Page 24 of Hooked

I paused, a pillow clutched in my hands. “My full name is Wendolyn Cecilia Stoffard, so I chose to go by Cecily.”

“Lady Cecily?”

“No.” I whirled to look at him. “Just plain, common Cecily. Cecily who has worked for her position. Cecily who values the life she has now—the freedom.” I could hear the cracks in my voice where it threatened to break along with the rest of me.

He studied me, his eyes soft. “So tell me about the life you had before.”

“What about it?” Why did he need to know the details of a life I had chosen to run from?

“I’m guessing you rode horses, for one. You took to riding much too quickly for a beginner.”

“Yes.” That was an easy admission. There wouldn’t be many of those.

His look intensified, as though waiting for me to continue, but I didn’t. “I wish you would have told me that,” he finally said.

A self-deprecating laugh puffed past my lips. “What would that accomplish?”

“It would have been the truth. And I want to know the truth about you.”

We stood, staring at each other for several moments as I resigned myself to the fact that from this day forward, my life would be much more complicated. Then I took a breath and did as he asked. “The truth,” I began, my voice shaking. “The truth is that I was the daughter of a wealthy nobleman who I thought adored me. Then I was the destitute daughter of a treasonous nobleman. Then I was the niece of a man who did not want me. Then I was the fiancée of a man who took one look at me and decided that I was pretty enough, unique enough, to add to his collection of wives.” I tried to keep my tone level, even as I watched Falstone’s face twist into a look I did not recognize. “And then I chose to become no one. And being no one was difficult and sometimes terrifying, but it was better than being the pretty, dead wife of Captain Huckley.”

He didn’t say anything. Apparently, I had shocked him into silence.

“So yes, when I was a nobleman’s daughter, I rode horses. And I loved it. And I missed it when I left that life. But I would give that up one thousand times in exchange for the life I have now.” Not just because I was free of a terrifying marriage, but because I had been able to do some good. When Princess Marilee married Damian, I had been able to help her. I was there to pull her through, alongside Emeline and Beatrice. “I wouldn’t have what I have now if I had remained who I was.”

“Do you feel you are so very different now?” He studied me as if he wished to see the me I used to be.

“I certainly hope so.” I didn’t wish to be that quaking child, waiting for fate to claim her. I was happy with who I’d become. And I did not appreciate my old life coming back to haunt me.

“What did you mean?” Falstone asked. “When you said you would be his pretty, dead wife?”

I gave a little shrug. “It’s a reasonable assumption since each of his other three wives is dead.”

He looked flummoxed and angry. “Was there no investigation?” he demanded. “No inquiry into the cause?”

“The first died in childbirth. No one questioned it. The second was a carriage accident. The third was already frail when he married her. He claimed illness took her less than a year later.”

“And people just accepted that?”

“No. Everyone was suspicious, but there was no proving anything. When his second wife died, he was at sea, captaining one of his vessels. And he enjoys playing the role of a grieving widower. Perhaps he’s even acquired a fourth dead wife by now.”

So many emotions worked over his face and through his eyes as he thought through my words, the implications, the injustice that would no doubt chafe against his sense of honor. “And your father? You say he committed treason.”

I shrugged. “I assume it’s true. I’ve never heard anyone refute it.”

“Then it was your uncle who agreed to this?”

“Yes. He was anxious to be rid of me, since everyone considered my father to be a traitor to Winberg.”

“So, you were…sold? To this captain?”

“Uncle called it a betrothal, but yes.” You’ll have to grow up quickly, my mother had been fond of saying. I had hated that phrase and what it meant.

Falstone shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to keep his agitation from showing. “How old?”

My brow furrowed at the odd question. “Who?”

“You. How old were you when you were to marry him?”