hapter 8
In the spring of the next year, I bore boy and girl twins.
Gazing at their wide, curious eyes and drooling smiles, I could not hold back my tears.
Roland cradled them, fumbling to wipe my face, murmuring words of comfort.
I laughed through my sobs, brushing my cheeks. “Why blame yourself, love?”
He rested his hand on me, eyes red, murmuring, “You’ve suffered greatly to give me these children.”
I collapsed into his arms, my heart light with joy.
Prince Edmund sent silver charms, engraved with the christening names I gave our twins in our past life.
Feeling ill-omened, I melted them down, gifting them to an alms-house for foundlings.
Edmund had long been bedridden, lingering in torment, unable to rise yet unable to die.
Before Lady Eleanor’s lying-in, the queen’s guards caught her in adultery. Servants bore Edmund, frail and fading, to
witness the shame.
Worse still, her lover was the profligate baron who, in our past life, had beaten her to death.
The baron, weeping for mercy, spilled a flood of secrets.
Eleanor’s child was not Edmund’s but sired by a duke, a rival for the throne.
She had pledged herself to Edmund while yielding to the duke, hoping to secure her child’s legitimacy.
When the duke fell, imprisoned for treason, she turned to the ailing Edmund, seeking to pass the child as his.
In our past life, my presence thwarted her, and she was hastily wed to the baron. He, a wastrel lost to debauchery, never touched her.
At her lying-in, he saw the child’s term and, in rage, struck her down.
Learning this, Edmund collapsed, senseless.
Physicians toiled to revive him, and he gasped awake, his strength spent.
With his final breaths, he uttered two commands: “Condemn Eleanor and her child to death.”
And, to me, “I am sorry…”
I scoffed, packing my trunks. With Roland and our twins, I boarded a carriage bound for our fief in Eldwood.
Henceforth, our lives would be safe and serene.
Chapter 8
