Rosamund
I waited until the drawing room had emptied and the last of the well-wishes had faded down the corridor before I looked at the letter again.
The dark wax seal stared up at me. There was no crest or name, just those two words on the front in a hand I didn't recognise.
Open alone.
My fingers trembled as I broke the seal.
I slipped the paper out of the envelope and slowly unfolded it to read its contents.
"The last woman who wore his mother's brooch was dead within a fortnight. Ask yourself why no one in his household will tell you her name."
~~~A friend.
I read it thrice, hoping with each glance the words might rearrange themselves into something less terrifying.
They didn't.
Immediately, my hand went to the brooch pinned to my dress. Clyde had insisted I wear it after the kiss with the Duke, fastening it himself with a warm smile and telling me it suited me perfectly.
Now it felt like a brand, and I was holding a letter that told me that the last woman who'd worn this very brooch was dead.
I unpinned the brooch and held it in my palm, wondering if this was a death sentence.
I folded the letter and slipped it into the pocket of my dress, pressing it flat against my hip where no one would see it. The brooch, I wrapped in a handkerchief and tucked beside it.
Who could have sent this? How did they know about the brooch? How did they know where to find me?
I moved to the window and looked out at the garden where I had stood with the servants an hour ago. The women's words still haunted me, layered beneath the letter's warning like bricks in a wall closing around me.
Three fiancées. Dead, mad or vanished. And the last person to wear this brooch didn't survive a fortnight.
That means there had been four women. Yes, the Cook had mentioned there could be more, but they only knew of three.
I pressed my forehead against the cold glass and tried to think. My mind kept circling the same question, tightening around it like a noose: If I go to Wellspring, will I come back?
The servants' gossip could be exaggerated. The letter could be a lie. But what if it wasn't? What if I was walking into exactly what everyone had warned me about, and the only reason I was hesitating was because of a kiss that had made me forget how to think?
I pulled back from the window. My reflection stared at me in the glass, and all I could think about was how to survive.
"You need a plan, Rosamund," I told my reflection. "You need to stop feeling and start thinking."
A knock sounded on the door, making me flinch.
"My lady?" Mr Gerard's voice muffled through the wood. "His Grace is asking for you in the main hall."
"Whatever for?" I asked, my hand involuntarily moving to my pocket where the letter and the brooch were.
"I wouldn't know, my lady," Mr Gerard replied.
"Fine, I'll be right out."
I smoothed my dress, pressed my palms against my cheeks to cool the heat still lingering there, then opened the door.
The main hall was in motion when I arrived.
Servants moved briskly through the corridors carrying trunks and cases. Clyde stood near the front door, directing two footmen loading bags onto the carriage outside. Jennifer was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear her voice drifting from somewhere upstairs, issuing orders.
The Duke stood at the centre of it all, as composed as always. He turned when he heard my footsteps.
"Your Grace," I stopped a distance away from him and curtsied. "You wanted to see me?"
"Yes!" he nodded. "And you should call me, Nevan. There should be no formality between us, as we'll be married soon."
My heart dropped at the mention of marriage, but I smoothed it with a smile, giving him a quiet response. "I'll try to remember next time."
He nodded and didn't say anything more until several seconds had passed.
"Rosamund," he inclined his head slightly, finally breaking the silence. "I'm afraid our plans have changed. A matter has arisen that requires my immediate return to Wellspring. We'll need to leave this morning.
Every nerve in my body went taut. "This morning? You said you'd give me three days."
"I know what I said." Something in his voice shifted. It wasn't impatience, but a strained restraint as though he was holding back more than he was sharing. "If I had any other option, I would honour that promise. But this cannot wait."
I searched his face, or what little of it the mask allowed me to see. His jaw was set, his mouth a hard line. Still, I needed to know. I couldn't blindly leave with him, not after getting that warning.
"What matter?" I pressed, hating the tremor in my voice but unable to stop it. "Yesterday I had three days, and now suddenly I have an hour? What's changed?"
The Duke studied me. I could feel his gaze through the mask's opening, reading me in that quiet, thorough way of his.
"I understand your hesitation—"
"You keep saying that." The words came out like a complaint, which was not my intention. "You keep saying you understand, but you don't. I don't know you. You won't take off your mask so I can see your face. I don't know why I'm here or why you picked a lowly Baron's daughter out of every woman in the country, and now you're asking me to leave the only place I have on a moment's notice without telling me why. I won't accept that, Nevan."
The hall had gone quiet. A footman froze mid-step. Clyde turned from the door with a careful expression.
The Duke didn't move. He let the silence settle, then took several steps towards me and spoke in a voice low enough that only I could hear.
"The King has summoned me."
I blinked. "The King?"
"A royal summons arrived this morning. It is not a request I can decline or delay, Rosamund. If I could give you the full three days, I would. But defying a summons from the Crown would put both of us in a position I cannot protect you from."
I held his gaze, or held what I imagined his gaze was, behind the mask's dark openings. Everything inside me was screaming to push harder, to demand more, to plant my feet and refuse to move until someone in this house told me the full truth about anything.
But I had learned a long time ago that the loudest person in the room is rarely the one who survives it.
So I swallowed my questions, filed them away alongside the letter and the brooch hidden in my pocket, and nodded.
"How long do I have?"
"An hour." He paused. "And you needn't worry about packing everything. A full wardrobe will be waiting for you when we arrive at Wellspring. Bring only what matters to you."
I nodded and turned toward the staircase.
"Rosamund."
I stopped.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "For breaking my word. In the future, you can ask me for anything and no matter how difficult it would be, I would grant the request."
I climbed the stairs without answering. Because if I looked at him now, at the man who had kissed me like I was the only thing tethering him to the earth and who was now cutting short his own promise…
I wouldn't know whether to reach for him or run.
~~~
An hour later, I came downstairs.
A young woman stood a few paces behind the footmen, clutching a small bag to her chest, her eyes darting between the horses and the gravel. When she saw me, she dipped into a curtsy.
"My lady. I'm Fanny. Lord Fletcher has asked me to attend to you."
My breath caught.
I recognised her instantly. She was one of the maids from the garden. The round cheeks, the wide eyes, the same face that had gone pale when I'd stepped around the stone wall. She knew I recognised her too; I could see it in the way she swallowed before lowering her eyes.
For a moment, I considered refusing my father's parting gift. But then a quieter thought settled in. I knew nothing about society or the world I was walking into. I knew even less about the Duke. Having someone like Fanny who had already proven willing to help might be exactly the advantage I needed.
"Thank you for coming with me, Fanny," I said with a smile.
Moments later, I was seated beside the Duke while Jennifer and Fanny sat opposite us. An unspoken tension hung between the Duke and Jennifer that hadn't been there yesterday, making the air in the carriage feel thinner than it should.
As the carriage lurched forward and Jennifer turned toward the window, her collar shifted. A faint bruise of purple ran along the side of her neck, just above the fabric.
It wasn't a bump. It was the shape of fingers.
I looked away before she caught me staring.