Chapter 3

Back at the manor, I order the servants to fill the wooden tub with hot water in my bedchamber. No one stays in the room.

I want to scrub this night off my skin. If I scrub hard enough, maybe it never happened.

But the marks on my body tell a different story. They're everywhere. Vivid proof of just how... vigorous he was.

At my age. Nearly fifty years old. Handled like that.

Heat crawls up my neck. My cheeks burn.

I cross myself quickly and hiss under my breath: "Margaret Everwood, *shame on you.* You're practically ancient. Stop thinking about it."

That night, I dream of Henry.

He has his hands around my throat.

"Margaret, you broke your vow!"

"You swore on my coffin! You said there'd be no other man! You said we'd be buried together in the family crypt!"

"I've been waiting for you in Heaven for twenty years. You won't come down, fine—but you found yourself a twenty-five-year-old *lover?*"

I grovel. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Henry—I didn't mean to break my vow."

"He was too strong! I was forced, I swear—"

Then Roland appears out of nowhere, wraps an arm around my waist, and pulls me upright before I can bow again.

He kicks Henry square in the chest.

Henry vanishes.

"You're a dead man. The living are none of your concern."

Then Roland covers my ears with his palms. Gently. Like I'm something fragile.

"Margaret. Ignore that old ghost. Everything he said is nonsense. You deserve the finest man in the world."

I stare up at him, stunned. "The... finest man in the world?"

That's clearly himself he's talking about. The audacity.

I punch his chest.

"Shameless! Absolutely shameless!"

He tilts my chin up. Forces me to meet his eyes.

"You love it when I'm shameless."

He kisses me.

I wake drenched in sweat. Burning up.

It's barely spring. There's no reason for this heat.

"Agnes—draw a bath. Now."

The marks Roland left on my neck are impossible to hide. I lock myself in my chambers for days, waiting for them to fade.

The official story: I caught a chill climbing to the abbey and came down with a fever.

Eleanor is a good girl. Even when I refuse visitors, she comes to the door of my private chapel every morning to ask after me.

Days pass. Agnes knocks gently.

"Milady, Lady Eleanor came to see you again at first light. Shall I still turn her away?"

I glance at the window. Pale light. Quiet grounds. No strangers at the gate.

No one has come looking for me. Maybe it's over.

"Let her in. Tell her I'm much better."

Agnes beams. "Right away!"

A moment later, Eleanor bursts through the door and throws herself around my legs.

"Grandmother! You're finally seeing me!"

"I thought—I thought you were angry because I snuck out that day and you had to come all the way up the mountain to find me!"

"I'm so sorry! It was my fault—I nearly got taken by those awful men! If you hadn't come for me—"

"Geoffrey would have been so upset!"

Geoffrey Montfort.

Eleanor's betrothed since childhood. Heir to the Montfort duchy. A young knight who just earned his spurs before the king last year. The kind of man who rides off to the northern front the morning after his wedding.

Leaving Eleanor alone to manage a crumbling estate.

While he keeps a mistress across the border. Gets her pregnant.

And the worst part? The entire Montfort household knows. They blame Eleanor for failing to produce an heir, then force her to raise the bastard under the polite fiction of a "ward."

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