Chapter Six
The kitchen smelled of bread and roasting meat, steam curling against the beams as Violet worked beside her mother.
She was dusted with flour to the elbows, humming softly as she kneaded dough, but every breath made her stomach tighten.
The scents she had once loved now turned her queasy, and she had to breathe carefully through her mouth to keep from losing her breakfast.
She had told no one, not even her mother, but she was nearly certain now.
It had been almost three months since that spring afternoon beneath the oak, when William had whispered his vow against her skin.
Her courses had not come since, and the faint fullness low in her belly made her heart race with a mix of terror and secret joy.
William’s child. Their child. She pressed her floury hands against her apron for a moment, as though to shield the life hidden beneath.
She tried to picture his face when he read her last letter—the one she had sealed with trembling fingers and kissed before sending.
Surely, once he knew, he would come. Perhaps he was already on his way, riding through the night, determined to claim her and their babe before the Season was done.
Surely he would know what to do. William always knew what to do.
The rhythm of her humming faltered, but she forced it back, a fragile comfort. Her mother glanced at her curiously but said nothing, too busy basting the joint at the hearth.
And then the sound came, boots in the corridor, firm against the flagstones. Violet’s heart leapt. She knew that tread, that steady stride. She wiped her hands quickly on her apron, breath catching in her throat.
He had come.
William.
She abandoned the dough on the floured counter, wiping her hands against her apron, and ran to the doorway.
There he stood, tall and solemn, his eyes shadowed. Violet did not see his gravity—only the man she loved, the man who had sworn he would come back for her. Joy broke across her face like sunlight through storm clouds.
“William,” she whispered, her heart soaring. Surely he had received her letter. Surely he knew.
But his expression did not soften.
“We need to talk.”
The words were heavy, but she clung to her hope as she led him through the back door into the garden. Roses bloomed along the wall, the air sweet with their scent. She turned toward him, arms half-lifted, ready to fling herself into his arms.
He stepped back.
“Please,” he said tightly. “Keep your distance.”
Her smile faltered.
“I don’t understand. Why… why are you looking at me so?”
His jaw worked as though the words pained him.
“I have come to a decision,” he said. “While I was away, I realized the truth. We are too different, Violet. The promises I made cannot stand.”
The world tilted. Her hands trembled as she reached toward him, then drew back.
“But what about the letters I sent to you? Do you not care, after all I said?”
William’s eyes, cold and unyielding, met hers.
“Your letters said all I needed to know.”
She flinched as though struck, breath catching.
“You mean… you read what I wrote, and it meant nothing to you?”
“Enough, Violet.” He lifted a hand sharply, cutting her off.
“I have responsibilities, to my parents, to my title. I cannot squander them on folly.”
His jaw hardened. “I am engaged now. To a woman of good breeding.”
For a moment the garden spun around her.
The roses, the air, the very world seemed to press down like iron.
Her parents’ warnings rang in her ears, Lords make promises easily, Violet. He will break your heart.
And now, here was the proof.
“My parents warned me,” she whispered. “They said you would break my heart.”
Her eyes, bright with unshed tears, lifted to his.
“And they were right. You, William Ashford, are a coward.”
Fury snapped across his features.
“Do you truly believe, Violet, that you ever had a chance with me? That an earl’s heir would cast aside duty for a servant’s daughter? You were… amusement. A passing fancy. Nothing more.”
The cruelty sliced through her, deeper than any blade.
For a moment, she could not breathe.
Her hand lifted to her mouth, stifling a sound, whether a sob or a disbelieving laugh, she did not know.
When she lowered it, her voice was steady.
“You are a liar,” she whispered, meeting his gaze one last time.
“You were never my friend. You were never who I thought you were. And you were never mine.”
For one suspended heartbeat, neither of them moved.
She turned and fled before her legs could betray her.
The sky split as she ran, as if it felt her heartbreak and wept with her.
The first drops of rain struck her cheeks, mingling with her tears.
She did not know where she was going until the oak rose before her, looming through the downpour, their tree.
She stumbled to its trunk, her skirts sodden, her hair plastered to her face.
The carved initials William had etched there the day he declared he loved her, swearing they were forever, stared back at her, blurred by rain.
With a sob, she tore the locket from her throat and watched it fall into the mud at her feet.
A jagged stone lay beside it; she snatched it up with trembling fingers and scratched furiously at the bark, gouging through their initials until they were nothing but scars.
Her strength ebbed with each stroke, until at last she collapsed to her knees in the wet earth, pressing her forehead against the tree’s soaked bark, the storm drumming around her.
She knelt there for what felt like hours, wracked by sobs, her body shaking.
When the rain eased and dusk fell, she dragged herself to her feet.
Her locket lay half-buried in the mud at the tree’s roots, gleaming faintly, but she did not pick it up.
It was not hers anymore.
He was not hers anymore.
Her William had never existed.
He was a lie wrapped in stolen kisses and false vows.
And Violet Hayes swore, as she stumbled home in the dark with her heart in pieces, that she would never mistake him for hers again.