“Of course,” she muttered to the storm. “Kansas girl falls into another world and doesn’t even get ruby slippers or a yellow brick road. Just blood, mud, and a cookbook that won’t cooperate.”
Her voice caught, the laugh breaking into silence. And in the hush that followed, she heard his words again—Tristan’s voice, flat and final,I was wrong to trust you.
She wrapped her arms around herself, hollow to the bone. Trapped. Irrevocably trapped. And the thought didn’t terrify her—it only left her empty.
CHAPTER 20
Tristan had been staring at the parchment for the better part of an hour, Guy’s distinctive flourish blurring before his eyes as exhaustion warred with something that felt suspiciously like hope. The solar smelled of dying candles and the lingering scent of rain from the storm that had finally passed, leaving behind air that tasted clean and sharp with possibilities.
This is your proof,Rachel’s note said in handwriting that looked odd against the parchment.
This is your proof. I finally saw the pattern—Guy has been skimming the trade routes, stealing far more than anyone realized. I’m sorry I couldn’t figure it out sooner. I’m sorry for Westminster, for the poisoning, for the scandal, for every disaster I’ve brought to your door. You deserve your honor restored. You deserve happiness. You deserve someone who builds you up instead of tearing everything down. – R
He’d found them waiting on her table—her careful script beside Guy’s damning ledger fragment—as if she’d left behind both an apology and a lifeline before vanishing into the storm.
The words carved pieces from what remained of his composure. Even now, even after everything that had passed between them, she was trying to save him. Giving him the evidence that could clear his name whilst taking all the blame upon herself like some sort of martyred saint with a talent for self-destruction.
He’d told her he believed in her innocence, and he did—intellectually. Rationally, he knew she hadn’t deliberately poisoned those nobles. But beneath that knowledge lurked something uglier, a doubt that ate at him like acid on metal. Not doubt about her intentions, but about her nature. About whether loving her meant signing up for a lifetime of chaos and disaster and explanations he couldn’t give.
About whether he was strong enough to weather the storms that seemed to follow her like trained dogs.
The solar door crashed open with enough force to rattle the windows in their frames, and Hugo filled the doorway like an avalanche of righteous fury barely contained in human form. His massive frame radiated the kind of barely leashed violence that made hardened warriors reconsider their life choices, and when he spoke, his voice thundered with enough force to wake the dead.
“Right then, you brooding fool,” he bellowed, stalking into the chamber with the focused intensity of someone who’d finally run out of patience. “I’ve had quite enough of watching you wallow in self-pity whilst that poor lass destroys herself with guilt she doesn’t deserve.”
Tristan looked up from the parchment, noting absently that Hugo’s clothes were soaked through and his boots left muddy prints on the stone floor. “Have you been outside? The storm?—”
“Aye, I’ve been outside,” Hugo interrupted with the kind of tone that suggested Tristan’s meteorological concerns could go hang themselves. “Found our Rachel kneeling in the garden, soaked to the bone and bleeding from her fingers, trying to work some sort of magic with that cursed book of hers. The damned cat dug it up in the garden, and wee Emmot brought it to her.”
The image hit Tristan like a physical blow—Rachel alone in the storm, desperate enough to attempt whatever impossible ritual had brought her here in the first place. The taste of copper flooded his mouth as he realized what that meant.
“She was trying to leave,” he said, the words scraped from his throat like confessions under torture.
“Of course she was trying to leave!” Hugo roared, his voice carrying enough volume to bring down small buildings. “The poor lass thinks she’s poison, thinks she ruins everything she touches, thinks you’re better off without her chaos and complications!”
“Perhaps I am,” Tristan said quietly, though the words tasted like ash on his tongue.
“Mayhap we both are. Look what loving her has cost—my honor, my future, seven nobles dead from a feast I prepared...”
The backhand that caught him across the jaw was swift, precise, and delivered with enough force to snap his head sideways. Stars exploded behind his eyes as he staggered, more from surprise than pain, though Hugo’s massive hand could have felled a destrier.
“You dare,” his closest friend said, his voice gone deadly quiet in a way that was somehow more terrifying than his shouting.
“You dare speak of that brave, brilliant, impossible woman as if she were some curse upon your house instead of the best thing that’s happened to you since your mother died.”
Tristan worked his jaw, tasting blood where his teeth had cut his tongue. “Hugo?—”
“Nay, you’ll listen,” Hugo thundered, pointing a finger the size of a small sword at Tristan’s chest. “I’ve watched you these past days, seen you avoiding her like she carries the plague instead of just the misfortune to care about a man too stubborn to see what’s right in front of his face.”
The big man began pacing, his heavy tread making the floorboards creak ominously. “You think she poisoned those nobles? The lass who frets over burning porridge? Who tastes every dish thrice to ensure ’tis perfect? Who once spent an entire afternoon apologizing to a chicken for overcooking its egg?”
Despite himself, Tristan felt his mouth twitch at the memory. Rachel had indeed spent considerable time expressing regret to a bird that was far past caring about culinary slights.
“You know she’s innocent,” Hugo continued relentlessly. “You said as much yourself—the herbs were pure when you prepared them, the poison added after they left your hands. So tell me, you daft fool, what exactly are you punishing her for?”
“For being chaos,” Tristan said, the admission dragged out of him like a splinter from infected flesh. “For bringing disaster wherever she goes. For making me hope that perhaps I could have something beautiful in my life, only to watch it crumble the moment I dared reach for it.”
Hugo stopped pacing to stare at him with an expression of such profound disgust that several saints probably felt personally offended.
