Chapter 22: Under the Lining

They brought Alaric to Maud's rooms at nine in the morning.

Four guardsmen stayed in the passage.

He came in with his coat over his arm and his hair uncombed.

He looked at me, and I forgot there was anyone else in the room.

"Three days," he said. "My grandmother tells me she has bankrupted the family at cards."

"Not yet," said Maud from her chair. "I am merely in debt."

I shut the door.

I took the green diary out of my work-bag and set it on the table between us.

It was a small, fat book, bound in green silk, with a brass clasp.

Seraphine had given it to me on my wedding day, and said she would always read it.

She had.

"The front half is lies," I said. "Everything I wrote there, I wrote for her."

"And the back half?" said Alaric.

I took a pair of nail scissors from my pocket and slit the silk lining along the spine.

Six folded leaves of thin paper slid out into my hand.

They were covered in small, tight writing, in ink that had dried to brown.

"I wrote these on the first night at Wexmoor," I said, "while you were pacing outside my door."

"You told me you kept pages. You never said you began them that night."

"I wasn't sure of you. I wasn't sure of anyone."

I smoothed the pages flat on the table.

Maud leaned in, and Alaric did too, so close that his sleeve touched mine.

The first page was headed with the date of our wedding.

It began: I am writing this so I will not forget.

I died in the east wing of Rook Hall, aged twenty-four.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Awakening Love: Reborn to Be His Duchess from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.