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My sweet Ciel represented the best of my love for my husband.

But it was a love that hadn’t been returned. Not really.

Maybe with how hard I had loved him, this was always going to be the result. It meant finally I had to face the disparity in our emotions.

My husband thought he could win me back, and with what?

Power, control, manipulation.

He had manipulated all my reactions, made sure they were genuinely broken-hearted and sincere. That was only because his arrogant ass knew how I felt about him.

Étienne had known exactly how much I adored him, and played me for a fool because of it.

He had been to our front gate many times since Ciel’s birth, begging to be let in, pacing back and forth until Hugo had to shoot over his head to get him to leave.

But I would never allow it.

He really thought once he had blackmailed that bride-price out of my family that we could have gone right back to how we were. That a few kisses would have smoothed weeks of heartache over.

That was how he saw my love. Instead of protecting it, or treating my heart like something precious and fragile, he treated it like his due. Something he had paid and purchased so he’d own it forever.

Cocky, arrogant bastard.

Tilly had said he acted very broken-hearted to discover my body. That he’d even cried.

But I felt unmoved by his emotion. By the léger on his forehead.

He was sorry for what? Sorry that I wouldn’t wait around in the hopes he’d someday change his mind?

The part of me that had an endless reservoir of patience, endurance, and love was empty.

He claimed he always loved me, but what did that even mean to someone like him?

I wasn’t the woman he had married anymore. I didn’t know what had changed, or when it had changed, but I wasn’t her.

Just as Ciel began to stir⁠—

We smelled smoke.

Hugo immediately got up to make sure none of it was on Savatier property. After all, we didn’t know when my family might be back for more, we didn’t know how deep their commitment to murdering me was.

And there was no way I could relax my vigilance with Ciel here now.

Although of course he still used a cane, Hugo had grown in so much strength and power since we had escaped. It made me wonder if my mother-in-law hadn’t kept him weak on purpose.

But the fire wasn’t in the house. And it wasn’t along the grounds.

Ciel slept on, with cute little baby half-snorts in my ear as I rested my cheek gently on his head.

Smoke began to plume over the treetops and my eyes were glued on it.

What the hell?

“There,” I said. “It’s coming from over there.”

“What’s that?” Odilia gasped in surprise, adjusting her old-fashioned opera glasses. “What has happened?”

“Isn’t it coming from the Pinoteaux lands?” Tilly asked, darting a sideways glance at me.