Chapter 5
Isabetta’s father was Dominic Veyne.
Respectable now.
Wealthy.
Soft-spoken.
The kind of man who appeared at weddings and left before arguments.
Twenty-two years old at the time of Rosamund’s secret meetings.
He had crossed Vale territory carrying something he should not have had.
Not drugs.
Not money.
A message.
From a Hawthorne captain trying to bypass me.
Dominic was messenger.
Young.
Disposable.
Sebastian caught him.
The normal response in those years would have been severe.
Rosamund intervened.
Why?
She knew Dominic’s sister.
Had grown up near the Veyne household.
She convinced Sebastian that punishing a frightened messenger would create a feud around someone who had not written the message.
Sebastian agreed.
In exchange, Rosamund promised the incident stayed private.
It did.
Dominic built a life afterward.
Married.
Had Isabetta.
Never told her.
Until last year.
Why then?
Because Isabetta announced she would marry me.
Dominic panicked.
He feared I would eventually learn Rosamund had once protected him.
Not because the truth was criminal.
Because his entire standing among certain families was built on a reputation for never bending.
Being spared by another man’s fiancée contradicted the legend he created.
Small.
Pathetic.
Human.
“So he asked you to destroy Rosamund’s reputation?”
I asked Isabetta.
“No.”
Immediate.
“Then what?”
“He asked me to make sure you never found the letters.”
Different.
Still bad.
I looked at her.
“The fake affair?”
“That was mine.”
There.
Again.
Specific guilt.
Dominic wanted the old correspondence gone.
Isabetta wanted something more.
If Rosamund’s meetings became scandal, the letters could surface without making her look noble.
Instead of proof she saved Dominic, they would look like evidence of betrayal.
One lie solved two problems.
Father’s pride protected.
Dead wife diminished.
Future wife no longer competing with a saint.
Efficient.
Disgusting.
Then I asked:
“Why did Sebastian agree?”
Isabetta looked toward the window.
“Ask him.”
So I did.
Sebastian arrived before midnight.
No guards.
No smile.
He placed Rosamund’s original letters on the table.
Untouched.
Then said:
“I owed her.”
I stared.
“By forging an affair?”
“No.”
His eyes hardened.
“I agreed to the photographs so I could see how far Isabetta planned to go.”
I almost laughed.
“You couldn’t call me?”
“I didn’t trust you.”
There it was.
More people deciding my response before asking.
Sebastian continued.
“Rosamund once told me Hawthorne men hear betrayal faster than explanation.”
That sounded like her.
It also hurt.
He wanted proof before approaching me.
So did Celandine.
May you like
Everyone needed proof around me.
I was beginning to notice the pattern.
