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Arabella's only condition was that Thea swear right then and there not to tell John or the others the real reason she was leaving.

Thea had agreed. Grudgingly. And only because Arabella had threatened to throw caution to the wind and run away in the middle of the night if Thea told.

It had not been her finest moment, but she'd been earnest enough that Thea had conceded.

So here they were. Two women in a hired carriage with two maids and a footman, heading for London and whatever came next.

Arabella pressed her forehead to the glass and watched the countryside blur.

She had done the right thing. Of this she was certain. But that did little to change the fact that she still felt like there was a knife lodged between her ribs.

They reached London by late afternoon, and the duchess's house looked exactly as it had the last time Arabella had arrived in crisis.

And yet, for Arabella, everything had changed.

The duchess was waiting in the drawing room. So were Sebastian and Estella. Arabella couldn't say she was surprised to find them there. She and Thea had each written to the duchess to give her an update on the latest threat.

"My dear." The duchess rose and took Arabella's hands. Her gaze swept over her face, cataloguing everything. "Sit down. We have a great deal to discuss."

Arabella sat and Thea took the chair beside her, already pulling out her notes.

Sebastian stood by the fireplace. Estella was on the settee, watching Arabella with the kind of open concern that made Arabella's chest feel dangerously tight.

The duchess, to her credit, did not ask how she was feeling. Nor did she offer sympathy or comfort or any of the soft words that would have undone Arabella entirely.

She simply sat, folded her hands, and began. "The Bishop's registrar at Oxford has confirmed what Miss Evermore suspected. There is no Reverend Henry Craddock in any diocesan record in the country. The man was never ordained."

The words landed in the room, and Arabella waited for something to happen inside her.

This was it then. Thea's suspicion was correct, and Arabella was free.

She waited for something. Anything. Perhaps the soaring, weightless rush she'd imagined she'd feel when the weight of her doomed marriage had lifted.

She felt nothing.

"The marriage is void," the duchess continued. "It was never legal. The parish register entry is fraudulent. Pierce's leverage over you has been, from the beginning, a fiction."

A fiction. The others were watching her. Waiting for some sort of response, no doubt.

For a moment Arabella wasn't certain if she was meant to laugh or cry. Two years of her life spent drowning in fear and guilt and anger and…

And it had all been built on a lie.

That brought on a vaguely nauseous feeling, but little else.

"Arabella." Estella leaned forward, her voice gentle. "This is wonderful news. You're free."

She was free.

And there it was. The crack that had formed the moment she'd watched John's eyes go flat with disappointment threatened to break her in two.

She pressed her fingers to her mouth. She was free. It was what she'd wanted for two years, and now…

What did it matter? What did freedom mean if she could not have the man she loved?

She thought of Lucy. The home she wanted. The family she'd let herself believe she might have.

Her lips trembled beneath her fingers and her throat grew so tight it was hard to breathe.