Page 122 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

He did not move.

Poppy made herself continue. “I do not regret it.”

A groom laughed somewhere within the stable, quickly hushed. Aurora gasped and announced, “I saved her,” presumably from an insect too small for anyone else to see.

Hector exhaled. It was not relief, exactly. Or perhaps it was relief held under discipline.

“I am trying,” he said, “not to mistake silence for consent. Or fear of refusal. Or my own conclusions for your wishes.”

Poppy’s pulse became unsteady. “That sounds difficult for you.”

“It is proving intolerable.”

A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. His expression eased.

“Before the wedding,” he said, “we made certain agreements.”

“Yes.”

“One of them concerned time.”

“The month.”

“I have not forgotten it.”

“No,” she said. “I know.”

“But I find I no longer trust the man who made that bargain.”

Poppy stared at him.

He turned the handle of his cane under his palm. “There was another agreement.”

She knew. Of course, she knew.

“Our rooms,” he said.

Princess squealed again. Aurora leaned over her. “No, Princess, that is not for eating.”

Poppy looked toward them, buying a heartbeat. “What about them?”

“I had thought⁠—”

A crack split the air.

It was not a sound that belonged to the gentle morning. It struck hard against the stable walls, sharp enough that every animal seemed to answer at once. A horse screamed inside the stable. Hooves slammed against the wood. A groom shouted.

Poppy rose.

“Hector—”

The stable door burst open.

A large horse bolted through, wild-eyed and uncontrolled, tearing free of the men who lunged after it. Its body filled the doorway, dark and massive, muscles bunched in panic. For one suspended instant Poppy saw only movement: the toss of its head, the violent lift of its forelegs, the churn of hooves finding open ground.

Then it came toward her.

She did not move quickly enough.