Chapter 67
“Sweet dreams, Benjamin.”
Jacqueline’s voice was a tender murmur. When she turned toward Windsor, her gaze was sharp enough to pierce the heavy shroud of the dark room.
He found himself with no choice but to follow her lead.
“Sleep well, Benjamin,” he added.
Only then did the boy allow his bright eyes to flutter shut. Gripping his stuffed bear, Colin, in one hand, Benjamin drifted almost instantly into a profound sleep. His consciousness, which had been hanging by a thread, plummeted into the silent depths of slumber.
Jacqueline, who had been keeping watch by the bedside, rose onto her toes and crept silently toward the couch. She reclined against the long cushions and closed her eyes.
Outside, the rain continued its rhythmic patter, underscored by the steady, peaceful sound of Benjamin’s breathing.
The silence that followed was restless.
A fragile, electric tension stretched between them like a taut wire. Even with her eyelids closed, Jacqueline could feel the weight of Windsor’s stare. It brushed against her cheek before tracing a slow path down the column of her throat. It lingered momentarily at her collarbone, then traveled across her shoulder and down the length of her arm to her very fingertips.
A sudden dryness parched her throat. Driven by a mounting thirst, Jacqueline’s tongue darted out to dampen her lower lip. The distant gaze shifted upward again.
It settled on her mouth, remaining there for a long, heavy beat. Jacqueline held her breath, acutely sensitive to the heat blooming on her lips. She remained perfectly still, certain that even the smallest movement would shatter the delicate balance of the room.
She felt a stiff awkwardness tugging at the corners of her mouth, yet she could neither find a smile nor the release of tears. In that moment, even the simple mechanics of breathing seemed like a forgotten skill.
Unable to endure the stifling quiet a second longer, Jacqueline spoke. She feared that if she didn’t, the silence would eventually suffocate her.
Her voice, tight and thin, slipped through her teeth.
“The memory of today…”
“Will be a shield for Benjamin when he eventually takes his place as the Marquess of Preston.”
Startled by the unexpected depth of his answer, Jacqueline opened her eyes. She looked toward Windsor, but he was a mere shadow swallowed by the gloom. She tried to picture the expression he wore while speaking those words, but her imagination failed her.
He likely wore his usual mask of indifference.
After a moment, a soft smile touched her lips. Even if the sentiment felt like something he had recited from a textbook, it represented a significant shift in him. As a teacher, she couldn’t help but feel a genuine sense of pride in her student’s growth.
“Yes. I believe it will. Benjamin is going to be a magnificent head of House Preston. He will have a wealth of happy memories to lean on whenever life becomes difficult.”
Windsor silently disagreed. In his experience, sentimentality was a poor ally in times of crisis. What truly sustained a person through hardship was the accumulation of knowledge, discipline, and sharp social instincts.
Nostalgia offered no protection when pirates were swarming a ship’s deck.
What had kept him alive was the brutal repetition of swordsmanship and marksmanship—movements so ingrained in his muscles through tireless practice that they had become as natural as breathing. Even a man of his legendary endurance occasionally craved a moment of peace. There were mornings when he simply wanted to stay in bed, days when even the strongest body felt the weight of exhaustion.
Yet he had always forced himself up. Whether through snow or torrential rain, he returned to the same spot at the same hour to perform the same drills.
It was a grueling, monotonous existence. Progress was often invisible, leaving him to wonder if he was even improving at all. He was well aware of what the men whispered when they thought he wasn’t listening.
“Even with a promotion to Major, he hasn’t changed a bit. That’s just Major Preston for you.”
“The Major was never cut from the same cloth as us. If we tried to live like that, we’d drop dead before we ever saw a pirate.”
“I’ve never seen him miss a single day. If a storm cancels a session, he just does triple the work the next morning.”
“The man is a lunatic—a total workaholic. He holds himself to such a standard that the rest of us can’t even find room to complain.”
Those thousands of agonizing, seemingly pointless hours had been the true architects of Windsor’s survival. It wasn’t sweet memories that guarded him, but the bitter, salt-stained labor of his own sweat.
He kept these thoughts to himself, however. To voice them now would surely provoke a confrontation, and his instincts told him the risk was high.
But then, Jacqueline spoke again in a soft whisper.
“Tomorrow—actually, it’s already today. It’s finally here.”
He didn’t need to ask what she meant. Today marked the beginning of the legal battle for Benjamin’s future.
“I am so sorry.”
The sudden apology caught Windsor off guard. He turned his head slowly, his eyes locking onto hers through the shadows. Jacqueline kept her head bowed, her focus fixed on the fabric of her skirt near her knees. For the first time, Windsor was grateful for his keen, soldier’s eyesight.
“I’m sorry that I cannot be of any help to you, Lord Preston.”
