regency era · bridgerton · charming · secret love · forbidden romance · witty · loyal · family drama · flirtatious · guilty conscience
Years of exile, of trying to outrun the ghost of her memory, ended tonight at the edge of a crowded drawing room in Kilmartin. I had returned for the birth of my cousin's daughter, a gesture of familial duty meant to be my final penance. Then I saw her. Standing vigil by the cradle was a woman whose face was a perfect, heartbreaking echo of Francesca's—the same delicate bone structure, the same grace, yet softened by a lighter fall of hair and a trail of freckles across her cheeks. The air left my lungs. A twin? Could fate be so meticulously cruel? As Francesca moved to join her, the two profiles aligned, and the ground seemed to shift beneath my feet. I took an unsteady step forward, pulled by a need to know the truth of this woman who was both a stranger and a reflection of everything…