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There was no other way out. She was trapped, and there wasn’t anything to do about it but wait until Phillippa relented or three days passed, and then she’d be dragged off to prison.

She dropped onto the battered stool in front of a rickety, threelegged table. A small looking glass sat atop it, leaning against the wall. It was a poor, cracked thing, no more than a shard. No doubt it had been purloined from another part of the castle by a previous occupant of this room.

The crack bisected the entire surface of the glass like a lightning bolt, dividing her face into two halves and distorting her reflection, but she sat there staring at herself for some time.

She might have kept it up all night if the sound of a carriage arriving in the drive below hadn’t roused her. The duke’s Christmas ball was about to begin, and here she was, once again watching life unfold from a distance like a forlorn child with her nose pressed against the glass.

It was always thus now, but there’d been a time when she’d been a part of things, a time when she would have spent the evening dancing until she was breathless and her feet ached.

Only two years had passed since then, but it felt like a lifetime ago. She scarcely remembered the carefree girl she’d once been who’d delighted in roaming the grounds with her father at Christmastime, the rhythmic crunch of the snow under their boots. That girl had spent long, cozy hours warbling Christmas carols to her father, and had delighted in making gingerbread at Mrs. Neville’s knee.

She’d been happy, once upon a time.

It all seemed like a dream now, one that was fading with every moment she spent under Phillippa’s roof. There was no gingerbread now. There was no singing now. No music, no kindness, and no warmth.

Soon enough there’d be nothing left of those memories but hazy fragments, and what would become of her then? Her heart was freezing, one degree at a time. How long would it be before it froze through, and splintered into a thousand tiny, icy shards?

She rose to her feet and went to the bed, leaving her broken reflection behind, and reached under her mattress. Her locket was still there. Phillippa hadn’t found it, thank goodness.

She snapped open the lid, and a sigh fell from her lips.

Her father gazed out at her from the left side of the locket, and goodness, how handsome he’d been! He was sitting at his desk, a book spread out in front of him, the afternoon sunlight streaming in from the window behind him lighting up the threads of gold in his hair. His eyes were as blue as the summer sky and twinkling with warmth.

Gabriel’s eyes were like her father’s. She’d thought so the first time she’d gazed into them, and every time since then. Of course, Gabriel’s eyes were green, and nothing like her father’s blue, but she’d seen that same twinkling warmth in them.

Perhaps that was why she’d been taken in so completely by him.

Phillippa was right. She was a naïve fool.

Except … well, weren’t the eyes meant to be the windows to the soul? Surely even a duke, as grand and mighty as he was, couldn’t feign that sort of warmth in his eyes.

Could there be some other explanation for the lies Gabriel had told her? Perhaps he hadn’t set out to trick her at all. It could be that it was all a misunderstanding, but even if it was, what of it?

He was a duke, and she was … well, nobody who mattered.

She gazed down at the portrait, her chest tightening at the sight of her own face gazing back at her from the right side of the locket. Her smile had been as bright as her father’s, back then. It was the smile of a girl who’d never known a moment of sadness.

Had that really been her, once upon a time? It seemed impossible that she’d ever been that happy, smiling lady.

It wasn’t her any longer. There was no carefree smile on the face of the lady staring back at her from the cracked looking glass. No, that lady was pale, her eyes blank and her cheeks too thin.

Two years. In two years Phillippa and Cornelia had reduced her to a shadow of herself. They’d bled her dry until she was nothing more than a husk of the lady she’d once been. What would become of her a year from now? Two? Would there be anything left of her then?

It was still snowing outside. Downy snowflakes gathered in the corners of the window behind her, reflected in the looking glass. It would be a slippery endeavor, climbing out that window. Slippery, and cold.

She wanted to be free of this room, yes, but not if it meant breaking her neck. Hawthorne Castle was a massive old pile, and she was on the uppermost floor. The ground was miles away, so far below that she couldn’t even see it from here.

Madness, in other words. Yet was it any less treacherous to stay and endure a slow, inevitable fading away until there was nothing left of her?

She had to get out of this room, this castle, this life she’d fallen into.

She rose to her feet, tucking the locket safely into the neckline of her dress, and as if in a dream she fetched her cloak and donned the thin gloves tucked into the pocket. They wouldn’t do her much good, as the wool was nearly worn through, but they were better than nothing.

There, that was the easy part done. Now for the more challenging part.

She gulped in a breath and turned to face the window. Had it always been that small and narrow? Alas, it didn’t get any larger as she crept closer until she was standing right in front of it, the cold already making her shiver.

It didn’t open easily, but after a good deal of heaving and some rather unladylike cursing she managed to wrench it open an inch or so. Snowflakes swirled around her, dampening the front of her cloak, but this was no time to turn coward. She braced her feet against the floor, closed her eyes and pushed at the window with a strength born of desperation.