"DO YOU LOVE ME?" I ASKED.

Matthew's eyes darkened with impatience. "What kind of question is that?"

"Just answer it."

He stared at me silently for a moment. "You know I love you, Rose. You know that you consume my every thought."

"Then, let me come home. Let's end this."

Matthew's squeezed his eyes shut and took a step back. "I need time."

"It's been three weeks! How much more time do you need?"

Matthew stared unpleasantly into space.

"Couples fight all the time, but they don't immediately resort to separate residences when they do. Do you want to know why?"

Silence.

"It creates unnecessary distance! We don't need more distance Matthew, we've been robbed of enough years apart. I don't want to waste another moment away from you."

Silence.

"Please—"

"You kept the most important thing in the world from me!" he exclaimed. "How do you expect me to forgive you? Hm? How do you want me to live with the fact that if it weren't for my meddling mother, I would've had to marry that woman in your garden?"

I felt a familiar rush of tears, but I refused to give into them. "I don't know," I whispered.

He smiled bitterly. "Neither do I."

"Still, I said slowly, we deserve a fighting chance. I don't think my being in Ludlow helps those chances."

"So, you would like to resume your stay in your wing at Whitfield? Where, may I remind you, we could go months without seeing each other? How is that any better?"

I stared at him sadly.

"You might as well stay there if you want to keep Bert," Matthew went on. "I've heard you've employed him there. I have no objection, do what you like but he's not stepping foot here again."

"He made a mistake, Matthew," I said softly. "I don't think you understand how your infatuation with Victoria stole your good senses. Bert likely believed he'd lose his job."

"Well, he has."

"He's a good servant."

"I cannot even forgive you. I certainly won't forgive a butler who didn't know his place."

I sauntered over to where he stood and Matthew visibly tensed. "Tell me you won't give up on us."

"You're being ridiculous. I'm angry, Rose, I have every right to be. I don't deserve these pleas designed to guilt me. If I didn't want you, I would've divorced you."

"We both know that's not true. Dissolving our marriage would've been more toil than just ignoring me."

"I'm not ignoring you, you're in my library."

"Our library. If I hadn't come, we wouldn't have seen each other for three weeks."

"Taking time to confront an issue isn't the same as ignoring it."

"Just promise me you haven't given up." Matthew opened his mouth to say something but I held up a hand to silence him. "I won't leave you alone until you do."

The fist clenched at his side tightening before slightly loosening. "I promise."

🥀

Elisabeth visited me at Ludlow later that week. I was honestly surprised to see her. We met over a hot pot of tea in the drawing room.

"You're not wearing your veil," Elisabeth said after we exchanged niceties.

I took a generous sip of tea. "You're correct."

"I haven't seen you without it since the accident."

"I haven't had the confidence to go without it since."

Elizabeth studied me with sharp eyes. "Your reluctance to go without the veil made me think you'd suffered something horrible. Your injuries are minimal."

"What a kind thing to say," I said dryly.

Elizabeth shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't mean to say...what I meant was that you still look normal Rose."

"Despite enduring a terrible thing," I corrected.

"Well, I didn't mean to demean what you've suffered," Elizabeth began pleadingly. "It came out wrong."

"Of course." I smiled blandly. "You wouldn't ever mean to hurt me."

Elizabeth smiled back, missing the irony in my voice. "I wanted to see how you're getting on, considering."

"Considering what?" I knew very well what she was referring to, but I wouldn't give up anything with ease. After all, it wasn't like Elisabeth and I were friends anymore.

"Well...you're here at Ludlow while Matthew is at Whitfield. It's known that he got rid of Victoria. So, I know you're probably...upset."

"How thoughtful of you," I replied. It sounded like all she wanted to obtain was an earful of gossip.

"You're too kind." I wondered if it was possible to miss my sarcasm for the second time or Elisabeth was willfully ignoring it. "I'm glad he listened to reason. I cautioned him against divorce, but at the time, it didn't seem like he wanted to hear it."

My ears perked with curiosity. "You visited Matthew?"

"Yes, it would've weighed on my conscience if I didn't. He needed to know divorce wasn't the correct course of action for you."

I resisted the immediate urge to laugh, but an amused smile graced my lips all the same. "You think Matthew decided not to dissolve the marriage...because of you?"

Elizabeth's eyes narrowed slightly at my tone. "My advice among other considerations, I'm sure," she said humbly.

At this reply, I could help but release a small chuckle. This display of mirth certainly offended my former friend, for her lips bent in a frown. I readily composed myself, but more for her benefit than mine. Elisabeth's inclinations were the very definition of delicate sensibilities and I really didn't want to make her to cry. "Elisabeth, I began patiently, I can assure you that your advice was not one of his chief considerations. He recently discovered that he was not the father of Victoria's unborn child."

"Oh."

My smile grew wide. "Oh, indeed."

Elisabeth gave an exasperated sigh. "I'm your friend, Rose. I know I behaved poorly in the past, and for that I apologize. But you must believe I would do everything in my power to protect you." There was the faintest shadow of tears in her eyes. Good, God.

"You believed that he had every right to keep a mistress," I said quietly. "Because I am the way that I am. You wouldn't ever have told that to your other companions."

"Rose..." Elisabeth murmured, but she made no attempt to refute what I had said.

