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Chapter 7

Daphne
On the wedding day, I collapsed on the stone floor of the punishment cell, burning with fever.

Then, from beyond the door, I heard Helena's voice. "Where is my daughter?"

Right after came Edmund's shout. "She's not in the private cell. Nothing we sent is in the log. Where did you put her?"

The lock turned, and light flooded in. Helena clutched the navy blue wedding gown. Edmund gripped the bail papers. Adrian was the first to reach my side.

"Evelyn, just hold on." He grabbed my hand. "We're here to get you."

Just hold on. From giving up my wedding to confessing to Lydia's crime, every time they hurt me, they told me to just hold on.

Helena saw the bruises on my arms and the torn wounds. She swayed on her feet. "How did this happen? The medicine I sent every day, where is it? The food and the blankets?"

I wanted to tell her Lydia had come wearing my coat. I wanted to tell her the broth had been poured on the ground. I wanted to ask why she had waited until today. But when I opened my mouth, no sound came out.

Halfway through the bail process, the prison alarm suddenly rang. Warden Briggs said jail fever had broken out in the punishment wing and everyone who had been in contact needed to be quarantined. The guards forced Edmund, Helena, and Adrian back out.

In the chaos, Nell slipped back in carrying a bowl of liquid that reeked of bitter almond. She pinched my jaw open.

"Miss Lydia's orders. You have to die today."

The bitter liquid poured down my throat. I fought as hard as I could, spitting out some, but the rest burned its way into my stomach. Everything went black. Just before I lost consciousness, I heard the door crash open again.

A man in a military surgeon's uniform rushed in and pulled back my eyelids. "Still conscious. Administer the antidote now. The Northsea carriage is waiting outside the city."

The surgeon, Dr. Elias Harwood, ordered the nurse to hold my shoulders down and forced the antidote into me. I retched over and over until there was nothing left but bile. But they could not move me out of the prison without Nell finding out. All they could do was carry me into an empty infirmary room next door.

Down the hall, Helena was still arguing with the guards. She was only two doors away from me. She had no idea her younger daughter had just had me poisoned, and I no longer had the strength to call out to her.

When I came to, the infirmary was empty except for Dr. Harwood and two unfamiliar nurses.

"The Duke's people?" I asked.

Dr. Harwood nodded. "The Duke never canceled the betrothal. His men were waiting outside the city walls before dawn. We intercepted the record of your transfer to the punishment cell and realized someone planned to harm you today."

He told me that a female prisoner with no next of kin, roughly my build, had just died of jail fever. The death registry still had an empty slot. Leon was offering two paths: keep Evelyn's identity, stay, and wait for an investigation; or let Evelyn die today and allow Northsea to take me away first.

"What about the wedding?"

"Canceled. The Duke says whether you marry at all is your decision from now on. That's not a condition for saving you."

I stared at the death registry and whispered, "If Evelyn is dead, can they still find me?"

"Not if you don't want them to."

A week ago, all I had wanted was to use another marriage as a way out of the Hastings family. But now they had taken my wedding, convicted me of a crime, and locked me in a cell. Lydia had stolen my food, my medicine, my wedding gown, and had tried to take my life.

"Then let her die," I said. "I don't want to be Evelyn anymore."

Dr. Harwood closed the death registry. A female prisoner's body was brought into the infirmary, and I was hidden inside a carriage meant for transporting medicine. As the carriage passed through the front yard, I peered through a gap in the curtain and saw Helena running back with the bail papers. Edmund and Adrian were right behind her.

"Where is my daughter?" Helena seized the warden by the arm. "I'm here to take her to Northsea."

Warden Briggs held out a stamped death notice.

"Too late. Miss Hastings is dead."
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  • After My Sister Stole My Wedding, I Died Before the Next One   Chapter 20

    The public hearing lasted seven days.Faking a pregnancy to steal a wedding, deliberate arson, framing, bribing a prison guard, abuse, poisoning, embezzlement, ordering Carlton to silence Martha, drugging Helena, hostage-taking, a second arson. Every charge was nailed down by witness testimony and sworn statements.On the hearing stand, Lydia was still crying. "They believed it was Evelyn who set the fire! They're the ones who made her sign the confession!"I did not deny it on my parents' or Adrian's behalf. "Yes, they hurt me, and they will each answer for what they did. But their wrongdoing does not absolve you of trying to kill me."When Lydia was led away, Edmund did not plead on her behalf. He lost his authority over the earldom for abandoning his own daughter, coercing a false confession, and years of harboring a criminal, and faced his own hearing.Carlton was convicted as an accomplice. Adrian did not escape with a claim of "poor judgment," either. Concealing the kerosene, pro

