Page 60 of Wolfhaven

You knew you couldn’t keep her for long.

He hadn’t expected things to sour so quickly. He would find a way to mend this before he left. He had to. He owed her that much.

Chapter 28

Evaine

Evaine couldn’t understand how things had gone so wrong.

One moment she had been snuggled against Gareth’s side. The next, she had been frightened out of her wits. The situation had devolved from there.

A chill had crept into her bones that had nothing to do with the bitter autumn wind.

Gareth had been acting distantly toward her ever since they had been startled out of bed together. It pained her to think that he regretted spending the night with her. But what else could it be?

She couldn’t bear to be in the shop any longer. She pushed her way out into the throng that had gathered to gape at the duke. Their gossip quieted for all of five seconds, until she made her way to the horse cart, before resuming at full volume.

For god’s sake, she had ears. Perfectly good ones. She could hear them talking about her.

“What’s a duke doing riding in a farmer’s cart?”

“Sold off all the carriages,” said a man’s voice.

“Who’s the woman in red?”

“Another sacrifice,” one muttered darkly.

Sacrifice? What did they mean by that?

Evaine felt their stares boring into her. Good lord, what was taking Gareth and her grandmother so long?

A sob caught in her throat. She couldn’t believe the way Hazel had blurted out her past this morning. She had already told Gareth about what happened. That wasn’t so much the issue as the censure she had felt from that brief slip. Gran had been the one she turned to when her heart was broken—or believed it was, when in truth, it had only been her reputation. She thought Gran had understood why she did it. Approved, even. After all, Hazel hadn’t gone to her marriage bed an untouched bride, either. She had been four months pregnant by the time she and her husband were wed.

Her judgment, therefore felt both shocking and hypocritical. Unfair, really. Humiliating her by blurting that out in front of Gareth…

Evaine sighed. Dwelling on this was really just a distraction from the ache in her heart at the knowledge that she had somehow botched things with the duke, and she didn’t quite understand what had gone wrong. He had retreated into a dark part of himself that she could not fully reach. Now that Gran was apparently determined to watch their every move like a proverbial hawk, she doubted she was going to get any space to speak with him privately either.

This couldn’t be how things ended between them.

The throng fell silent. The shop’s bell chimed cheerfully, a strange discordant note in this bleak landscape. Evaine stroked the horse’s nose and waited for Gareth and her grandmother to approach.

“We have what we needed. Let’s go.” Gareth barely glanced at her as he helped Hazel into the cart. Despite leaning on his cane, he had no trouble assisting her.

“I will ride in the back again,” Evaine said stiffly. His brow furrowed. Before he could stop her, she marched to the back of the wagon and was about to clamber into it when a hand on her arm stopped her.

“You shouldn’t go with him,” a concerned woman peered at her, speaking in an urgent whisper. “He’s a dangerous man. He murdered his bride. Stay here. Be safe.”

Evaine shook her off. “I’m fine. Mind your own business.”

She could hear the woman calling her names under her breath as she walked away. Stupid girl is going to get herself killed.

Gareth, who was busy unhitching the horse, didn’t appear to notice the interaction. She scrambled into the cart bed with her heart racing. There was no getting comfortable. Her back already ached from the rattling ride out here. The thought of sitting for another two hours with her knees up to her chin and every rut and pothole reverberating up her spine made her temples throb. They started down the road.

The woman was wrong. She had to be. Gareth had told her the story of what had transpired between him and Marina on the night of her death. He wasn’t the one at fault…but what if he hadn’t told her the full story?

What if he was concealing his own culpability?

She didn’t know what to believe.