And then, one day, he’d just been — gone. And in his place had been that impossible will, sworn into law by the Sakkin magistrate himself. Six months. Looked after. Alady.
Ella pressed her palms against her wet eyes, and dragged in one breath, and another. She was keeping her promise, her end of the bargain. Keeping herhome. It was fine. It was perfect.
Or was it? Because there, again, was the sound of that distinctive girlish laugh, ringing through the air. Coming from the nearby side drawing-room, which — Ella took a few careful, silent steps down the hallway toward it — currently had its sliding door pulled closed.
That door was almost never left shut, Ella knew very well, and she crept toward it, her heartbeat rising, juddering through her ears. Surely it was nothing. Surely one of the servants had simply been distracted, or some tired guest had wanted a moment’s rest —
But there was the laugh again, closer this time, like nails scraping against Ella’s skin, and she edged closer to the door. It didn’t close all the way, never had, and Ella held her breath as she leaned forward, put her blinking eye to the crack, and looked.
And it was — Alfred. It washerAlfred. Ella’s betrothed, her saviour, her futurehusband— and with him, caught in his arms, was the woman.Thatwoman.
They were both laughing, Alfred’s handsome head thrown back, his eyes warm and affectionate. And as Ella stared, struck still and silent, Alfred’s hands thrust easily, willingly up under the woman’s frothy skirts — and then he did something beneath. Something that transformed the woman’s laugh into a low, heated moan, her long stockinged leg lifting up to hook around Alfred’s waist, their hips snapping close together.
Oh.Oh. Ella staggered backwards, her hands fluttering against her mouth, and suddenly there was no air, no thought, no floor beneath her feet. Only the rising weltering urge, flaring bright and all-consuming behind her eyes, to go go go, run, run, RUN—
So without thought, without breath, without hope, Ella spun on her slippered heel, and ran.
2
Ella ran, and ran, and ran. Away from the drive, across the lawn, over the grounds, and deep into the dark, dense forest.
Her slippers were already ruined, caked in muck, slipping and sliding on the wet earth beneath the trees. Her costly, beautiful new dress was soaked and torn, clinging to her scratched, screaming legs. And her cheeks were hot and clammy, her carefully plaited hair fallen loose and messy down her back, and she was cold and sweaty and miserable andfurious.
But she didn’t stop running. Not until she’d reached the small, stone hunting cottage, hidden just within the edge of the forest. A place that had gone wholly unused since her father’s death, and Ella dodged inside it, and slammed the door shut behind her.
Fuck.
She leaned her sticky, shaky body back against the door, her hands pressed painfully over her eyes, blocking out the moonlight — but even in the blackness, the vision of it kept parading bright and relentless across her eyes. Her betrothed husband,laughing, in Ella’s owndrawing-room, with his hands up a moaning stranger’sskirts.
And already Ella was cursing herself, because perhaps she should have stayed. Perhaps she should have thrust open the door, made a disastrous, histrionic scene, and had Alfred thrown out. She should have shown herself jealous, petty, irrational, the kind of simple, classless woman who didn’t understand how these aristocratic marriages worked.
But that would have destroyed all her family’s wishes, all her father’s carefully laid plans. It would have thrown away Ella’s inheritance, and her home, for good.
And gods curse her, but therehadbeen hints about Alfred, hadn’t there? From neighbours, from friends, even from Alfred himself, that he couldn’t often be at home, what with so many important lordly obligations to address. But Ella had wanted to believe his easy smiles, his lovely words, the sweet kisses of his mouth deep between her legs. She’dwantedto believe he could be trusted. That she would besafe.
She’d been a fool. Men like Alfred couldn’t be trusted, not when there was so much money at stake. No one could.
And now what? Now that the moment was past, even Ella’s mother would insist that she ignore it, forget it, move on. You can turn a blind eye to a few indiscretions, she would say, as long as his children are with you. You’ll still be his wife, a real lady…
But as the image of it, the new truth of it, kept marching behind Ella’s closed eyes, it felt like something had circled around her neck, and was rapidly closing tighter. She’d very publicly accepted Alfred’s proposal. She’d stood with him not even an hour ago, in front of all her friends and family, and smiled as he had sworn to take good care of her. The wedding-dress had been commissioned, the paperwork already at the lawyers’, the church already booked, and hundreds of guests invited.
And worst of all was that damned half-year deadline, which was already down to one measly month. And how in the gods’ names would Ella ever find another man of standing — an earl or a baron or a duke, the will had very clearly specified — let alone marry him, within such a short time?
Fuck. Ella’s chilled body against the cottage door was shuddering all over, and a ragged, gasping sob escaped out her throat. She would have to walk down an aisle in a wedding-dress toward Alfred, smiling. She would have to go to bed with Alfred. She would have to bear Alfred’schildren.
And would Alfred keep smiling, after that? Would he continue to pretend Ella was his only one, or would he drop the pretence once the wedding was past? And how far did the pretence go, at that? Did he evenlikeher? Or had it truly been all about the inheritance, just like all the rest?
The sobs kept rising from Ella’s throat, raw and desperate, until she was consumed with them, her face just as soaked as her feet. She was trapped. She was trapped with a man who would lie to her, and disrespect her, trapped having his children, trapped giving up her body and her money and herlife, and —
And suddenly, in the cottage, she heard a movement. Silent, but not quite, and Ella’s head snapped up, her eyes blinking in the moonlight.
And wait, was that —was that—no—
She was trapped inside with anorc.
3
Ella screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
