They Gave the Doomed Duke the Wrong Bride novel · Chapter 20 of 32

Chapter 20: The Shift in the Snow

Everard was through the gate before anyone could stop him.

I ran after him down the crag road in my bare feet until the cook caught me and shoved her own boots at me.

At the bottom, he stopped.

The dead village lay below us along the shore. A row of burned houses. A few still had roofs.

Smoke came out of one chimney.

Two of the Penhallow guards stood outside it, swords drawn. Between them stood one of Seraphine's maids, shaking in her cloak.

She came up the road toward us with her hands held out empty.

"My lady says," she began, and stopped, and started again. "My lady says the boy is well. He'll stay well until dawn tomorrow. At dawn, the Duchess is to walk down alone with the dowry, every chest of it, and give herself up under the writ. Then my lady will send the boy back."

"And if she doesn't?" Everard said.

The maid wouldn't look at him.

"My lady says the lake's very deep in the middle," she whispered.

Isobel had come down behind us. She made a sound I'd never heard from a person.

Everard's hand went to his sword.

"Six men," he said to the commander. "We have forty. We go in now."

"And they cut his throat the second we come through the door," I said.

He turned on me.

"Then what?"

"Then you trust me," I said. "Tonight. You trust me."

I looked at the maid.

"Tell my sister she'll have her answer at dawn."

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