Chapter 1

For three years of marriage, I poured every last coin of my money into securing Edward Price's future.

He watched me sacrifice everything and swore he would never forsake me.

Now, he graduated with highest honours from the Royal University of Oxenford, draped in the fine velvet doublet I had commissioned for him, and declared before all that his heart belonged to my cousin.

He said she could share poetry and moonlit evenings with him, while I was stained by the stench of commerce.

I decided I would grant his wish and leave.

But Edward, wild as a man possessed, stood at my door, desperate to stop me.

"Charlotte, do not leave me," he begged.

*****

I took my maid, Yara, to the coffeehouse for some rest. Passing one of the private parlours, I noticed the door had been left ajar.

Through the gap, I glimpsed a familiar figure within.

"It is Mr. Price!" Yara whispered, her eyes darting. "Was he not meant to be at court with His Majesty's council today?"

I said nothing, my gaze fixed on the woman in white at his side.

"Edward carries himself so well, and Sophia is such a gentle, sweet creature. Truly, they make a handsome pair," someone remarked.

Edward glanced at the delicate woman beside him, his expression melting. He said tenderly, "Sophia is the lady of my heart."

"Did he say Sophia's name?" Yara hissed. She moved to burst in, but I caught her arm.

My face remained composed, but inside, my thoughts churned like a storm.

Edward's cousin, Sophia Young, had come to stay at Price Manor a year after my marriage to Edward.

From the moment she arrived, my mother-in-law, Mary, began to tut that I lacked nurturing grace, and Edward grew ever more critical of my every move.

Mary would sigh, fixing me with a meaningful glance. "Poor Sophia, so terribly delicate. Fate has dealt her one cruel blow after another.

"Surely, as her elder in this household, you can find it in your heart to be charitable. I will not have our family name whispered about as though we were common misers who turn away their own blood."

Edward would chime in, his tone laced with condescension. "Sophia reads the classics with true understanding. You would do well to sit at her feet and learn something of refinement."

The sheer absurdity of it. When I first crossed the threshold of Price Manor as a bride, this family had little to their name beyond the roof over their heads and the clothes on their backs.

My money alone kept the creditors from the door and put food on the table.

If I had not buried myself in account books day after day, tracking every pound and penny, stretching each coin until it screamed, the Price family would have collapsed into ruin long ago.

And this was my reward, to be sneered at as coarse and grasping.

I had insisted Edward send Sophia away, back to her own family, and he had raised not a single word of protest.

All the while, it turned out, he had set her up in a fine little house across town.

The coins in my palm bit into my flesh.

That very morning, I had sold the shop my mother bequeathed to me, wringing out every last shilling to purchase him a coveted place on the King's council.

All my sacrifice, all my labour, had merely laid the table for another woman to feast. The bitterness of it rose in my throat like bile.

I ground my teeth. My breath came in ragged, shallow bursts. A numb cold crept outward through my limbs.

A voice cut through the parlour. "But is Edward not already wed?"

I lifted my head, straining to catch his reply through the gap in the doorway.

Edward clasped Sophia's hand in his own, his voice smooth and pitiless as polished marble. "My wife is consumed by ledgers and coin. Her very fingers stink of the marketplace.

"How could such a creature stand beside Sophia in any man's estimation?"

The room spun. A surge of sickness rose in my chest, and my sight dimmed at the edges. I might have fallen to the floor had Yara not caught me firmly by the arm.

No one within the room had noticed my presence. The voices rose again, eager to agree. "Well, naturally. Charlotte is hardly fit to breathe the same air as Sophia."

"She is a merchant's get. She trapped him when his family fortunes were at their lowest ebb, quite shameless, really. The epitome of cold calculation."

"I will hear no more of her," Edward pronounced, his features curdling with contempt. He turned his full attention to Sophia. "My love, I know I have kept you hidden away in the shadows all these years.

"But now that I have secured my seat at the council table, I no longer need to bow to that woman's threats. I give you my solemn oath. I shall elevate you to stand beside me as my wife in all but name."

So this was the man I married. I had believed him tender, honourable, true. I had been a fool. Beneath that gentleman's mask coiled nothing but a serpent.

I sank my teeth into my lower lip and let Yara lead me, trembling, back through the streets to Price Manor.

That night, Edward shoved open the chamber door and strode in.

His gaze fell upon the untouched supper tray, the food long gone cold, and a flicker of weariness crossed his face.

"I have something to discuss," he announced. "Sophia has waited for me all these years. She has wasted her youth on my account.

"I have resolved to take her formally as my second wife. From this day forward, the two of you shall live under this roof as sisters."

"A second wife?" The laugh that tore from my throat was sharp as broken glass. "Have you forgotten already? Have you forgotten the child she murdered?"

"Hold your tongue!" Edward's face flushed crimson with rage. "Sophia never meant to collide with you on those stairs.

"She wept at your bedside and begged your forgiveness. Why must you nurse this poison in your heart?"

I laughed again, bitter and raw. "How can you be so certain it was an accident? Are you truly so blind, or do you simply choose not to see what kind of woman shares your bed?"

I will never forget the unspeakable pain tearing through my belly, my desperate screams for someone, anyone, to summon the physician.

But Sophia, ever the fragile lily, had swooned in the corridor, and Edward and his mother, frantic for her delicate health, had steered the doctor to her bedside first.

I was left alone, writhing in a pool of my own blood. By the time anyone thought to check on me, my child was already gone.

"You are the daughter of a tradesman," Edward spat, his voice shaking with fury. "You see malice in every shadow. Perhaps that child was never destined to draw breath in this world.

"You could not even protect your own womb, and yet you forced sweet Sophia to endure the hardship outside on her own. I have been far too lenient with you."

"Perhaps you have," I said, raising my eyes to his. I refused to let the tears fall. "Or perhaps I still possess something you need, and that is the only reason you dare not throw me onto the street."

Edward's face twisted. He jabbed a finger at me. "With that venomous temper of yours, you are unfit to be the lady of this house.

"I permit you to retain the title only out of respect for the years you have given. Nothing more.

"But from this moment, Sophia will hold the keys to this household. And in three months' time, I shall bring her home beneath a wedding banner, with all the pomp and ceremony this family can muster."

I remembered how I had pitied his threadbare family, how I had defied my own father's wishes and accepted a quiet, humble ceremony.

My wedding was a handful of silk ribbons, a few sprigs of rosemary tied to the pews, and his whispered vows that he would never forsake me.

And now, he meant to give another woman the very celebration he denied me.

I bit my lip. I wouldn't wait any longer.