They Broke the Duke's Bastard, Now She Is His Only Heir novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Seen, O.

Doran's POV

Twelve Marchbanks guards stood in the abbey corridor with their swords out, and I had nine wardens, none of them in uniform.

I stepped in front of Liora anyway.

"The lady names the convict a murderer," the guards' captain said. "Hand her over, Rhoden. You have no star now."

"I have a witness," I said. "A sister of this house watched the chaplain die of old age."

"Her word against the Lady's."

"Then the physician can look at the body," Odette said, and her eyes were wet. "Doctor?"

The royal physician came forward with his bag.

He laid two fingers on the old man's neck and could not stop his hand from shaking.

He looked at Odette before he spoke.

I marked that, and I kept it.

"The heart stopped," he said. "He was ninety."

Odette's face did not change.

"Sanctuary," a voice said from the door.

The Abbess stood there in her gray habit, with a candle and no fear in her at all.

"This abbey is sanctuary from the first bell to the last Mass. No warrant of the Duke's reaches under this roof until dawn. Captain, you may sheathe your sword or kneel at my altar and explain to God why you did not."

The captain looked at his men.

Odette lifted her chin and smiled at me, small and sweet.

"Tomorrow, Marshal," she said, and swept out with her guards.

We left at first light, with the sister's paper sewn inside my coat.

The house on Saddler Street was dark when I came into it that night.

I sent my sergeant to bed, took a lamp and unlocked the guard room where Moxon's trunk waited under my seal.

Inside were three shirts, a razor and a ledger bound in black cloth.

I read it standing up.

For three years the same line ran down the page, once a month: *one vial, sent to the lady, forty crowns from the house.*

Between the pages lay a single folded sheet, creased soft with handling.

It was dated the week before Midsummer, three years back.

*Break both knees on arrival, the first night. Not the hands. She is never to dance again. By the Duke's seal.*

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