Chapter 2

I stood where I was, unable to move, as though the blood in my veins had turned to ice.

This was my husband, the man who had once knelt before me and sworn he would protect me for the rest of his life.

And now here he was, standing before another woman, allowing such closeness without the slightest hesitation, without even the courtesy of restraint.

Aurora leaned into his arm as if she belonged there. Her gaze swept over the courtyard, taking in the plain furnishings, and a faint, dismissive smile tugged at her lips before her attention finally settled on me.

There was something deliberate in her expression, condescending, disdainful, and edged with open provocation.

"So you're Lady Payne, Charlotte?" she said, her gaze sweeping over me with open disdain, as though I were something hardly worth her notice.

I forced down the surge of emotion in my chest, dipped into a small curtsy, and answered with practiced composure. "Yes, Your Highness."

"I hear you're quite the perfect wife." Aurora gave a soft, amused laugh, though the edge of mockery in it was unmistakable.

"I've come today to catch up with Edward. Lady Payne, be a dear and have some fresh pastries brought in. And a decent bottle of wine as well. Don't keep your husband and me waiting."

The words "your husband" struck like needles beneath my skin.

She knew perfectly well that Edward was my husband, and yet she chose to say it that way, deliberate, calculated, a quiet assertion of dominance meant to humiliate me without disguise.

My hands curled into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms until the skin stung and my knuckles blanched.

For a moment, my thoughts drifted back three years to the day she had been sent away for that political marriage. I remembered the prayers I had whispered for her, the sympathy I had felt, the way I had tried to understand the weight of what she endured.

I had believed that suffering would have softened her, that it would have taught her compassion, or at the very least, restraint.

I could not have been more wrong.

She showed me no such consideration. Instead, she mistook my patience for weakness, my goodwill for something owed to her.

With brazen audacity, she walked into my home, flirted with my husband in front of me, and expected me, the lawful wife, to stand by and serve them both.

The pressure in my chest tightened, heavy and suffocating, until it was hard to draw a full breath. A sharp sting burned behind my eyes, the kind that comes just before tears.

But I refused to cry.

I was the Hughes family's only daughter. I was Edward's wife. I would not let her see me falter or give her the satisfaction of watching me unravel.

I took a slow, steady breath and forced every trace of emotion back into place. When I bowed again, my voice was calm, stripped of anything that might betray me. "Of course, Your Highness."

As I turned toward the kitchen, Edward spoke at last, his voice low and uncertain, carrying the faintest hint of performative guilt. "Your Highness, this really isn't appropriate. Charlotte..."

Aurora didn't let him finish.

"Oh, don't be so tiresome," she cut in lightly, her voice soft but edged with command. "Rules are for people who need them. You and I both know better. If you truly can't bear to be apart from me, Edward, why hide behind propriety now?"

She let the words linger for a beat before adding, her tone sharpening with deliberate cruelty, "And really, for someone like her, being allowed to serve us should be considered a privilege."

I stopped short. The cold that spread through me was sudden and absolute.