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

Chapter 6

The paper was heavy, cream-colored, expensive. The wax was crimson, pressed with a seal Rosalind did not recognize — a small bird, wings spread, stamped slightly off-center.

Inside, six words in a hand that had been written carefully to disguise itself.

Return to the shadows where you belong.

Rosalind read it twice. Then she folded it, and held it over the candle, and watched the corner blacken.

She did not burn it. She put it in the drawer of her dressing table, under the folded stockings, and she sat down and looked at her own hands until they stopped trembling.

Crimson wax. No signature. A warning sent to a woman who had already been warned for three years.

Somebody was afraid.

That was the thought she kept returning to, all night, lying awake and listening to the house creak. Somebody was afraid of what a duke’s attention might uncover. Which meant there was something to uncover.

The next morning, she received a caller.

Belinda Thorne had been her closest friend once — a bright, nervous girl with a habit of laughing at the wrong moment. When the scandal broke, Belinda had not written, had not called, had not even sent a note of condolence. For three years, Rosalind had assumed Belinda had simply been sensible, and had shed her the way everyone else had.

Now Belinda sat on the edge of the drawing-room chair, twisting her gloves in her lap, and looked as though she had not slept in a week.

“I have to tell you something,” she said. “I should have told you three years ago, and I have hated myself every day since.”

Rosalind said nothing. She had learned to let silence do the work.

“It was Seraphina Harrow,” Belinda whispered.

Rosalind’s hands went still in her lap.

“Lionel’s sister?”

“Yes.” Belinda’s eyes filled. “She destroyed you. She wrote the letter. She paid the servants. I know because — because I saw her do it. I was in the Harrow house that week, and I went into the morning room looking for my fan, and she was at the writing desk with two men, counting money onto the table.”

The fire popped. Somewhere down the corridor, a clock struck eleven.

“Why?” Rosalind asked. Her voice came out very level. Inside, something was folding in on itself.

“Because Seraphina had decided I was not good enough for Lionel, and because she could not bear to lose control of him.” Belinda’s hands twisted harder. “She has always needed to control the people around her. Lionel most of all. She said you were beneath the Harrows because of your father’s debts, and when Lionel refused to end the engagement, she decided to end it for him. Later, after the Duke married Celia, that same obsession turned toward Ravenmoor. She could not bear being refused by him either.”

Rosalind sat very still.

She thought of Lionel, standing in the drawing room with his hat in his hands. A woman of such character.

She had always assumed Lionel had simply believed the lie. Now she understood that Seraphina had wanted control of her brother’s future and had been willing to destroy another woman to keep it.

“Tell me,” Rosalind said slowly. “How did Lionel come to be shown that letter?” “Tell me — how did Lionel come to be shown that letter?”

Belinda’s face went pale. “I don’t—”

“How did my betrothed come to be shown proof, Belinda? A letter does not walk itself into a man’s hands.”

“It was delivered to his club,” Belinda said in a very small voice. “By a servant. In an envelope. I only know because Seraphina laughed about it afterward. She said — she said it had to be him. It had to be someone who would make it public. Someone who would tell.”

Someone who would tell.

Lionel Harrow, who had stood before her and looked at her with disgust — the disgust, Rosalind realized slowly, of a man who had been handed a script and had performed it beautifully for a room full of witnesses.

Three years. Three years of black silk and corners and being tolerated.

And it had all been built, brick by brick, by a woman whose family name was the same as the man who had destroyed her.

That afternoon a second letter arrived, delivered by the same kind of plain-clothed boy, sealed with the same crimson bird.

This time there were nine words.

If you marry him, I will destroy you both.

Rosalind folded it carefully and put it beside the first.

She had three days.

On the first evening, she asked Nell whether Lady Honoria was at home, and was told her mother was not receiving visitors, including her own daughter.

On the second evening, she asked whether her father had been to his club, and was told he had.

On the third morning, Rosalind put on her black gloves, took the two letters with the crimson seal, and told the coachman to drive her to Ravenmoor House.