Todos los capítulos de The Duchess of Frostmane: Capítulo 31 - Capítulo 40

"You'll send word the moment anything changes. Not after breakfast. Not after you've decided it's serious enough. The moment it changes."Evren was already pulling on his gloves, standing by the stable door while the riders behind him checked girths and saddlebags in the gray half-light. I told him I understood. He looked at me for a second, then nodded and swung up onto his horse."Hold the house," he said. "That's all I'm asking.""I can hold a house, Evren.""I know." Then he was gone, the riders falling in behind him, hooves loud on the frozen yard before fading toward the eastern road.Cedric found me in the study not long after. A stack of correspondence waited on the desk, along with the ducal seal on the small stand where Evren usually kept it."Rent accounts, mostly. A few matters that need the seal rather than just a signature." He set the stack down and nodded at it. "Someone still has to see to them, skirmish or not.""Even with him gone?""Someone has to use it, Your Grac

"It was on the mirror stand. I hung it there myself, the way I always do." Lady Aldwyn Fenwick's voice carried down the corridor before I'd even reached the guest wing. A maid two doors down nearly dropped her armful of linens. "And now it's gone.”By the time I stepped into the room, everyone was already in place. Agnes stood near the door with her hands folded, her expression carefully blank. I knew that look. She was furious. Two young maids stood against the far wall, their eyes fixed on the floor. Lady Fenwick gripped the edge of her vanity mirror, looking ready to shake an answer out of it."My lady." I kept my voice level. "What's happened?"She rounded on me so quickly that I barely had time to step aside."Your Grace. My pendant is missing. Moonstone, set in old silver. It's been in my family for three generations. I hung it on this stand less than two hours ago, and now it's gone." She swept a hand toward the two maids. "One of them took it. Search them. Search the whole hou

"Don't flinch when Kael cuts you," Evren said. "It heals faster if you hold still.”The courtyard had been cleared down to packed earth, with snow piled in low banks along the walls. The whole pack stood waiting in a ring beneath a sky that threatened more snow."How many people have done this before me?""Every wolf sworn to this house for the last three generations. You'll be the first Duchess to stand in the circle instead of watching from the steps.”"Why now, and not before?""Because some of them need to reaffirm their oath." He nodded toward the line already forming. "Watch the first three. Do what they do.”Kael stood at the head of the circle with a blade I didn't recognize. Its hilt was pale from years of use. Beside him, an old woman held a shallow cup. One by one, the pack members stepped forward, pressed a palm to the blade, murmured their oath, and let a few drops of blood fall into the cup before it was passed to the next person.When my turn came, Kael made a quick cut

"Absolutely not," Nella said. "You are not carrying that basket, Your Grace.”"I have two hands and nothing better to do with them.""You have a title and a reputation. Neither says you should be hauling turnips through the market like a farmhand." She snatched the basket back before I could argue. "Besides, if Agnes finds out I let you carry anything heavier than a teacup, she'll have my head.”"Agnes isn't here.""Agnes has spies everywhere. I'm convinced of it."The market was louder than I expected. Stalls crowded the narrow paths, and the smell of roasted chestnuts drifted through the cold air. Nella moved through it like she'd done it a hundred times. She practically had. She bartered with a fishmonger over the price of salted cod while I followed behind, trying to look like I belonged there, not like a Duchess playing at being ordinary.A stranger stopped in front of me."Excuse me. "Do you know where I could find the leatherworker's stall? I was told it was near the well, but

"Lysander," Evren said. "The third.”"It's Leander.""That's what I said.""You said Lysander. There's no Lysander in this book. Are you inventing new princes just to irritate me?”"If I were inventing princes, I'd give them better names than Leander." He didn't look up. "Leander sounds like a man who apologizes for existing.”"He's the hero.”"He's the hero of a story where he cries twice in the first chapter and calls it courage." Evren turned the page. “That doesn't mean I have to like him.”"You're allowed to be wrong.”He huffed something that wasn't quite a laugh and turned another page. I looked back at my own book, though I wasn't reading. Instead, I watched the way he held it, his sleeves rolled back from the fire, and the occasional frown that crossed his face before disappearing."You're doing it too," I said."Doing what?""Making faces at the book. I saw you frown at that page.""I did n