Quietly Waiting (Bodies of Want #1)

Every Sheffolk heiress knows the legend: to earn her seat, she must first pass the ancient trial, trust no kin, hide behind no oaths of loyalty, and find the betrayer hiding in plain sight. Fail, and become another ghost in Redford’s halls.

Francesca Sheffolk was never meant to inherit the duchy: she was meant to drown. The lake took her parents. It took her sister. And though it spat her out, it did so right into a cursed inheritance. Each generation, a traitor’s spirit rises, searching for a bitter soul through which to act. They say he chooses someone close. Always. Someone who resents the heiress in silence. Someone willing to finish what he started.

But the curse didn’t account for a stranger with no stakes in her story. When exiled Crown Prince Eric Atherbourne arrives to bury his father’s sins under the guise of restoring political relations, he brings salvation she never knew she needed. Cold and blisteringly observant, he sees things that others don’t. The tremble in her voice. The dead that trail behind her. And the hunger hiding in her shadow.

History demands she keep Eric at a distance, but he’s already too close: shielding her, lying for her, whispering promises that taste like truth—making sure she survives, even if they both go down for it.

Love once damned the House of Sheffolk.

Now, it may be the only thing left to save it.