Leaving Fran City and setting out on the road back to Carnford, what had once been a journey filled with anticipation of returning home became, for Karl, a long and painful trek through his own heart.
He had let Charlotte down. He had betrayed the love she had given without reservation, a love that had not gone out even after being tested by life and death. He had betrayed her lonely waiting and resilience through her long pregnancy and difficult childbirth.
Those vows seemed so pale and laughable before the temptations of reality, the pressure of royal power, and perhaps the weakness and wavering buried deep within himself—unable to withstand a single blow.
His deeper guilt was directed at the life he had not even properly held in his arms yet: Klein. His son.
Those blue eyes, as pure as the clear skies of the Northern Territory, had looked at him in innocent confusion. The child knew nothing yet of the complexities of the world, but because of him—his unworthy father—he was already destined to face a complicated background and family situation.
He had failed to give this child a whole, stable home filled with love and security. When Klein needed his father most, he himself had been mired in another mistaken relationship, nearly losing even the right to acknowledge him.
Still, the one thing he could be grateful for was Earl Rochefort's "magnanimity." The Earl had given him a chance—a chance to turn over a new leaf, to spend the rest of his life making amends and proving himself.
He knew the price of that chance was that he had to make a clean break between Charlotte and Princess Louise.
Any lingering hesitation or wavering, any fantasy of trying to "have both" or "delay," might provoke Earl Rochefort's merciless