All Chapters of The Beta's Forsaken Daughter : Chapter 141 - Chapter 147

Killian POVWe came home in the first thaw.It took eleven days. The snow on the road turned to gray slush, and the slush to mud, and the mud to long ribbons of green where the first grass pushed through. The army moved slowly. We carried our wounded on litters and our dead in wagons draped with black cloth. The Eclipse wolves walked at the back, quiet and proud. Odessa Finch rode in a covered cart with Isabella, wrapped in furs, pointing out every bird and every bud like a child on her first journey.On the eleventh evening, the palace towers rose over the horizon.I reined in my horse at the top of the last hill. Below me, the white walls glowed pink in the sunset. Smoke rose from a hundred chimneys. And on the front steps, small and bright, a crowd of people stood waiting.“Is that her?” said Darius, riding up beside me, squinting.“Who?”“Valerie. The one in the blue dress, jumping.”I looked. A small figure at the top of the steps was waving both arms over her head, like a flag

Valerie POV“Hold still,” said Clover, through a mouthful of pins.“I am holding still.”“You are fidgeting.”“I am nervous.”“You have been nervous for three months. It is a very long time to be nervous.” She tugged my sleeve into place. “Turn.”I turned. In the long mirror, a woman in an ivory dress looked back at me. The silk was soft as water. Tiny gold sunbursts had been stitched along the hem and across the bodice, each one no bigger than a thumbnail, each one catching the light. My hair had been braided and pinned up with golden thread. My mother’s pearl earrings glowed at my ears I did not look like the loud princess. I did not look like the villain of a hundred gossip stories. I looked like someone I might like.“Oh,” I said.“Do not cry. I just finished the lashes.”“I am not crying.”“You are going to.”“I am not.” My chin trembled. “Clover. It is perfect.”“It is the best thing I have ever made.” She put her hands on her hips, and her voice cracked. “I started it the nigh

Isabella POVThe plums ripened in August.They hung in heavy purple clusters from the old orchard behind Winifred’s cottage, so thick that the branches bent. The air smelled of sugar and warm leaves. Bees droned lazily in the long grass. And on a wooden bench in the shade, two old women sat side by side with a basket between them, eating plums out of their hands.“You are doing it wrong,” said Odessa.“I am not.”“You have to bite from the side. Otherwise the juice goes everywhere.”“I have been eating plums for ninety-two years.”“And you still get it on your chin.”“That is a feature, not a flaw.”I stood at the edge of the orchard with my hand resting on my belly, watching them. I was six months along, and enormous. Wren said I looked like a very determined barrel. Killian said I looked like a goddess. Both of them were being generous.“Are you going to hover all day?” said Winifred, without turning her head.“I was admiring.”“Admire from a seat. You will fall over.”“I will not.”

Isabella POV The first thing Rosalind ever stole was a plum.She was eleven months old. She was sitting on a blanket in the orchard behind Winifred’s cottage, wearing a gold-trimmed bonnet and a white linen dress that Clover had embroidered with tiny silver stars. Her cheeks were round and pink. Her hair, dark and curly, stuck out in all directions like a dandelion. And in her left fist, dripping, was a plum the size of a small apple.“That is not hers,” said Winifred, severely.“She is a baby.”“She is a thief.”“She is eleven months old.”“She has a criminal’s eyes.”I looked at my daughter. She looked back at me, completely unashamed, and took a large bite, and a great purple stream of juice ran down her chin.“She does have a bit of a look,” I admitted.“I told you.”“She gets it from her father.”“She gets it from her aunt.” Odessa knelt beside the blanket, wiping Rosalind’s fingers with a damp cloth. “I know a certain young woman who once stole a whole basket of pastries. And b