Reborn as the Nightingale: Escaping the Duke's Poisoned Marriage

s looking at Isa

should offer a dependent young woman under his roof. He was looking at her wit

ng Adeline saw when th

of memory crashed through her skull all at once: the marriage that had become a prison, Isabelle's soft tears, Kian's

ngers tight on the reins. Her heart hammer

d been

led across the floor with poison in her blood and Kian Ferguson's contempt above her. She was back in the past, in

earth and fallen leaves.

orthgarde royal standard, a golden lion on blue, snapping in the breeze, and the har

The faint lines of cruelty arou

. The King's autumn hunt, five years ago. The day her life's true tragedy began-th

s chestnut mare shied, eyes rolling as a pheasant burst fro

rhorse, Shadow, flank-to-flank with the trembling mare, using his own horse's weight to ste

s voice held a concern she hadn

lance at Adeline, his

ir has his father's chivalry," someone said, and low laughter followed. Th

r came. She felt only a hollow vastness. She might as well have been wa

em six months, looked up at him, blue eyes wide with fear and a

s a casual claim that stun

wisting things, that her jealousy made her ugly. They'd had a terrible figh

e felt

Revenge was pointless. Fighting over a man who'd never been hers would only lead her back

n to move. Kian shot a quick, irritated glance over his

e gaggle of noblewomen trailing behind. She felt his gaze on her back, sharp and questionin

for a hunt, isn't it?" Her voic

the attention from the normally reser

but Isabelle's soft voice called his

hed Adeline's lips. Ex

es, shops, jewels, all detailed in ledgers locked in her private study at Blackwood Man

, Adeline slid from her horse and approached the Que

as left me rather unwell. I must be

med to feel sorry for her, nodded with c

heir's wife to leave the royal hunt early. While she waited f

well and sends this." He held out Kian

heir that his wife needs to rest," she sai

unt. Inside, the silence was a relief. She leaned against the velvet squabs and methodically pulled off her riding gloves, finger by fi

e weight in her pal

she sai

ince childhood, looked at her w

every ledger, every deed, and every

? But you haven't looked at th

. "I am going to count my assets," she said.

The carriage rolled away from the laughter and horns of the royal hunt, carrying Adeline toward the first real decision of her second life. This time