“Stop! I said stop… I’m old enough to be your mother, you insufferable—ahh…” “Then teach me, my lady.” He pins my wrists above my head with one hand, my own Rosary beads tangled between his fingers and mine, and tilts my chin up with the other, forcing me to look at him. Twenty-five years old. Jaw carved from marble. Eyes dark with fever and want. *Want.* For me. A woman of forty-nine with aching knees and grey at her temples. “Blessed Virgin… this is a mortal sin… I’m going to burn in Hell for this…” “Then we burn together.” His pace is relentless. “I hate you,” I whimper. “You’re dripping down my thighs.” “I *hate* you!” “I’m not stopping until you scream.” I scream. Three times. — I am the Dowager Countess of Everwood. I came to rescue my granddaughter from an abduction. Instead, I ran headlong into the Lord Protector of the realm—drugged out of his mind and burning alive with poison. He pinned me down. One catastrophic night later: Me: ??? The Lord Protector: ??? — In my previous life, my granddaughter Eleanor was violated before her wedding. After the marriage, her husband bled her dry—funneled her entire dowry into his debts and made her raise his mistress’s bastard as her own. In the end, she was sent to a convent. She spent the rest of her days behind those cold stone walls, watching the man who destroyed her live a respectable life with another woman, raising children that should have been hers. No one came to visit. No one came to mourn when she died. Then I wake up. And I’m back. Back to the weeks before Eleanor’s wedding. I can’t stand by and watch history repeat itself. My legs ache—they always ache—but I grab my walking stick, and in the dead of night, I climb the stone steps up the hill to the abbey. I shove open the heavy oak door of the guest quarters. “Eleanor! I’m here, my child. I won’t let that beast lay a finger on you!” I remember it clearly. Last time, Eleanor went to St. Andrew’s Abbey for Mass, and the Lord Protector’s wretched attendant snatched her, dragged her to his master’s chambers, and threw her to him like medicine for a fever. Except—I’m early. The attendant hasn’t taken Eleanor yet. I’m the one the Lord Protector catches instead. A bare, scorching torso presses against me from behind. “So hot… help me…” God have mercy. I lost my husband at thirty. Nearly twenty years without a man’s touch. And now a boy barely past twenty-five has his arms locked around me like a vice. I grip my walking stick. My voice shakes. “Un—unhand me! I am the Dowager Countess of Everwood!” “Let go of me this instant—I’m old enough to be your *grandmother* in rank!” Roland of Leonhart. The Lord Protector of the realm. Forged in military campaigns, built like a battering ram, a face all hard angles and sharp authority. He commands the kingdom’s armies, controls the Privy Council, holds more power than any man alive. My words don’t make him let go. They make him tip my chin up with his fingers and seal his mouth over mine. “Shh… what are you mumbling about…” “Mmm… the scent on you… it’s… calming. Makes me feel safe…” Of course it does. Years of kneeling in chapel have soaked frankincense into my very skin. The rest is parchment and iron-gall ink from copying scripture. Naturally calming. But that is *not the point.* The point is: my name day is next month, and I will be *fifty years old.* I probably smell like dust and old lavender sachets. And he’s still kissing me? Blessed Virgin, how long has this man been starved? “Let… let go of me…” I thrash. My walking stick clatters onto the stone floor. But what chance does a woman pushing fifty have against a young man built like a warhorse? He scoops me up with one arm and sets me on the oak table. A heartbeat later, my flailing hands are bound—with my own Rosary. His voice, low and raw, rumbles against my ear. “Be good. Give yourself to me. I’ll take responsibility…” Holy Mother of God, that makes it *worse.* If he takes responsibility, how do I explain this to Henry—dead twenty years? To my thirty-two-year-old son? To my sixteen-year-old grandson and fifteen-year-old granddaughter??? What am I supposed to say? *Children, Grandmother found you a new grandfather. He’s twenty-five.* “I’d rather you just killed me.” His breath drops an octave. “My little witch… that can be arranged…” He rips the lacing clean off my kirtle. Strips of linen chemise fly everywhere and I—I lose my mind. “THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!” —
So. A woman of nearly fifty, ravished by the Lord Protector of the realm. All night long. Thank God I’ve taken care of myself. Tisanes, hippocras, regular walks up the hill to the abbey for Mass. Decades of discipline. Otherwise, he truly would have killed me. Somewhere around midnight, a knock sounds at the door. “Your Grace, the girl’s here. To help you break the fever.” What he hears in response is… not conversation. The sounds coming from inside that room are deeply, profoundly improper. Roland doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even slow down. Just turns his head and snarls: “Get out!” The attendant’s voice brightens with understanding. “Ah—Your Grace already has… company. I’ll return the young lady at once.” I try to call for help. “S-save… save me…” Roland