Chapter 1

"Stop! I said stop... I'm old enough to be your mother, you insufferable—ahh..."

"Then teach me, my lady."

He pins my wrists above my head with one hand, my own Rosary beads tangled between his fingers and mine, and tilts my chin up with the other, forcing me to look at him.

Twenty-five years old. Jaw carved from marble. Eyes dark with fever and want.

*Want.* For me. A woman of forty-nine with aching knees and grey at her temples.

"Blessed Virgin... this is a mortal sin... I'm going to burn in Hell for this..."

"Then we burn together."

His pace is relentless.

"I hate you," I whimper.

"You're dripping down my thighs."

"I *hate* you!"

"I'm not stopping until you scream."

I scream. Three times.

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I am the Dowager Countess of Everwood. I came to rescue my granddaughter from an abduction.

Instead, I ran headlong into the Lord Protector of the realm—drugged out of his mind and burning alive with poison.

He pinned me down.

One catastrophic night later:

Me: ???

The Lord Protector: ???

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In my previous life, my granddaughter Eleanor was violated before her wedding.

After the marriage, her husband bled her dry—funneled her entire dowry into his debts and made her raise his mistress's bastard as her own.

In the end, she was sent to a convent. She spent the rest of her days behind those cold stone walls, watching the man who destroyed her live a respectable life with another woman, raising children that should have been hers. No one came to visit. No one came to mourn when she died.

Then I wake up.

And I'm back. Back to the weeks before Eleanor's wedding.

I can't stand by and watch history repeat itself. My legs ache—they always ache—but I grab my walking stick, and in the dead of night, I climb the stone steps up the hill to the abbey. I shove open the heavy oak door of the guest quarters.

"Eleanor! I'm here, my child. I won't let that beast lay a finger on you!"

I remember it clearly. Last time, Eleanor went to St. Andrew's Abbey for Mass, and the Lord Protector's wretched attendant snatched her, dragged her to his master's chambers, and threw her to him like medicine for a fever.

Except—I'm early.

The attendant hasn't taken Eleanor yet.

I'm the one the Lord Protector catches instead.

A bare, scorching torso presses against me from behind.

"So hot... help me..."

God have mercy. I lost my husband at thirty. Nearly twenty years without a man's touch. And now a boy barely past twenty-five has his arms locked around me like a vice.

I grip my walking stick. My voice shakes.

"Un—unhand me! I am the Dowager Countess of Everwood!"

"Let go of me this instant—I'm old enough to be your *grandmother* in rank!"

Roland of Leonhart. The Lord Protector of the realm. Forged in military campaigns, built like a battering ram, a face all hard angles and sharp authority. He commands the kingdom's armies, controls the Privy Council, holds more power than any man alive.

My words don't make him let go.

They make him tip my chin up with his fingers and seal his mouth over mine.

"Shh... what are you mumbling about..."

"Mmm... the scent on you... it's... calming. Makes me feel safe..."

Of course it does. Years of kneeling in chapel have soaked frankincense into my very skin. The rest is parchment and iron-gall ink from copying scripture. Naturally calming.

But that is *not the point.*

The point is: my name day is next month, and I will be *fifty years old.* I probably smell like dust and old lavender sachets.

And he's still kissing me? Blessed Virgin, how long has this man been starved?

"Let... let go of me..."

I thrash. My walking stick clatters onto the stone floor.

But what chance does a woman pushing fifty have against a young man built like a warhorse?

He scoops me up with one arm and sets me on the oak table.

A heartbeat later, my flailing hands are bound—with my own Rosary.

His voice, low and raw, rumbles against my ear.

"Be good. Give yourself to me. I'll take responsibility..."

Holy Mother of God, that makes it *worse.*

If he takes responsibility, how do I explain this to Henry—dead twenty years? To my thirty-two-year-old son? To my sixteen-year-old grandson and fifteen-year-old granddaughter???

What am I supposed to say? *Children, Grandmother found you a new grandfather. He's twenty-five.*

"I'd rather you just killed me."

His breath drops an octave. "My little witch... that can be arranged..."

He rips the lacing clean off my kirtle.

Strips of linen chemise fly everywhere and I—I lose my mind.

"THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!"

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