He Chose the Wrong Sister novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Sister at the Gate

The first snow came to Harrowgate in the second week of autumn, and so did my sister.

She walked up the road on foot with a bundle on her back, in a plain brown cloak.

A man walked beside her carrying the rest.

The sentry on the gate wall shouted down that two travelers were asking for Lady Garrow.

I was in the kitchen with flour to my elbows, arguing with the housekeeper about the bread.

I wiped my hands on my apron and went out into the snow without a cloak.

Rosalind stopped at the gate.

Her hood fell back, and I saw the face I'd shared a roof with for two years, thinner now, and brown from the sun, and her own.

"I'm not here to ask for anything," she said at once.

"Come in."

"I mean it. We're on our way to the coast, and there's a ship in two weeks."

"Why come north?"

"I wanted to see you before I sailed."

"Rosalind. Come in."

She came in and stood in the yard.

The man beside her took off his hat.

He was the man from the garden, quiet and lean, in a mended coat.

"My husband," Rosalind said. "We were married in the chapel at the capital, by a priest who didn't ask any names."

I looked at the pair of them, and something in my chest that had been tight for two lives let go.

"Welcome to Harrowgate," I said.

Cade came out of the stable with a hay fork over his shoulder and stopped.

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