Scorned By Him, Cherished By His Brother novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: The Veiled Woman
The hall did not breathe.
Cordelia came down the gallery stairs in her grey silk, one hand on the rail, and every head turned to follow her.
She looked pale and lovely and slightly faint.
"My lord Chancellor," she said. "I have been very ill. A kind woman found me on the cobbles and took me in, and I woke an hour before dawn with a cough and a great deal of pain."
"Madam, you were declared dead," said the Chancellor.
"I was poisoned," said Cordelia. "In the open square. By that woman."
She pointed at me, and her finger did not shake at all.
"She came to me with a bottle in her hand, and she made me drink. Ask any of the three hundred who saw it."
"They saw you drink," I said.
"They saw you kneel on me afterward, to finish what you began."
A gasp ran round the hall.
The uncle was on his feet, beaming.
"My lord Chancellor, the court has its murderess. Alive, and in her own words."
"My lord Chancellor," said Henry, "may my wife answer?"
The Chancellor looked at the faces in the gallery and the ones at his elbow.
"She may."
I walked up the aisle to where Cordelia stood.
She was half a head taller than I was, and she smelled of rosewater.
Under the rosewater, faintly, there was something sweeter and sharper.
I leaned in close and breathed.
Cordelia drew back.
"Do not touch me."
"The physician who pronounced you dead is in the third row," I said, to the hall. "Would he step forward and look at her eyes?"
The grey man stood.
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