Three days after Serena Maxwell's interview.
Late January, Windsor.
The morning light cut through a gray sky, reflecting off the sheen of damp cobblestones and the pale faces of those clutching the newest edition of The Evening Standard.
Every paper bore the same headline — the same betrayal wrapped in elegant prose:
"Christopher Cross Speaks: On Power, Mercy, and the Woman Who Forgave."
Below it, a column penned under the pseudonym A. Fenwick, but everyone who mattered knew whose voice spoke through it.
Serena knew too.
The moment she saw the first sentence, she felt the familiar chill of a man who had turned even words into a weapon.
--
"I have always admired Lady Maxwell's grace under judgment,"
the column began.
"She is not wicked, merely weary. She does what survivors do — reshape ruin into relevance.
She has learned from power, not earned it.
She loves the audience of pity, because pity is gentler than punishment.