clamps a hand over my mouth. “Don’t scream. I’ll have you begging soon enough.” He is… formidable. More formidable than Henry was on our wedding night thirty-four years ago. And Henry had been a young man then. We married at sixteen. By twenty-five, Henry was already flagging. By thirty, he left me altogether—went to meet his Maker. This kind of vigor? I’ve only ever read about it in those courtly romances. Lancelot, Tristan—none of them hold a candle. The pleasure is like nothing I’ve ever known. “How… how is this even possible???” Roland’s voice, husky and amused, brushes my ear. “You’re enjoying it too. Aren’t you?” That night, we are utterly shameless. The Rosary snaps. Beads scatter across the linen sheets, clicking softly, catching the firelight. That Rosary—my most treasured possession. Blessed by Father Benedict’s own hand. I used it every single day in prayer. At first, I can’t fight him. Later, I don’t want to. It is… magnificent. I never imagined—not at my age, with one foot already in the grave—that I could feel something like this. But beneath the bliss, a cold thread of worry coils in my chest. This man controls the kingdom. The Everwoods are respectable, yes, but we are no great house. If Roland decides to destroy us, it takes nothing more than a stroke of his pen. I can’t drag my family into this. So when he finally falls asleep, I peel myself free of his arms and slip away. The damage he’s done to my body is… considerable. I can barely stand. My walking stick trembles against the flagstones with every step. The stone stairs down the hillside are a special kind of torture. My legs buckle. My hips scream. The stick skids on the steps three separate times, and each time I nearly pitch forward into empty air. Somehow—somehow—I make it to the bottom. Agnes, my lady’s maid, waits by the carriage. “Milady, Lady Eleanor was returned safely. I’ve been waiting ages. You look dreadful—did something happen?” Eleanor is safe. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Agnes is still staring at me. I wave her off. “Nothing happened. I dozed off in the guest quarters, that’s all. Lost track of time.” “Eleanor’s safe. That’s what matters. Take me home.” In the carriage, I clench my hands together, close my eyes, and pray. *Holy Mary, have mercy on me… Holy Mary, have mercy on me…* Let no one ever learn of this. Not in this life. Not ever. But my mind won’t cooperate. It keeps replaying—his face, the breadth of his shoulders, the relentless way he moved— Henry. I try to summon Henry’s face. My husband. We were betrothed as children, married at sixteen, parted by death at thirty. I never remarried. Nearly twenty years. I swore at his coffin that no man would ever touch me again. Twenty years, I kept that vow. I thought Henry would be the only man I’d ever have. And now—practically in my grave—twenty years of faithfulness, shattered in a single night. “Henry… God rest your soul… I’m so sorry…” —
Back at the manor, I order the servants to fill the wooden tub with hot water in my bedchamber. No one stays in the room. I want to scrub this night off my skin. If I scrub hard enough, maybe it never happened. But the marks on my body tell a different story. They’re everywhere. Vivid proof of just how… vigorous he was. At my age. Nearly fifty years old. Handled like that. Heat crawls up my neck. My cheeks burn. I cross myself quickly and hiss under my breath: “Margaret Everwood, *shame on you.* You’re practically ancient. Stop thinking about it.” That night, I dream of Henry. He has his hands around my throat. “Margaret, you broke your vow!” “You swore on my coffin! You said there’d be no other man! You said we’d be buried together in the family crypt!” “I’ve been waiting for you in Heaven for twenty years. You won’t come down, fine—but you found yourself a twenty-five-year-old *lover?*” I grovel. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Henry—I didn’t mean to break my vow.” “He was too strong! I was forced, I swear—” Then Roland appears out of nowhere, wraps an arm around my waist, and pulls me upright before I can bow again. He kicks Henry square in the chest. Henry vanishes. “You’re a dead man. The living are none of your concern.” Then Roland covers my ears with his palms. Gently. Like I’m something fragile. “Margaret. Ignore that old ghost. Everything he said is nonsense. You deserve the finest man in the world.” I stare up at him, stunned. “The… finest man in the world?” That’s clearly himself he’s talking about. The audacity. I punch his chest. “Shameless! Absolutely shameless!” He tilts my chin up. Forces me to meet his eyes. “You love it when I’m shameless.” He kisses me. I wake drenched in sweat. Burning up. It’s barely spring. There’s no reason for this heat. “Agnes—draw a bath. Now.” The marks Roland left on my neck are impossible to hide. I lock myself in my chambers for days, waiting for them to fade. The official story: I caught a chill climbing to the abbey and came down with a fever. Eleanor is a good girl. Even when I refuse visitors, she comes to the door of my private chapel every morning to ask after me. Days pass. Agnes knocks gently. “Milady, Lady Eleanor came to see you again at first light. Shall I still turn her away?” I glance at the