  • After My Sister Stole My Wedding, I Died Before the Next One   Chapter 19

    Lydia piled the copies of the confession, the doctor's testimony, and the prison depositions on the floor, then splashed kerosene onto the curtains.She slipped out through the side door of the records room and locked it shut from outside. The maid trapped in the storage closet did not even have a chance to run toward the window."Burn all of this, and no one can convict me." She struck a match. "As for the maid inside, she'll figure something out."By the time Leon and I reached the records room, the flames had already flared up. The maid was pounding on the door, screaming for help.The same door, the same kerosene smell. I was thrown straight back to the first fire. Lydia stood in the courtyard shouting that the maid inside was beyond saving and that everyone should save the documents she had carried out first.This time, no one listened to her. The guards went around her. The maids and servants followed my directions, hauling water and tearing down walls. For the first time, the po

  • After My Sister Stole My Wedding, I Died Before the Next One   Chapter 18

    After Helena woke, she read the midwife's letter herself. The box also held records of the allowances Edmund had paid the governess, hush money paid to the coachman and the midwife, and the paperwork used to bring Lydia into the estate under the guise of an orphan.By the time Edmund arrived, there was nothing left to hide."Lydia is my daughter," he admitted, his voice low. "After her mother left, I couldn't let her grow up on the streets.""But you could let our daughter grow up on the streets?" Helena threw the workhouse intake form in his face. "Evelyn was six when you threw her away. Lydia was six when you brought her in. You weren't too poor to raise a child. You were choosing which child deserved to live."Helena stared hard at him. "You brought her into our marriage and had me raise her as an orphan. And then you forced Evelyn to give way to her, over and over, to take the blame for her?"Edmund had no answer.The records room was at the end of the corridor. Lydia had locked he

  • After My Sister Stole My Wedding, I Died Before the Next One   Chapter 17

    Harris told the whole story in front of everyone.When I was six, a high fever damaged my voice and left me withdrawn. Edmund decided that an eldest daughter who could barely speak and was slow to respond embarrassed the family. He had Harris take me to a workhouse in an outer county and told everyone the child had wandered off.Helena knew nothing at the time and searched for me for ten years. After I was found and brought back, the daughter she preferred was Lydia, who cried freely, threw tantrums, and said sweet things. I kept my head down and did what was expected, so Helena simply got used to expecting me to keep giving way.Harris produced a faded intake form from the workhouse. In the column marked "Reason for abandonment," Edmund had written, "Physical defect. Family unable to provide care." That same year, the Hastings family had hosted the most lavish winter ball in the county. "Unable to provide care" meant nothing more than that he no longer wanted me as his eldest daughter

  • After My Sister Stole My Wedding, I Died Before the Next One   Chapter 16

    Mr. Pemberton spent two weeks reinvestigating both incidents. He tracked down the old boiler worker and contacted the convent, then brought every witness and record to the Northsea constable's office. The boiler worker, well over seventy, recognized the old scar between my right thumb and forefinger at once."When the Earl was trapped by the steam valve, it was Miss Evelyn who crawled into the boiler room, cut the belt with a knife, and dragged him out," the old man said. "Miss Lydia stood by the door the whole time, crying. She didn't claim she'd done it until the rescuers arrived."The boiler worker also remembered that when Edmund woke up, the first person he saw was Lydia. He gave her the gold badge of honor meant for the one who saved him. I was lying in the bed next door, my throat so damaged by the smoke that I could not get a full sentence out.The old nun from the convent came as well. She brought the rescue log from that year, which stated in black and white that after Helena

  • After My Sister Stole My Wedding, I Died Before the Next One   Chapter 15

    Three days after the ball, my parents arrived in Northsea with six carriages.The first carriage was loaded with Helena's jewelry. The second carried my dowry. The rest held land deeds, trust-restoration papers, the eldest daughter's seal, and the resewn wedding gown.Helena also brought my childhood toys, the gown I never got to wear on my sixteenth birthday, and every last thing Lydia had taken from me over the years. She thought that if she filled in the past, we could go back to the way things were.But those things had only mattered because I had once been waiting for them. Now that I had stopped waiting, they were nothing but price tags.When they sent me to prison, there had been a single prison cart. Now, to bring me back, they had hauled everything they called their best.Edmund spread the documents across the table in the Northsea constable's meeting room. "Come home with us, and everything the Hastings family owns is yours."When Helena saw the scars exposed during a bandage

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