She Was Forced to Wear Black and Sit in Silence… Until the Feared Duke of War Chose Her

Chapter 2

“You will dance with me.”

It was not a question. It was not even an invitation. It was a statement of weather — something that had already been decided somewhere above her head, and would now proceed.

The room seemed to inhale and forget how to exhale.

Rosalind stared at his hand. A soldier’s hand: wide knuckles, a pale scar across the back, the nails kept short and clean. She thought, with a strange clarity, that this must be a mistake. A misdirected errand. Some cruel joke arranged by women who had spent three years sharpening their tongues on her.

“Your Grace,” she managed. Her voice came out barely above a whisper. “There must be some error.”

“There is none.”