Rosamund
No one spoke on the ride back to Wellspring.
I rode with Nevan on his horse, my mind running in every direction — my failed escape, the woman who had tried to kill me. Who was she? Who sent her? It couldn’t have been Nevan. If it were, he wouldn’t be here with me like this, his arm tight around my waist, holding me upright as the horse carried us home.
Moments later, we arrived at Wellspring. Nevan climbed down first, extending his hand to help me off the horse. Then he turned to his men, who held the stranger who had saved my life between them.
"Take him to the lower quarters and lock him up. Post two men at his door. No one is to speak to him or enter without my permission."
"Nevan," I sighed, reaching for his arm. "I told you that man saved my life. You should let him go."
"I will, when I understand everything," He said, turning to look at me.
The man in question caught my eye as the guards led him away. There was an amused glint in his gaze that confused me. He didn’t look like a man being marched to a cell. He looked like a man who had expected it.
Nevan took my elbow and steered me toward the main entrance.
We stopped when we reached the main hall, and he turned to me. "Are you hurt?" he asked, his voice low. "Did that man do this to you?"
"No!" I frowned, fighting the sarcastic retort on my lips. "I’ve told you several times. I owe that man my life."
"When did he take you?" Nevan continued as though he hadn’t heard a word I’d said. "How long were you with him before I arrived?"
Through the narrow openings of his mask, I could feel his desperation to paint the stranger as a criminal for a crime I had committed. It was as though he needed a scapegoat, and from the silent exchange I’d witnessed between them in the forest, I couldn’t shake the feeling they were somehow acquainted.
"Nevan," I exhaled slowly. "He didn’t take me."
He paused, finally processing my words. "Then how did you end up on a road five miles from my estate, in the back of a cart, with bruises on your throat and arms and that man standing over you?"
I turned my gaze away from his, toward the hall, which was unusually busy.
Servants moved up and down the staircase carrying flowers, arranging candles, and draping ribbon along the bannisters.
For a small, disorienting moment, I had forgotten that today was my wedding day. No wonder Nevan looked like this. He was dressed in a tailored suit instead of his usual riding clothes, golden buttons polished to match his mask.
Before I could answer, Clyde appeared at the foot of the stairs. As soon as he saw me, relief washed over his face before his gaze swept over my torn dress, my raw wrists, and the darkening bruises on my throat. He turned to Nevan.
"Your Grace, shall I call for the physician?"
"Yes," Nevan nodded. Then he turned back to me, still holding my elbow, his grip loosening now as his thumb unconsciously traced a small circle against the inside of my arm. He didn’t seem to realise he was doing it.
"Rosamund," he said softly. "Mrs Harlow found your chambers empty this morning. Your maid didn’t know where you had gone. The only clue we had was the eastern gate, wide open." His voice was gentle, and his eyes searching. "Tell me what happened. From the beginning."
I looked at those pale eyes behind his mask, studying my face with an intensity that made my chest tighten. I couldn’t tell him about the mystery woman. Not yet. But pretending he didn’t terrify me would be lying to myself, and I was tired of lying.
"I left on my own," I said quietly.
As soon as the words left my mouth, a strange peace washed over me. Nevan’s hand went still on my arm. The unconscious circling of his thumb stopped.
"What?"
"Yes, Nevan." I nodded. "No one took me or forced me to leave. I left Wellspring on my own in the early hours of this morning because I was trying to get away. I didn’t want to marry you."
His fingers slowly slid down my elbow as he released me. He took a half step back and stared at me, and for a long, terrible moment, the Duke of Wellspring looked like a man who had just been told something he couldn’t make himself believe.
"You left," he repeated. The word sounded different in his mouth. "You were running away from Wellspring."
"Yes."
"From me?" He stabbed his chest with his index finger.
"Yes, Nevan. Who else here would make me want to run away?"
"You can’t be serious." He shook his head. "Tell me you’re saying this to spite me. You wouldn’t really do that to me, would you?"
"I ran away, whether you want to believe it or not. I really did. And I wish you hadn’t come after me. Would have made my life a lot easier."
"Why?" His voice was terrifyingly quiet. "After everything I’ve done for you and your father. I’ve shown you nothing but kindness. I’ve bent to your will more than once, so you wouldn’t feel slighted. And yet you looked me in the eye, accepted my kindness, and planned your escape behind my back."
"How could I not?" I fired back, refusing to be intimidated by his tone. "Every woman before me is dead or mad or missing. This household feels like a graveyard. Your secretary threatens me, you came into my room while I was sleeping and did God knows what, and you expect me to walk down the aisle with a smile?"
"I expected you to come to me!" His voice rose for the first time, echoing off the walls of the hall. "If you had fears, if you had doubts, you should have told me. I would have listened. I would have explained —"
"Explained what?" I cut him short. "You’ve never explained anything, Nevan. You hide behind that mask and answer every question with silence. I know about Lady Catherine. I know about Elowen and Margaret. If you were sincere from the start, wouldn’t you have told me about your former fiancées? Am I the first woman you’ve brought here?"
"Who told you those names?"
"Does it matter? Everyone knows! The servants at my father’s manor, the cook, the maids, the whole damn kingdom knows that your fiancées never last, and you’ve never once explained why." My hands were shaking, but my voice held. "So yes, I ran, because I would rather take my chances in the wild than become another name no one dares say out loud."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Nevan stared at me. I watched his hands clench and unclench at his sides. I watched the muscle in his jaw work, grinding against words he wouldn’t let himself say.
Then the storm passed. His shoulders straightened. His hands went still. When he spoke again, his voice was stripped of all emotion.
"Is this the path you’ve chosen, Rosamund? After everything I’ve done for you and your father?"
"I didn’t choose to marry you, Duke," I said coldly. "You made an arrangement with my father without considering my thoughts. I don’t know what marriage is to you, but it is a serious matter to me. One you don’t get by simply throwing money around."
My chest was heaving with agitation now. "I’ve tried, Duke." I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying. "But I can’t do this anymore. The secrecy. The mask. The other women. If you can’t be truthful with me, then I will do everything in my power to make sure I never walk down an aisle with you."
He scoffed, nodding slowly.
"Rosamund." He took a step toward me. "You don’t have a say. Haven’t you realised? I bought you for a price. You belong to me, and you will marry me."
"Over my dead body," I retorted.
He smirked — a cold, joyless curve of his mouth that I had never seen before — and turned to Mrs Harlow, who had materialised in the hall. Clyde stood nearby, his face carefully blank.
"Lady Rosamund is to be confined to her chambers until further notice. Remove her maid. Post guards at the door. She is not to leave for any reason without my explicit permission."
My heart dropped. I reached for him. "Nevan —"
"You are not to call me that." He brushed my hand away. His eyes found mine through the mask, and the coldness in them stole the breath from my lungs. "You are the Duke’s fiancée. You will address me as Your Grace. And you will stay in your room until I decide what to do with you."
"You can’t lock me up!" The tears came before I could stop them, hot and furious, spilling down my cheeks. "You cannot take away my freedom. I am not your slave. Your arrangement was with my father, not me."
"Oh, Rosamund." His voice carried a singsong lightness that was more terrifying than any shout. "It seems your rumour mongers forgot to mention one thing." He straightened to his full height, towering over me, his shadow swallowing mine.
"I always get what I want."
He turned to the guards.
"Take her away."