Windsor dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand. “Do not trouble yourself over it.”
“But…”
Her voice trailed off. She was painfully aware of his struggle to find witnesses willing to stand for him. This was a clash between the Sovereign and the Marquess of Preston; no one wanted to be the small fry crushed between two warring giants. And if a choice had to be made, it was only human nature to side with the King.
Benjamin’s custody trial would be a brutal uphill climb, facing a formidable prosecution and judges whose sense of fairness was likely bought and paid for. The fact that she couldn’t stand by Windsor’s side felt like a physical weight—a crushing guilt that had stolen her sleep for days.
Though he had never shown her a hint of resentment, Jacqueline felt compelled to explain herself, terrified that he might secretly harbor some reproach.
“As I mentioned before, my mother’s spirit broke very quickly after my father’s death. For a woman who lived her entire life as a Viscount’s daughter and an Earl’s wife, the reality of our fall was more than she could bear. When we lost the house, the estate, the jewelry… we were left with nothing. I am all she has left in this world. I cannot simply turn my back on her. If I were to testify for you, she would see it as the ultimate betrayal.”
“I understand,” Windsor said with a nod. And he truly did.
In the silence of his mind, he recalled a letter he had read the previous afternoon. He trusted Jacqueline implicitly, but he had no such faith in her mother.
Windsor Preston, the man they called the “Devil of the Black Fleet,” was not someone who allowed threats to linger at his back. He was currently engaged in a war he refused to lose. In combat, the smallest oversight could lead to total ruin, and he was determined to keep every variable under his control.
Since Jacqueline’s return from Southfield, every piece of mail sent to Preston Manor had passed through his hands. Each letter was opened, read, and then expertly resealed so that the recipient would never suspect it had been intercepted.
Jacqueline’s mother wrote weekly, and her messages were always variations on the same theme:
“Why haven’t you mentioned meeting Parker O’Brien yet? Surely you wouldn’t disappoint me, Jackie? If you betray me too, I will have no reason to carry on.
Goodness—listen to me. Of course you wouldn’t do that. You aren’t like those vultures who threw me into the dirt. You are my daughter, Jacqueline Somerset—the girl I raised with my own two hands.
So please, Jackie, give me some good news. Don’t leave me to these nightmares. Don’t destroy my dream of returning to society on the King’s arm—certainly not you, of all people.
Consider this my final warning: if you don’t want to see me utterly ruined, go to Mr. O’Brien at once. Don’t make me hate you, Jackie.
P.S. Think about what your father would say if he could see you now.”
When Windsor had read that letter, his face had become a mask of ice. He had glared at the elegant script as if the Countess herself were standing in the room. Even in those few paragraphs, her tone had swung wildly from fury to desperation to manipulation.
Jacqueline hadn’t been exaggerating about her mother’s fragile state. She had been forced to anchor a woman who was constantly coming apart. Even while she was in the capital trying to earn a living, she was plagued by worry for her mother’s health. She had never been afforded the luxury of her own grief.
He suddenly remembered the look on her face when she had been on the verge of breaking down—the way her eyes had shimmered with unshed tears. There had been no one to offer her comfort; she had carried the burden entirely alone.
“Take this,” Windsor had said, handing the letter back to William. The butler had taken the envelope, promising to reseal it perfectly before delivering it to Jacqueline with a straight face.
And then, she would be hurt.
The thought had echoed in his mind. The Countess was effectively holding her own daughter hostage.
Shaking off the memory, Windsor looked back at the woman sitting in the dark. Jacqueline was braving her mother’s venom for the sake of him and his nephew. She claimed she was doing nothing, but he knew how much that passive choice was costing her. Despite the weight of those letters, she remained a constant source of warmth for Benjamin. That was her true strength.
He remembered one night in particular, when her composure had finally slipped and she had whispered in a trembling voice:
“Please… not you too, Lord Preston. Even without your pressure, I am already…”
No—he would not add to her misery. Even if the rest of the world turned against her, he would not be among them. She trusted him, and he wanted his presence to be the one place where she could finally find rest.
Windsor rubbed his chin, choosing his next words with care.
“Miss Somerset, you don’t need to do anything at all. I know that simply staying as you are is the greatest help you could give.”
Jacqueline’s eyes widened at the unexpected kindness. Her breath hitched, and the exhale that followed was a faint, shaky thing.
His words made her heart feel impossibly heavy, as if she had swallowed a stone that was dragging her down into the dark sea. She had never felt so small or so wretched—not even when the creditors were at the door or the reporters were hounding her.
In her own eyes, she felt cowardly and weak—a selfish woman who put her own fears above all else. She had become exactly the kind of person she had always despised.
“What kind of man,” Windsor asked quietly, “was the Earl of Somerset?”