"I cannot blame you, completely. I have always believed that I was ugly and undeserving of affection because of it. It is not anyone's responsibility to ensure security for my own feelings. But Elisabeth..." I paused to connect my eyes with her's. "You were my friend. If anyone was supposed to believe that I was beautiful and deserving of love—it was you."

Tears slipped from Elisabeth's eyes. I bit my lip to keep my eyes from rolling. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"It's alright."

"It's not. I was your only friend and I failed to regard you in the way that you deserved. I'm sorry."

"It's a good thing you're not my only friend anymore," I said lightly. I wanted to kick myself for saying so as soon as the words left my mouth. That was exactly the sort of comment that would make Elisabeth explode into tears.

But she didn't. She carried herself with more grace than I ever could've hoped for. Elisabeth quickly wiped away her tears and straightened her back. "Princess Lettie?"

I nodded.

"How did that come about?" Maybe my ego had grown too big, or maybe I detected the faintest hint of jealousy in Elisabeth's voice.

I look took the smallest, most pretentious sip of tea I could manage, wishing I had Leticia's ostentatious feathered fan to cover one half of my face. "It's a long story."

🥀

Victoria took the long, arduous walk to her parent's home. Walk. It had been years since she had to walk anywhere. Her feet ached with the memories of her younger self, a courtesan too poor to afford a coach. When she'd landed her first rich keeper, she promised herself that would never be her again. Victoria laughed bitterly. How wrong she'd been. The worst part wasn't being thrown out like she was nothing in her pregnant state. On that count, Victoria deemed herself lucky. She'd been beaten up by men for far less than the crime she committed against Matthew. No, the worst part was that she had grown stupid. This entire catastrophe was on her head. Victoria's mind flashed to the day she'd made her greatest mistake.

A letter had come for her in the post one fateful morning, three years ago. The letter was odd for several reasons. Her parents wrote to her several times a month, but their letters were always addressed to "Little Vicky." This one was addressed to Victoria. That left the correspondence up to belonging to friends or an old lover. Only, Victoria didn't have any friends, and writing to an old mistress at the home of her current keeper was unseemly. So, out of curiosity, Victoria tore it open. If she could reverse the wheels of time, she would've burned it.

The letter read as follows:

Dear Miss Victoria Sill,

I understand that you are currently the mistress of Matthew Whitfield, my nephew-in-law. I believe our interests align. I would like to make you his next wife.

Sincerely,

Hector Axel

So short and simple. Victoria would've thought it was someone's idea of a practical joke if she hadn't seen the surname. Axel. It was the surname of Matthew's wife. The author of the letter was surely one of her kin. That's when Victoria should've burned the letter, because then it was clear the correspondence was entrapment. No family member would ever encourage a mistress to steal away a husband from their beloved niece, daughter, or sister. But Victoria, against all good thought, kept it. It had seemed impulsive at the time, but in retrospect, a tiny seed had been planted. A seed of ambitious desire—the desire to become Mrs. Whitfield. Two years ago, Victoria considered herself beside happiness. She recognized how lucky she was to have landed such a perfect keeper. Matthew was completely devoted to her. She was slightly put off by sharing a home with his wife—that wasn't done, no husband ever dared—but Whitfield mansion rivaled the size of the Palace.

She never had to worry about accidentally meeting with the estranged wife in the halls. Axel had her wing and they had there's. Victoria was content—at least until the letter turned up. It took a full year of unanswered correspondence before the seed began to sprout. Victoria wrote him a letter as brief and concise as his first.

Dear Mr. Axel,

So, you want to make me Mrs. Whitfield? What's your motive? And how do you intend to accomplish it?

Victoria

His answer was rapt and short.

Because I want to see her burn.

Their correspondence became frequent ever since. Hector's advice had been simple—get pregnant as soon as humanly possible. She had tried for a few months with Matthew, ceasing all protective methods against pregnancy. It did not work. After all her efforts, Hector suggested that Whitfield might be sterile. The solution was obvious—sleep with other men. Victoria had resisted this suggestion for a few weeks, but Hector's letters were unrelenting. Do you want to be Mrs. Whitfield or do you want to stay a whore? The sprout of desire was taller, with a healthy stalk and little leaves. Victoria wanted to be Mrs. Whitfield. As long as the ends justified the means, it was meant to be. A string of unsatisfying lovers did not do the trick, much to the frustration of the scheming duo. So, after a couple months, they met to conceive the child themselves. Unlike Matthew or the various men she'd slept with, Hector's virility was proven. He had a couple bastards living somewhere on the fringe of the kingdom.

So, Victoria went away one weekend under the pretense of meeting her parents, and spread her legs for Mr. Axel. It should be noted here that Victoria's parents weren't completely in the dark to her way of living. Mrs. Sill had tried her very hardest to steer her daughter away from the detestable occupation. "Sex isn't something to be traded dear," she'd told Victoria. "It's a sacred act that connects two human beings forever. You can't do such a thing with random men, it'll ruin you." Victoria found her mother's advice to be hollow and stupid, just like it always was. Being with a man was sweat, saliva, and pretense. It went no deeper than that. But now, as she walked farther in the woods to her parent's home, she found that her mother had been partially correct. Hector had used sex as a means of persuasion as artfully as a whore did—as she had done time and time again—so artfully she hadn't seen it till now. For, it was only when those secret rendez-vous with a vengeful uncle begin did her hatred of Rose Axel appear.