Her Stepmother Married Her Off as Punishment to a Ruined Man — But His Ruin Was a Disguise, and Her Dying Father’s Secret Deed Made Him the Only Husband Who Could Restore Her Inheritance and Avenge Them Both

PART 2 

The summons came that evening. Cecilia sat behind the writing desk that had once been Rosamund’s mother’s — the very desk where her mother had written her letters — and she arranged her face into an expression of sorrowful duty perfected over thirteen years of practice. Behind her at the window stood her daughter Dorothea, watching with the particular satisfaction of a girl who had just watched her rival removed from the field.

“Rosamund, my dear, I have news that will surprise you.” Cecilia folded her hands on the desk. “Your father’s will has left you dependent on the charity of this house, and I have taken it upon myself to secure your future. You are to be married.”

“Married?” Rosamund repeated. “To whom?”

“Sir Aldis Blackwood.” Cecilia’s voice was soft, reasonable, unbearable. “He is willing to take you, which is more than most men would do. My solicitor tells me the man is drowning in debt and will marry anyone with a settlement attached, however small. The arrangement suits us both. The ceremony will be held here in five days’ time, and then you will leave this house and trouble it no more.”

“Five days?” Rosamund’s voice was flat. “My father has been dead three days.”

“Precisely why we must move quickly.” Cecilia’s eyes were flat and satisfied. “You are twenty-one, unmarried, and entirely without protection. The longer you remain here, the greater the scandal. Sir Aldis will take you at once, and I will be relieved of a burden I have borne for thirteen years.”

Rosamund understood in that moment the full scope of what had been done to her — and something else besides. Cecilia had not stumbled upon Sir Aldis Blackwood. Someone had put his name in front of her, dressed it up as the most convenient disposal imaginable: a man so desperate for coin he would take a bride with nothing. Cecilia believed she was choosing the instrument of Rosamund’s ruin. She did not know she was choosing exactly what her solicitor had been steered, quietly and patiently, to suggest.

“Sir Aldis Blackwood,” Rosamund said slowly, testing the name. “The man who has no fortune, no credit, and no prospects.”

“A man who has a title, a name, and a willingness to take you.” Cecilia smiled. “You will learn, Rosamund, what the world does to girls who think they deserve better.”

Rosamund looked at her stepmother — the woman who had poisoned her father, who was selling her to a ruined stranger, who believed she had won. And Rosamund thought of the letter hidden in her stays, and the trust Cecilia had never heard of, and the words her father had whispered as he died: “There is more to that man than ruin.”

She curtsied. It was the most obedient curtsy of her life, and it cost her more than anything she had ever done.

“As you wish, Stepmother. I shall be ready.”

Cecilia’s smile widened. She had won. She had disposed of the daughter, seized the house, and silenced the only witness who could have saved her. She did not know that Rosamund Keen had been preparing for this moment since the day her mother died, and that she was not marrying into ruin. She was walking with open eyes into the one house in England where her father’s murderers could not touch her.