He Chose the Wrong Sister novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Why Couldn't It Have Been You

Rosalind stumbled toward the prince and put her hand to her throat.

"Casimir," she said.

Then her knees folded, and she went down on the stone floor in her white gown.

The hall screamed.

The prince reached her first and caught her head before it struck.

"Rosalind!"

Her eyes were closed, and her lips had gone the color of a bruise.

"A physician," the Queen said. "Now."

The court physician was already pushing through the crowd, a plump man in black with a leather bag.

He knelt, laid two fingers on her wrist, and put his ear to her chest.

The whole hall waited.

"She is gone, Your Majesty," he said.

"Gone?"

"The heart has stopped."

I stood with the cup still in my hand, and I could not feel the floor.

Hester came out of her chair with a shriek that cut through the noise.

"My daughter! My daughter!"

She dropped on her knees by Rosalind and seized the body, and the prince let her.

Then her head came up, and her face was a mask of grief with a finger pointing out of it.

"Her! She poured it! She had the cup in her hands!"

"The Queen gave me that cup," I said.

"She hated her! She came from the south with nothing and she hated her sister's place! Seize her!"

Two guards took my arms before I could drop the cup.

It rang on the floor and rolled, and the wine ran across the stones in the candlelight.

"Imogen." Cade's voice came from behind me, very low and very hard.

"Wait," I said. "Please. Wait."

The prince had stood up.

His coat was ruined with his betrothed's wine, and his hands were shaking.

He looked at me, and there was nothing in his face I had ever seen on it before, not the pride, not the doubt.

"You," he said.

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