And now he looked at her like she was a walking disaster. Like trusting her had been the latest in a long line of poor judgment calls that had defined his fall from grace.
“The pottage that sparked religious panic amongst my people,” Tristan continued, his voice growing colder with each accusation. “The market day that nearly saw you burned for witchcraft. Training sessions that became entertainment for bored guardsmen. And now this—people dying whilst I played the besotted fool.”
The word ‘besotted’ cut deeper than the rest, dripping with scorn for whatever softness he’d shown her. As if the gentle touches, the careful instruction, the moments when his guard had dropped enough to let her see the man beneath the armor—as if all of it had been a mistake he was now reconsidering.
Something cracked inside her chest—not her heart, exactly, but something vital that had been holding her together since she’d first landed in his garden. The expensive silk of her gown suddenly felt suffocating, like borrowed finery from someone who actually belonged in places like this instead of wreaking havoc with the best of intentions.
“I was trying to help,” she said, but the words came out weak and unconvincing even to her own ears.
“Help?” His laugh held all the warmth of winter frost, sharp enough to cut. “Seven nobles may die whilst Guy de Montague doubtless celebrates his victory with the king’s finest wine. Saints preserve me, some aid indeed.”
The brutal honesty of it carved pieces from what remained of her composure. She could smell the acrid smoke from the torches, mixing with fear-sweat and the accumulated misery of generations who’d rotted in these same stones. The chill from the walls crept through her silk like the knowledge that she’d finally, definitively, proven what she’d always suspected about herself.
That she was forgettable. Replaceable. The kind of person who tried to help and only made things worse. The middle child who’d learned early that being loudly wrong got more attention than being quietly right, but who’d never quite mastered the art of being remarkable enough to matter.
“I should have heeded every warning about trusting strangers who speak of impossible things,” he continued, his voice quieter but no less cutting. “Should have remembered Guy’s lessons about the price of faith misplaced.”
Rain began pattering against stone somewhere above them, the sound echoing through their cell like applause at the world’s worst dinner theater. The chill crept through her gown like the knowledge that she’d finally, definitively, ruined something that actually mattered.
“’Tis what I earned for forgetting that trust is a luxury I cannot afford,” Tristan said, resuming his restless pacing. “For believing that someone like me could deserve—” He stopped abruptly, jaw clenching like he’d caught himself before revealing something too personal.
“Deserve what?” she asked, though part of her already knew and dreaded the answer.
“Redemption. Honor. A future that wasn’t built on the ashes of past mistakes.” He laughed again, the sound bitter as burnt coffee. “For thinking that perhaps the fates had finally sent me something good instead of another test I was destined to fail.”
The raw pain in his voice made her chest ache in ways that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the horrible realization that she’d become his latest disappointment in a life apparently full of them. Just like she’d been her parents’ disappointment when she’d chosen food blogging over law school. Just like she’d been her editor’s disappointment when her reviews were too honest for the magazine’s advertiser-friendly standards.
She remembered the afternoon he’d shown her his secret spice collection—precious containers hidden away like treasures, each one representing some memory of the man he’d been before disgrace had stripped everything away. The way his fingers had traced the labels with something approaching reverence, the way he’d trusted her with knowledge that meant everything to him.
“These were gifts from eastern merchants,” he’d said, voice soft with memory. “Proof of successful negotiations, tokens of respect earned through fair dealing. I saved them, thinking... hoping... that someday I might cook again for people who mattered.”
And she’d taken that trust, that fragile hope, and turned it into a weapon that someone else had used to destroy him all over again.
“You’re right,” she said quietly, the admission scraping her throat like broken glass. “I am chaos. I’m the person who turns every situation into a five-alarm disaster, who opens her mouth and somehow makes everything worse. I should have stayed in my own time where the worst I could do was write scathing reviews of chain restaurants that deserved it.”
“At least you admit it,” he said, though something flickered in his expression at her words—surprise, perhaps, that she wasn’t arguing.
They lapsed into charged silence, each nursing their private catastrophes while the storm intensified overhead. Rachel hugged her knees to her chest, trying to make herself smaller, less conspicuous, less likely to accidentally cause more damage just by existing. The stone was cold enough to leach warmth through the silk, and she found herself shivering despite the relatively mild summer air.
The cold sank into her bones like the certainty that she’d never belonged here in the first place. She’d been playing dress-up in someone else’s life, pretending that her twenty-first-century knowledge made her special instead of dangerous. Pretending that a man like Tristan could ever really see anything worthwhile in a woman whose greatest accomplishment was writing snarky reviews of restaurants that probably deserved better.
Hours passed with painful slowness. The sounds of the palace filtered down to them—distant voices, footsteps on stone, the ordinary business of royal life continuing as if nothing had changed. As if seven people weren’t fighting for their lives because of herbs she’d insisted on using, innovations she’d pushed despite every warning that she should tread carefully.
The dampness made her joints ache, or maybe that was just the weight of failure settling into her bones. Beside her, Tristan had grown silent, his pacing replaced by a stillness that somehow felt worse than his earlier fury. At least anger was energy. This felt like resignation.
“Are they going to burn me?” she asked finally, the question slipping out before she could stop it. Her voice sounded small and scared, stripped of its usual protective sarcasm.
Tristan’s stillness faltered. “What?”
“Witchcraft. That’s what they’re calling it, isn’t it? Foreign sorcery, unnatural knowledge, whatever other creative accusations they’ve come up with.”
She pressed her forehead against her knees, trying to breathe through the panic that threatened to overwhelm her. “In my time, we know burning people alive was a popular medieval pastime. I’ve just never been the guest of honor at my own barbecue before.”
The silence stretched so long she thought he might not answer. When he finally spoke, his voice had lost some of its sharp edge, replaced by something that sounded almost like... regret?
“The queen intervened,” he said quietly. “Elizabeth has... influence... over such matters. As does her mother, Lady Jacquetta. They will not allow summary execution without proper evidence.”
“That’s reassuring,” she said with brittle humor. “Nothing like a proper investigation before they light the bonfire. Very civilized.”
