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“No,” she answered truthfully. Had she made a mistake? Should she have fled with Lydia when she had the chance?

Mrs. Clarke came closer and sat beside her on the bed. The old mattress dipped slightly with the weight.

“What’s wrong?” she asked again, softer now.

Honoria’s throat tightened until it hurt. She looked down at her lap, at her trembling hands. Her voice was barely audible when she spoke.

“That man… Lord Bradshaw, in the earl’s drawing room,” she said, her voice thin, breath ragged. “I know him.”

“I thought you might,” Mrs. Clarke said evenly. “Did you used to work for him? Was he a terrible employer?”

Honoria let out a shaky, humorless breath. “No,” she whispered. “I wish that were it.”

“What is it then?” Mrs. Clarke prompted.

“I used to be—” Honoria let out a ragged breath. “Well… technically, I still am… I am his wife.”

She lifted her head and met Mrs. Clarke’s gaze, the words she had buried for years finally breaking free. “He is my husband.”

Chapter 21

Fragments. That’s how the memories came.

Not in a neat order, but as sharp flashes, one bleeding into the next.

The crack of a fist against her face.

The slam of a hard floor against her back.

The blame, the endless accusations, the cruel words—liar, thief, whore.

The burning of her scalp as she’d been dragged by the hair, the burn of the carpet against her hands.

Sharp kicks to her ribs, her stomach.

A champagne flute hurled at her head.

Then darkness.

Honoria sat stiffly on the bed in her narrow room, hands clasped tightly in her lap to hide their trembling as she told the painfully tragic and violent story of her marriage in as little detail as possible.

She didn’t want to relive it. She didn’t want Mrs. Clarke to have to hear it.

As it was, Mrs. Clarke’s kind face remained composed, though her eyes betrayed her horror.

“I suffered greatly at the hands of my husband,” Honoria continued, swallowing hard against the lump in her throat. “And then one fateful night, I ran. I had to. It was that or…” She was unable to finish the sentence. “I was able to hide from him, to find a stable job, a home.” She gestured vaguely to indicate the house around them. “And now, years later, I’m confronted with him again.”

There was a silence, long and filled with tension. The ticking of the mantel clock seemed unnaturally loud. A coal shifted in the grate with a soft hiss.

“You are a countess,” Mrs. Clarke finally said in awe.

Honoria’s lips twisted in a bitter smile. “Not anymore. And I don’t ever want to go back.”

Mrs. Clarke leaned forward, her brow furrowed with concern. “Do you think you will be discovered here?”

Honoria had asked herself the same thing countless times over the years.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, rising from her bed to pace before the fireplace. “And I don’t know what he’ll do if he finds out that I am alive.” She wrapped her arms around her middle protectively. “I don’t know if he’d try to kill me to keep his current life. I don’t know if he’d want me to stay hidden and away. I don’t know if he still believes I stole from him.” She stopped pacing and turned to face the older woman. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out.”