Chapter 3

When I rushed in, the room was packed with people: royal physicians, maids, and matrons. The whole place was in turmoil.

Grace lay on the bed, barely clinging to life. Her face was ashen.

Her beauty, once so radiant, had been utterly ravaged by illness. The brilliance she once possessed had vanished.

She summoned the last of her strength to wave everyone away, leaving her personal maid and me in the room.

"Lady Grace..." I whispered.

She was struggling for breath as she reached her hand out to me.

I walked to her bedside, bent down, and took her cold…