"Someone succeeded," she replied flatly. "The Duchess of Ashbourne died that night. Jane, the scullery maid, washed ashore."
"Do not speak to me in riddles." He took a step closer, towering over her. The fury was returning, but it was no longer directed at her. It was a cold, calculated rage radiating outward. "The ship hit a reef. There was a storm. The maritime inquest ruled it a tragic miscalculation by the captain."
"The captain was dead before we hit the reef, Richard." Genevieve closed her eyes. The memory seemed to physically press down on her, bowing her shoulders. "It was not a miscalculation. We were three miles off course. I know this because I went above deck to complain about the cold. The storm hadn't fully broken yet, but the sea was rough. I saw the helmsman. He was slumped over the wheel. I thought he was drunk. I went to shake him and my hands came away sticky."
Richard stopped breathing.
"His throat was cut," she said, opening her eyes to meet his. Her gaze was entirely empty. "I ran back down to my cabin. I was terrified. I locked the door and waited for the captain, for anyone. 10 minutes later, I heard the bolt slide across the outside of my door. Someone locked me in. Then I smelled the smoke."
He felt sick. A physical, violent nausea twisted in his gut. For 7 years, he had imagined her final moments as a chaotic, terrifying struggle against nature. He had pictured her swallowed by a massive wave, a tragic victim of the unpredictable sea—to think of her trapped, locked in a small wooden room, smelling smoke, waiting for the dark water to rise.
"How did you get out?" he asked. His voice was a harsh whisper.
"A fluke," she said, staring at her chapped hands. "The ship struck the reef. The impact tore the hull apart. The wall of my cabin splintered inward. I was thrown into the freezing water. I grabbed a piece of the broken mast and held on. I floated for hours. By the time I washed up on the shingle beach near Cornwall, I was half dead from hypothermia."
"Why did you not send word to me immediately?" The accusation slipped out before he could stop it. "You survived. You were safe on land. Why didn't you contact the estate? I had men scouring the entire coastline."
Genevieve stood up. The sudden movement was sharp, defensive. She was no longer the exhausted kitchen maid. For a brief second, the fierce, unyielding woman he had married flashed in her eyes.
"Because the men searching for me might have been the same men who slit the helmsman's throat," she snapped. "Think, Richard. Who benefits from my death? I was the sole heir to the St. Claire fortune. If I died without producing a child, the entire estate reverted to my cousin, Gregory."
"You despised Gregory."
"I despised him. But he was deeply in debt. And suddenly he had a very compelling reason to see me gone."
Richard clenched his jaw. Gregory: the sneering, gambling degenerate who had wept the loudest at her memorial service. The man who had taken control of the St. Claire properties a mere month after the casket went into the ground.
"I woke up in a fisherman's cottage," Genevieve continued, her voice dropping back to a raspy murmur. "The fisherman's wife had stripped off my wet clothes. She found the St. Claire signet ring on my finger. She didn't know who I was, but she knew I was wealthy. And I knew that if Gregory found out a woman matching my description had washed ashore, he would send someone to finish the job. So I took off the ring. I left it on the bedside table to pay them for their trouble, and I walked out the back door in a borrowed wool dress before the sun came up. I have been walking ever since."
Richard stared at the jagged scar along her jawline. He realized now it wasn't a burn or a kitchen accident. It was the mark of a splintering ship hull.
"You survived for 7 years on your own." He said it wasn't a question. It was a realization of her sheer, brutal endurance.
"I learned how to scrub floors. I learned how to pluck chickens and mend cheap linen." She gave a hollow, self-deprecating laugh. "It turns out the education of a duchess is entirely useless in the real world, Richard. I couldn't speak French to a butcher to get a discount on rotting meat. I had to learn how to survive."
The heavy oak door leading to the servants' hall rattled. Someone on the other side was trying to listen.
Richard's head snapped toward the sound. The kitchen was entirely compromised. This was not the place for this conversation. The staff was already gossiping. By noon, half the village would know the Duke was having a shouting match with the scullery maid. If Gregory had spies in the county—and he likely did, given his paranoia regarding the estate—word would reach him.
He moved toward her, closing the distance. "हम leaving this room."
She instinctively took a step back, her shoulders tense. "I have tasks. If I do not finish prepping the vegetables, Mrs. Abernathy will dock my wages."
The sheer absurdity of the statement almost made him laugh. It would have been a terrible, ugly sound.
"You are not a servant," he said, his voice dropping to a low, commanding register. "You are my wife, and you are in danger."
He didn't wait for her to argue. He reached out and grasped her hand. He felt the thick, hard calluses on her palms—a physical map of her suffering. He laced his fingers through hers tightly, daring her to pull away.
She didn't. She just stared at their joined hands with a look of profound confusion.
"Come with me," he said.
He pulled her toward the narrow, winding stone staircase that led up to his private study. He did not let go of her hand.
The private study was exactly as he had left it the night before. Heavy velvet curtains were drawn tight against the morning rain. The air was stale, smelling intensely of old paper, expensive leather, and the dregs of scotch left in a crystal tumbler on the desk.
Richard pulled Genevieve into the room and immediately threw the heavy brass bolt on the door. The loud clack echoed in the quiet space. He turned to look at her.
She stood awkwardly near the center of the Persian rug, surrounded by dark mahogany bookshelves and oil paintings. The contrast was jarring. She belonged in this room by right of birth and marriage. Yet she looked entirely out of place. A soiled canvas apron dripped a single drop of muddy water onto the intricate woven wool of the carpet. She noticed it and flinched, instinctively stepping backward onto the bare floorboards.