Chapter 17
A stir swept through the great hall like wind over dry grass.
“Is that not Prince Roland?”
“Did he just say… ‘Don’t marry him??”
“He means to stop the wedding!”
“Saints above… the heir to House Wolveston just awakened, and now this?”
Murmurs rippled across the gathered guests. Eleanor stood frozen in place, her fingernails biting into her palms. It felt like a cruel trick of the mind.
Roland–why was he here?
He stepped forward, every stride echoing off the stone floor. His eyes, red–rimmed and weary, told of sleepless nights.
“Don’t marry him.” He said it again, his voice hoarse as if scraped raw.
Eleanor forced her breath steady. “Roland, what are you doing here?”
Her voice was cold, sharper than she intended. “Aren’t you worried your beloved Cecily might grow jealous?”
Roland flinched, pain flashing in his gaze.
“I was wrong,” he said quietly, as if the words cost him dearly. “Eleanor… it was you. Three years ago, it was always you. I was blind. I mistook you for her.”
She said nothing. Her hands trembled at her sides.
“Do you remember that Spring Hunt at Blossomvale? You climbed a tree to rescue a nest of hatchlings.” His voice cracked. “That was the day I fell for you. But I thought… I thought it was Cecily.”
Eleanor’s pupils contracted. Of course she remembered. She had scaled the tree without hesitation, and on her way down, glimpsed a man watching from beneath the canopy. She’d thought him a passerby and left without a second glance.
So that was him?
Seeing her stunned, Roland grew more desperate. “I know everything now. I know Cecily was lying all these years. It was you who suffered in House Viremont–not her. It was you who was denied education, you whose mother was poisoned–by her hand. I know what she did to you, Eleanor, and I am… I am so sorry. I should’ve seen it sooner.”
With every word, her heart tightened, like invisible hands wringing it dry.
The years of grief and indignity lay exposed, laid bare by a man who had once overlooked them all. And now, as if mere regret could absolve him, he dared to speak as though an apology might suffice.
She let out a soft, bitter laugh. Her eyes, however, held no mirth.
“Is that all, then?” she asked coolly. “A case of mistaken identity? A careless heart? And now you think a few sorry words might wash away the years I’ve spent in ruin?”
Roland’s jaw tensed. “Let me make it right,” he murmured. “Give me a chance. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it right.”
“Make it right?” she echoed, her voice icy and sharp. “Do you even remember what you did in her name?”
Roland’s body tensed.
She began listing them each word like a blade drawn slow and deliberate
“At Jewel Hall, you bought out every piece she fancied so I couldn’t afford a single hairpin *
“On Starfall Crag, you nearly died fetching her a single flower
“You carved her name over your heart, and when I was mauled by wolves protecting her, you whipped me–ninety–nine lashes – for ‘causing her distress.
Each accusation drained the color from his face. By the end, he was barely standing, fists clenched so tight his nails dug deep into flesh.
“I was wrong.” he rasped, tears brimming “Eleanor, please give me a chance.”
The words tumbled out, desperate now “I’ve avenged you. Everyone who hurt you Cecily, your bather—I’ve dealt with them. Cecily’s married to my
Chapter 17
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sixty–year–old uncle now, and your father… I crippled him with an arrow through the knee.”
Eleanor’s eyes widened in disbelief.
Before she could speak, Edmund stepped forward, placing himself firmly between them. His expression was cold as steel.
“That’s quite enough, Your Highness,” Edmund said, his voice like steel. “You forget yourself–and whose hall this is.”
The pain in Roland’s eyes turned swiftly to something darker–possessive, feral.
He forced a calm tone, though the effort showed in his clenched jaw. “Lord Wolveston only just woke. How deep could their bond truly be? Let her go, and I’ll see to it you receive a third of the Thorne inheritance.”
Chapter 17
