Page 38 of How to Seduce a Duke this Autumn
The woman didn’t move. Silent. Ominous. And then, with an eerie grace, she turned. The mist shifted with her, swallowing her form as though she had never been.
Adam’s heart thundered in his ears. His experienced mind urged reason, logic, yet no explanation fit the chill that gripped him now. Beside him, Charlene’s hand slipped from his as she scrambled to her feet.
“Do you know her?” she asked again, her voice threading with concern.
“No, I couldn’t tell.” Adam couldn’t look away from the space where the figure had stood. The chill of her presence still clung to the air, as heavy as the questions she left behind.
The moment between them had splintered, the fragile magic of it now lost. And yet, Adam felt a new current shiver throughhis chest, tangled in confusion and unease. Whoever she was, her arrival had changed everything.
Chapter Nine
Later that day,back home, Charlene plopped into a chair in her greenhouse, the welcome scent of fresh leaves wrapping around her and calming her racing heart. But unfortunately, not enough to stow the flashing images of Adam in her head.
She had gone to the park.
I confessed my love.She slapped her hand on her forehead.
She wasn’t a fern; she was a weed. Clover at best.
She had met Adam. And worse—so much worse—she had played with him in the leaves like a child, letting laughter slip past her lips as though the past did not weigh upon her like an iron shackle! They had almost… She didn’t even want to think about it. It was just too embarrassing. And that woman! Who had she been? Had she recognized her and Adam? Or was it just some stranger who had happened upon them?
I need to think about other things.
Like how was she ever going to look at an autumn leaf again? The colorful hues, the slight indication of decay—once symbols of change and beauty—were now tainted. Very well, perhaps tainted was too strong a word. But it was something! Every rustling leaf would remind her of him. Of the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed, the warmth of his hand as he pulled her up from the ground, the way the world had fallen away in those fleeting moments of reckless abandon.
She had tried to loathe him. Hadn’t she? His bloodline, his very existence—everything about him should have been an affront to her. And yet, standing in the park, covered in leaves, breathless from laughter, she had felt none of the anger she had so carefully cultivated.
That terrified her.
“You cannot forget the past, Charlene,” she whispered to herself, fisting her skirts as though she could hold onto her grievance with that alone. No, she couldn’t forget. Forgetting meant that she might relive it. Forgetting meant she might make the same mistake again.
Forgetting meant… letting go.
And letting go… that would be like it never having happened at all, would it not?
She couldn’t accept that.
But wasn’t she already letting go, little by little? Hadn’t she let go the moment she met him in the park? The moment she let herself forget who he was—who she was—and simply existed in that autumn-filled moment?
That was the most dangerous part, wasn’t it? Not forgetting the past but remembering how it felt to be unburdened by it. How easy it had been, how natural, as though she had been waiting all along for someone like him to remind her what joy was.
She dug her nails into her palms.
No, Charlene!What was she doing? What was she thinking?
She had spent a year rebuilding the foundation of her heart, and a wall for good measure, brick by painstaking brick. She had told herself she was safe behind them, untouchable, immune to the whims of foolish, reckless temptations.
But Adam had walked right in, hadn’t he? No chisel in hand, not forcefully hacking anything down, just a smile and a pile of dead leaves, and suddenly, she was slipping.
And if she slipped too far?
She might fall. Forgotten!
And this time, there would be no getting up.
No, she had to stay away from him.
Charlene exhaled sharply, as if she could force the very thought of Adam from her mind with one breath. She leaned back into the chair, staring blankly at the glass panes above, where the morning light filtered through in beams. She needed to think of something else. Anything else.