window. Pale light. Quiet grounds. No strangers at the gate. No one has come looking for me. Maybe it’s over. “Let her in. Tell her I’m much better.” Agnes beams. “Right away!” A moment later, Eleanor bursts through the door and throws herself around my legs. “Grandmother! You’re finally seeing me!” “I thought—I thought you were angry because I snuck out that day and you had to come all the way up the mountain to find me!” “I’m so sorry! It was my fault—I nearly got taken by those awful men! If you hadn’t come for me—” “Geoffrey would have been so upset!” Geoffrey Montfort. Eleanor’s betrothed since childhood. Heir to the Montfort duchy. A young knight who just earned his spurs before the king last year. The kind of man who rides off to the northern front the morning after his wedding. Leaving Eleanor alone to manage a crumbling estate. While he keeps a mistress across the border. Gets her pregnant. And the worst part? The entire Montfort household knows. They blame Eleanor for failing to produce an heir, then force her to raise the bastard under the polite fiction of a “ward.” —
Eleanor pours her dowry into the duchy’s debts. She raises her husband’s illegitimate child with patience and grace. She waits seven years. When Geoffrey finally returns from the wars, the first thing he does is petition the Ecclesiastical Court for an annulment—citing consanguinity, some thread of distant cousinship—so he can marry his mistress. And in open court, he announces that the child Eleanor raised as her own is his bastard. Always was. By then, the Everwoods are nothing. Our influence has withered, our halls stand empty, and not a single soul bothers to pay a courtesy call. Eleanor has no protector. She can’t fight a man riding the crest of military glory. She endures it in silence. Then she collapses. No one visits. No one sends for a physician. She lies alone in an empty room and closes her eyes for the last time. And I—her grandmother—live long enough to watch her buried. Every time I think about Geoffrey kneeling at the altar, playing the pious knight, when he was calculating how to strip us bare from the very beginning—every vow he made before God, a lie—my hands shake so badly I want to wrap them around his throat. But the Eleanor standing before me right now doesn’t know any of this. She doesn’t know her betrothed is a devil wearing a saint’s mask. I can’t tell her. Not yet. So I take her hands and smile. “Ellie, you’re still so young. And you’re my only granddaughter. I can’t bear to let you go just yet.” “Stay with me a little longer. Two more years. Can you do that?” Here’s what I know from the last life: the Montforts are drowning. That’s why Geoffrey pushes for the wedding. Once Eleanor arrives with her dowry, he’s free to ride north and chase glory. If I delay the marriage by two years, the Montforts won’t last six months. Their rot will show through for the whole world to see. Let’s see them come knocking on our door then. Eleanor blushes and nods, sweet as ever. “I want to stay with you too. If you hadn’t come for me that night, I don’t know what would’ve happened!” “Dear Grandmother, you saved my life. I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll write to Geoffrey right now and tell him the wedding is postponed!” I pull her into my arms. “My dear girl. I haven’t loved you for nothing.” As long as Eleanor never sets foot in that den of wolves, she’ll never suffer what she suffered before. And if that nest of vipers goes bankrupt in the meantime? That’s not our problem. My son Thomas and his wife Catherine are thrilled when they hear the news. They come to see me together that evening. Thomas sits down and gets straight to the point. “Mother, did you hear something? Everyone’s whispering that the Montforts are practically ruined. The old duke’s war reputation is the only thing keeping up appearances. Their estate income can’t even cover household expenses—apparently the servants haven’t received their wages or livery allowances in months, and the pantry’s nearly bare. Eleanor insists on honoring the betrothal, but she’d be walking straight into misery.” Catherine nods, her brow creased with worry. “Eleanor is my only daughter. I won’t watch her suffer.” “This is perfect timing, Mother. Give it a couple of years, once Eleanor’s gotten over her stubbornness, we’ll find her a family that actually deserves her. She can stay right here by your side. Wouldn’t that be better?” Seeing them both on my side warms my old bones more than any fire. “Good. I’m glad we’re all in agreement.” Henry and I only had Thomas. I adored him from the day he drew breath. When his father died, Thomas was twelve. I raised him alone. His wife Catherine is a distant relation of mine—a merchant’s daughter, yes, but from a wealthy house. She’s gentle-natured, pious, well-mannered. A perfect match for my honest, upright son. In the previous life, Catherine and I nearly bankrupted ourselves for Eleanor. My dower. Catherine’s remaining dowry funds. We poured everything we had into keeping that girl afloat in the Montfort household. That’s the real reason the Everwoods fell so fast. This time, we will *not* let those leeches bleed us dry. —
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