sobering than the last. Across the table sat his brother, David, a shadow of insolence darkening the room like dusk creeping toward night—especially after what he’d done to Charlene the previous night. And as Adam sat there, the weight of honor and expectation pressed heavy on his shoulders, his resolve bracing against David’s presence, an unwelcome reminder of the chaos that loomed at the edges of his newly defined world.
“This is all too hard to believe.”
His fists curled against his thighs, the fabric of his breeches straining as David’s voice carried across the room, rich with that easy charm Adam had come to resent, a grating reminder of everything broken that David would never care to mend.
“It is, it is.” The solicitor’s voice droned in crisp, formal tones, moving onto words of duty and legacy, spoken without pause or sentiment. Adam sat stiffly in his chair at the head of the longoak table, the official language naming him duke sinking into his chest like a stone.
Next to his brother, his mother sat shrouded in black lace, her veil concealing all but the pale oval of her face. Her trembling hand moved periodically to her eyes, dabbing at them with a white handkerchief spotted with damp grief. The room, big yet suffocating, bespoke of heavy silences that followed each deliberate word—a burden Adam bore with the same fortitude that had sustained him through their father’s funeral the day before. But that resolve threatened to splinter as David shifted lazily in his seat, his boot scuffing the floor in a grating rhythm before he uttered another low insolent remark that sent a ripple of tension through the room like a stone dropped into still water.
“Quite the magnanimous speech for a dead man.” David’s voice cut through the room, sharp-edged and entirely unwelcome.
Adam’s jaw clenched further. He met his brother’s gaze briefly, noting the faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, a smirk made all the more damning in the presence of their grieving mother.
“David. A word.” Adam’s voice was low, each syllable hard as stone. He pushed back his chair with deliberate calm, standing before fixing his brother with a look that demanded obedience.
David arched a brow as though considering defiance but then, with a bored sigh, rose. “Oh, by all means, Your Grace,” he drawled, the last two words laced with mockery.
