They Gave the Doomed Duke the Wrong Bride novel · Chapter 24 of 32

Chapter 24: The Border Inn

I stared down at the letter in my hands.

Then I handed it to Everard and walked away to the edge of the crag, where nobody could see my face.

He found me there a while later.

He didn't say anything. He stood beside me and looked at the lake.

"Paupers' ground," I said finally. "By the north gate. No stone. They put four in a pit that winter. I was twelve. I couldn't even tell which part of the ground was hers."

"Bryony."

"He knows exactly what he's doing. He always knows." I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand. "He's never once offered me anything in my life, and he's offering me the only thing I want."

"Do you want to go?" Everard said.

I looked at him.

"You'd let me?"

"No more deciding for you," he said. "You made me promise. If you want your mother under a stone, I'll walk into that inn in chains myself."

"Don't be stupid."

"I'm serious."

"I know you are. That's why it's stupid." I took his hand. "I'm going. But not to give him you."

The March's magistrate held the winter assizes at the border town every year.

The commander said he'd be at the inn already. He was.

He was a sour old man with a cold who'd heard the story of the Frostmere granary from three different travelers and believed none of them.

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