“Because now you’ve got something worth taking.” He looked around the shop with greedy eyes. “When you were just a baker with two brats, you were not worth the trouble. But a viscountess? That’s worth a great deal.” His lips curved into that terrible half-smile. “Ten thousand pounds, and I disappear. You will never see this face again.”
“And if I refuse?” She lifted her chin, and something cold and hard crystallised in her chest. “If I tell everyone you are alive? Tell the magistrates in Leeds too—I am sure they would love to know where to find the man who killed someone over a card game.”
Gabriel’s smirk faltered. Fear flickered behind his eyes before rage swallowed it whole.
“Then I take everything.” His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, squeezing until she gasped and her knees buckled. She could feel the stiffness of his scarred fingers and the unnatural strength in that damaged grip. “Your reputation. Your children. Your viscount. I will burn it all down, Eleanor—just like you burned me.”
“I didn’t start that fire —” Tears pricked her eyes as pain shot up her arm.
“You left me in it.” His grip tightened, grinding the bones of her wrist together as he leaned in, his words dropping to a predatory whisper against her ear. “One week. Bring me ten thousand pounds, or I destroy everything you love.”
The bell jangled.
Gabriel released her instantly and stepped back, his features smoothing into hollow pleasantry. The transformation was horrifying—the monster tucked away behind whatever remained of the man in the blink of an eye.
Mrs. Potts stood in the doorway, a market basket over one arm and her grey hair tucked beneath a sensible bonnet. She looked between Nell and Gabriel with mild curiosity, her brow furrowing at the heavy, stagnant air of the room.
“Mrs. Ashford!” The neighbor swept further into the shop, the bell above the door offering a final, oblivious jingle. She bustled toward the counter, shaking out her umbrella with a bright smile that didn’t acknowledge the rot in the room. “I came for my Tuesday order. Am I interrupting something?”
Nell’s throat was so tight it felt fused shut. She pressed her lips together, forcing the breath through the lump of fear lodged in her chest.
“Not at all.” The words held, though they felt as brittle as glass. She pressed her throbbing wrist against her apron, hiding the darkening skin from view. “This gentleman was just leaving.”
Gabriel tipped his hat, carefully keeping the scarred side of his face angled into the shadows. Even in his rage, he remained calculating.
“Think about what I said, Eleanor.” He kept the reminder low, intended only for her, his good eye glittering with a final promise of violence. “One week.”
He brushed past Mrs. Potts with a polite nod, playing the role of a gentleman traveler. “Ma’am.”
The bell jangled again. He was gone.
Nell’s knees buckled. She caught herself on the counter, her arms shaking with the effort of staying upright.
“Mrs. Ashford?” Mrs. Potts hurried forward, her basket swinging as concern creased her weathered face. “You’ve gone white as flour. Are you ill? Should I fetch the doctor?”
“I am fine.” The lie tasted like poison on her tongue and she forced a lingering smile. “I just felt faint. The heat from the ovens, I suspect.”
Mrs. Potts fussed about the shop. She fetched water from the pitcher on the back counter and insisted Nell sit on the stool behind the display case. She clucked and worried, offering remedies her mother had used for fainting spells.
Nell barely heard a word. Gabriel was alive. He was alive and he wanted money, and if she didn’t pay, the truth would be her undoing.
She was still his wife. She couldn’t marry Dominic; everything she’d built and everything she’d finally allowed herself to want was gone.
Mrs. Potts left eventually, her bread tucked into her basket and worried backward glances thrown over her shoulder. Nell sat alone in the empty shop—yet the ring glinted on her finger.It was a simple gold band with a small ruby, a promise she could no longer keep.
One week until her wedding. One week until she was supposed to stand before God and the village and pledge herself to the man she loved. Except she couldn’t. The law said she belonged to a monster with a ruined face and the power to destroy her.
She could pay him. She could beg Dominic for ten thousand pounds. It was a sum that would barely scratch a viscount’s fortune. But what would she tell him? That her dead husband had crawled out of the grave? That their engagement was built on a foundation of lies?
He would hate her.
She could run. She could take the children in the night and disappear as she’d done once before. A new name, a new town, a new life, but she was so tired of running.
She could tell Dominic everything. She could trust that he loved her enough to help her find a way through. But what if there was no way through the law?
The bell jangled.
Nell’s head snapped up, her heart slamming against her ribs as her whole body tensed for flight.
