Rosamund.
The voice had stopped.
I noticed it sometime after midnight, lying in the dark with my eyes wide open, bracing for the whisper that never came. For two days, it has been relentlessly saying my name, over and over, slipping through the cracks of my consciousness and now, silence.
Maybe standing up to it had worked. Maybe whatever it was had heard me when I’d screamed into the empty room and told it I wasn’t afraid. Maybe that was all it took — refusing to cower.
In the end, surviving was the only thing I could think of, and I made a choice.
I listened to Fanny’s loud snore in the other room while I waited for the clock to strike three. As if on cue, the grandfather clock downstairs tolled. I counted each strike under my breath. One. Two. Three.
It was time.
Slowly, I slipped out from under the sheets and changed from my nightgown into the plainest dress I owned and laced my boots with trembling fingers.
The letter’s instructions were seared into my mind. Come to the old mill by the southern forest road at four in the morning. Come alone and ready to leave.
I had spent the previous day studying the servants’ movements from my window, and with Fanny’s help, I’d established an escape route.
I’d memorised the route, tracing it from the servant’s corridor maps Fanny had found in the steward’s office. The back staircase led to the kitchen pantry, which opened onto the herb garden. From there, a stone path ran toward the east gate, the one the groundskeepers used, the one with a single guard Fanny had mentioned took his break before dawn.
I didn’t tell Fanny my plan or the letter, for all she knows, I needed the map to plan for the future and escape with her.
I contemplated leaving her a note to express my deepest apology; it’d be useless. No matter what, I knew she’d be fine.
I crept out of my bedroom, past Fanny in the outer room and opened the door carefully, making sure I made no sound.
I moved through the darkened corridors the way I used to move through Hadley Cross on the nights when the older girls stole food from the pantry. Heel to toe, weight on the outside of each foot, breathing through my mouth to stay silent.
The house was asleep. The servants were in their quarters. The only sound was the grandfather clock in the main hall, counting down the minutes to a wedding I would not be attending.
The cellar door opened without a sound, and the early morning air hit my face, carrying the smell of damp earth and jasmine. The sky was moonless, which was both a blessing and a curse. No one could see me, but I could barely see the path.
I reached the east gate twenty minutes later, and the guard post was empty, just as Fanny had predicted. I slipped through coming out of the estate and followed the tree line south, keeping the gravel road to my left. I didn’t look back; if I looked back, I’d lose my nerve.
Another twenty minutes later, and with the help of the map I’d memorised, I reached the old mill. Its wheel had long since rotted, its walls were grey with age, and its roof was sagging inward, but a single lantern burned inside.
Someone was inside for sure. Was the person waiting for me?
I stopped at the edge of the clearing and pressed my back against an oak tree, my heart hammering so hard I could hear it in my ears.
Every instinct I’d built over nineteen years was pulling in two directions. Forward toward the light and the promise of freedom, backwards toward the estate and the devil I was beginning to know.
I choose forward.
The mill door was ajar when I reached it. I pushed it open and stepped inside carefully.
A woman stood near the far wall, hooded, her face hidden in the shadow. She was my height and a few inches, dressed in dark travelling clothes, her hands clasped in front of her. When she saw me, she straightened.
"You came. Thank God." Her voice was gentle, warm and filled with relief. "I wasn’t sure you would."
I remained at the door, straining my eyes to catch the woman’s face. "Who are you?"
"A friend. That’s all you need to know right now. I will tell you more when there’s time," She said and gestured toward the back door. "We need to move quickly. The carriage is waiting past the bridge, about a mile down the southern road. It’s safer there, and we need to move now."
"Why didn’t you bring it here?" I asked, refusing to move.
I was desperately burning to ask to see her face, but I wanted to be courteous.
"It’s too close to the estate. If someone spotted a carriage near the mill, they’d raise the alarm before we cleared the forest." She took a step toward me. "Please, Rosamund. We need to leave now, we don’t have much time."
Her urgency was convincing, and her fear seemed genuine. Despite something tugging at the back of my mind to ask her questions, I decided to trust her this once, hoping she would clear all my doubts later.
I followed her.
We moved quickly through the forest, the woman leading me along a narrow path. With the way she navigated the path, it was obvious she’d travelled it many times before. For a while, the only sounds were our footsteps and my own ragged breathing.
"Where will the carriage take me?" I asked.
"North, past the country border and far from both the Duke’s eyes and your father’s reach. I have contacts who can arrange a safe passage for you to another country if you please, or you could take up a new identity and live as a farmer."
"Passage to what country?" I asked, trying to process the words as fast as they spilt from her.
"I don’t know what country yet, but it’s somewhere safe and where the Duke can’t reach you."
I wanted to believe her. I wanted it so badly that for several minutes, I let myself. I pictured a ship, a coastline, a town where no one knew my name—a life without my father and the Duke.
But then I noticed something strange.
Thank God for my experience at Hadley Cross, I could easily tell my bearings.
We were no longer heading south. The gravel road had disappeared behind us. The trees had thickened, closing in on either side like walls, and the path had narrowed to barely a trail. The sounds of the forest had changed, too. There was no early morning birdsong or rustling.
"How much farther?" I asked, slowing my pace.
"Not far. Just past this clearing."
There was no clearing. Just more trees, growing closer together.
"I think we should go back to the main road," I said carefully, trying to keep the alarm out of my voice. "I’d feel safer following it to the bridge."
The woman stopped walking.
"We’re almost there, Rosamund. It’s just a little further."
"I’d prefer the road," I said and stopped walking.
The woman turned to me, her eyes glinting from the hood. From the canopy of the trees above us, I could see the sky lighting. It was almost dawn.
I took a step backwards, my mind already calculating the route back. If I turned now, kept the slope to my right, I could find the gravel road within —
She moved.
It happened so fast that I barely registered the shift before her hand was around my wrist, wrenching me forward with strength that didn’t match her small frame. I stumbled, caught myself, and drove my elbow into her ribs. She grunted, and her grip loosened just enough for me to break free.
I swung at her with my fist. It connected with her jaw, and pain exploded through my knuckles. She staggered but didn’t fall. I kicked at her knee. She caught my ankle and pulled. I hit the ground hard, the air punching out of my lungs.
I rolled, scrabbling for anything I could use. My hand found a rock, and I swung it as she lunged. It caught her temple, and blood bloomed down the side of her face. She reeled back, and I scrambled to my feet, turning to run.
I made it four strides before something hit me from behind. It wasn’t a blow; it felt like a force, an invisible, immense force as though the air itself had solidified and slammed into my back. I flew forward and hit the ground face-first, dirt filling my mouth, my vision splintering.
I tried to push myself up, but my arms wouldn’t obey. A numbness was spreading through my body from the point of impact, crawling down my limbs like cold water poured into my veins. My fingers twitched, and my legs went still.
I felt her kneel beside me, and her hand pressed flat against the back of my head.
I wanted to ask her why. I wanted to know who she was, but the cold intensified, flooding through my skull, drowning every thought, sensation and spark of resistance I had left.
The last thing I heard before the darkness swallowed me was her voice, close to my ear, filled with malice...
"He can’t save you from me. No one can."
Then darkness.