Ice flooded Lucy’s veins at the casual words. She forcedherself to meet the woman’s gaze, willing her knees to stop shaking as she pressed them together.
Lucy really looked at her. The woman couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen, and all at once it came back to her.
“I remember you. You were riding through the village with your husband. They said you beat a young serving girl for spilling your wine.” She narrowed her eyes. “How old are you?”
“Servants should be beaten so they know their place.” The girl tossed her stunning, thick auburn hair. “I’m seventeen.” An amused laugh followed.
“How rude of me. I am Lady Agnes Hedgethorn. Well, it seems now I am a widow. My poor husband passed of the pox only last night.”
She sneered at Lucy. “Blackford will be mine. It will never pass to your bastard son.”
That woman didn’t look like she gave two flying flips that her husband was dead. For a moment, Lucy wondered if she’d poisoned him?
“You are more bonkers than a raccoon swimming in moonshine, you know that, don’t you?”
Gratified by the look of hatred on Agnes’ face, Lucy couldn’t believe what had happened.
“Blackford belongs to my husband and then it will pass to my son.” Lucy met Agnes gaze, unflinching.
At that, Agnes threw back her head and cackled wildly. The sound raised the hairs on the back of Lucy’s neck. When at last the mad laughter subsided, Agnes fixed her with a vicious smirk.
“Poor little fool. Still, you cling to hopeless dreams. You will all be dead, the crows feasting on your bones, and Blackfordwill rightfully be mine.” Her teeth flashed against blood-red lips.
“Hell’s bells. You have got to be kidding me.” Lucy was too angry to be afraid. When she’d first fallen through time, Clement, William’s half-brother, had kidnapped her and hidden her in the undiscovered secret passages within the castle.
Clement had plotted to have William put to death for treason, and murdering Lucy would have been a bonus. The deranged man was going to drown her in the cistern, but she’d thrown back his own words, claiming she was a witch and told him witches couldn’t die by drowning.
He would have succeeded if it hadn’t been for the trusty raven who appeared and attacked Clement, allowing her precious seconds to escape.
What were the odds of her being as lucky a second time?
“I’d be more likely to win a big lottery jackpot,” she muttered to herself.
The beautiful, but unhinged woman with the stunning milky skin drew herself up to her full height, which Lucy guessed was about five feet, as the woman was a good six inches shorter than her.
“I will avenge Lady Georgina, William’s wife before you. The wife he murdered in cold blood.”
Agnes paused dramatically.
“She was my mother.”
“What the actual hell?” Lucy looked her up and down. “How is that even possible?”
Ice water flooded through her heart as old fears came back … until warmth pushed back, shoving old hurts from her past aside. William wasn’t even in the picture when Agnes had been born.
Agnes’ eyes sparkled. “My mother gave birth to me when she was sixteen.”
She took Lucy’s chin in her palm, so close that Lucy could see the gold flecks in her eyes.
“I will have my revenge.”
Lucy turned her head, jerking out of Agnes’ grasp.
“Whatever this is, it has nothing to do with my husband or I. William was nineteen when he married your mother.”
Fists clenched, Agnes whirled around.
“My mother was twenty-three.” The unhinged woman smiled. “She told him she was eighteen and a virgin, but she already had a daughter by another, hidden away to keep safe. I was only seven years old.”
