The Betrothed (The Betrothed #1) - Kiera Cass Page 0,84

shining blue stone, remembering now that Lady Eastoffe had told me it was worn by a great man. And I looked at the plainer one on my left hand, the one that somehow seemed infinitely more valuable.

“You are not without family,” I said. She raised her eyes to me. “I married into it today, so you have me. It’s as binding as any law could be. And, despite my parents’ qualms, I am their only heir. This house and property are mine. So they also belong to my family.” She smiled, and even Scarlet perked up for a moment. “You are not lost.”

Thirty-Four

FOR ONE BEAUTIFUL SECOND AS I woke, I didn’t remember what had happened. It was only after rubbing my eyes and realizing that the sun was hovering around midday that I recalled how I had walked into my house sometime near sunrise. I also realized I was on the floor. Looking up, I saw Lady Eastoffe and Scarlet were on my bed. After pushing my dresser up against the door, we’d all settled down for a moment to think, but thinking turned into sleep within moments.

My parents were gone. Sullivan was gone. Lord Eastoffe. Little Saul.

And Silas.

What was the last thing Silas had said to me? He’d said, “Good.” I’d told him he was going to have a spoiled wife, and he was quite pleased by the prospect. I tried to hold on to that moment. In that image, a hint of my veil was in the corner because I’d looked back over my shoulder. His smile was impish, as if he were planning things I didn’t have the imagination to build up on my own. “Good,” he’d said. “Good.”

“I’ve had a thought.” Lady Eastoffe had stirred and was moving quietly from the bed, leaving Scarlet to rest.

“Oh, thank goodness,” I sighed.

“I can’t guarantee it’s a good one, mind you, but it might be all we can do.” She settled next to me on the floor, and I couldn’t help but think that, even in her rumpled, mourning state, she looked so poised. “I think Scarlet and I need to go. And I think you need to stay here and start your life.”

“What?” My heart started pounding. “You’d abandon me?”

“No,” she insisted, cradling my face. “I’d protect you. The only way I can ensure that your life will not be in jeopardy is to distance myself from you as quickly and widely as I can. I cannot be sure that King Quinten will not come again once he finds me alive, even though I am old, and neither Scarlet nor I could hope to hold the throne. He will always be a shadow over my shoulder. The only way you will be safe is if I’m anywhere that you aren’t.”

I looked away, trying to find holes in her logic.

“You’ve inherited quite an estate, darling girl. Take your time to mourn and then, when you find someone new—”

“I will never find someone new.”

“Oh, Hollis, you are so young. There’s so much ahead of you. Have a life, have children. It’s the most any of us can hope for in such dark days. If my leaving means keeping you away from what happened last night, then I do it happily.

“But please know,” she pleaded as she ran her hand down my dirty hair, “that being parted from you will be as difficult to bear as being parted from my sons.”

I tried to find the good in this, in being left behind. The only thing I could see in it was that she loved me as much as I loved her, as much as I suspected we both had for a while. And that was something, in the middle of so much sorrow: to know that I was loved.

“Where will you settle?”

She looked at me as if I’d missed something. “Back in Isolte,” she said matter-of-factly.

Oh. When she said she was going, she really meant it.

“Are you mad?” I shot back a little too loudly. Scarlet stirred and rolled over, still asleep. “If you are so certain your king is trying to kill you, won’t going back make it all too easy for him to finish the job?”

She shook her head. “I think not. It may not be written into law, but Isolte tradition states that it’s males who count when it comes to royal succession. That is why our line is so much more threatening than that of the Northcotts: they are descended from one of Jedreck’s daughters. But”—she paused,