All Chapters of When the Love Fades: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Silas Wycliffe spoke as casually as if discussing the weather, while tears already covered Eleanor Pembroke's face.She remembered him ending their engagement and her father driving her from the estate while strangers called her a walking curse.She remembered thirty years of wandering, farming, sewing, fasting, and grinding poverty.She remembered keeping her promise for half a lifetime while people laughed that no man wanted the aging spinster.Silas dismissed all of it with one weightless phrase: repaying a debt.But Cecilia Pembroke had not saved his life. Eleanor had.Blood sprayed across Eleanor's white wedding gown before she collapsed....When Eleanor opened her eyes again, someone was gently shaking her awake."Mr. Wycliffe has come personally to give you gifts. How can you still be sleeping?"She froze.Harriet Vance stood before her, pale and exhausted but not yet gravely ill from the broken engagement, and not yet coughing blood on her deathbed.There was still

Eleanor held the supplies, and her fingers stiffened."They're for Cecilia. She's marrying far from home, so I'm preparing warm things for her."Silas raised an eyebrow, surprise entering his voice."I thought the two of you had never been close."After her behavior today, you're not jealous, and you're still buying these?"Eleanor answered calmly, "With the weddings approaching, those small conflicts no longer matter."Silas heard a different meaning.He took the bundle from her arms, gentle and certain."You've become more thoughtful."You remember that Cecilia saved my life. Because you love me, you're willing to tolerate her too. Isn't that true?"Something flickered behind Eleanor's eyes, but she offered no explanation.When they separated, Silas wanted to escort her home, but Eleanor invented an excuse.She still needed durable cloth from the west market. Her mother was weak, and ordinary fabric would not survive frontier weather.As she turned the corner, her maid P

Silas stared at her. "Eleanor, I want an explanation."She started to answer, then saw her father deliberately glance toward the door.Her heart sank. That morning, she had used the Harcourt name to arrange her mother's departure.If anyone discovered her contact with the Harcourt family, the exchanged marriage would be exposed and her mother would remain trapped.She lowered her eyes and forced her voice to remain calm. "I wasn't meeting anyone. I sold them to pay for Mother's medicine."Disappointment and fury churned in Silas's eyes as though she had told an absurd joke."You pawned them? Do you think I'm some green boy you can talk in circles?"You treasured everything I gave you. You embroidered handkerchiefs and purses only for people close to you."Before meeting him, she sold embroidery to support herself, but stopped afterward.Silas appeared restrained and distant, but was possessive enough to hate seeing anything made by her on another person.During the thirty yea

Silas reached the street corner on horseback, then suddenly pulled the reins.A guard behind him asked, "Mr. Wycliffe?"He looked back, but the bridal carriage had already disappeared beyond the alley.The outline inside had been indistinct, yet it left an inexplicable pressure in his chest."It's nothing." He turned his horse and suppressed the feeling. "Go to Pembroke Residence."In the previous life, he had made Eleanor wait too long.Today was their wedding day. He did not want her waiting anymore.Pembroke Residence was covered in white ribbons from the doorway to the stone steps.Silas dismounted and crossed the threshold quickly.The veiled bride already waited in the ceremony room, surrounded by maids and older attendants.Edwin came forward smiling. "You're early, Mr. Wycliffe. The ceremony isn't for another hour.""It doesn't matter." Silas looked past him toward the veiled bride. "I came for her."He stopped before the bride.The lace veil concealed her face, sh

She knew everything. She had returned from the previous life too.Silas stumbled backward."Guards."Confine everyone in Pembroke Residence. No one enters or leaves."Find Eleanor. No, find my wife, and bring her back."The guards obeyed.Silas stood amid the wreckage of his study and slowly closed his fist.For seven days, he did not report to the King.Whenever guards reported that Eleanor's carriage could not be found, he merely nodded without expression.Only at night did he feel alive.He dosed himself with sleeping draughts one after another and slept only deeply enough to dream of her.That night, he returned to the frozen mountain.Snow covered the wilderness and erased every path.He lay bleeding in the snow with a broken leg, unable to move.Someone dragged him forward.A small hand gripped his sleeve while its owner gasped and staggered.She fell and stood again, only to fall again.He struggled to open his eyes and saw a slight back, loose hair, torn clothi