Arabella had a boyfriend. I came to that grim conclusion by the fall. Perhaps I would not have noticed it if not for writing a letter to Gareth that went unanswered. But Arabella was the first to meet the post, running to hide and read her precious correspondence. Now sixteen, her interest in dances and events all but dried up, to Mother's disappointment and worry.

But I truly confirmed it one night in one of the most bitter days of winter, when she rose from her bed and dressed in the pitch black. She was out the door quietly.

This was not my imagination, and it hadn't been my imagining for some time, I concluded.

When I sat up in my bed and peered out the window, a lamplight in the distance waited for hers to meet. Then they ventured behind the barn.

I slipped out of bed with a shiver. My head told me to alert our parents, but my heart couldn't betray her. I'd catch her with him and force her to stop.

The rumors were already bad. I hadn't caught wind of them but knew they were one of the reasons Bella lost interest in the parties. This extra lamplight was the second cause.

Using the familiarity of the property as my guide, I carried my own lamp unlighted, matches in my pocket. Chatter closed in, then something ran past, one lamplight.

Arabella hurried back into the house.

I could have left it at that—could have walked away. Instead, I summoned my courage to continue. Once the barn was close, I could make it out well enough. I collided into something that nearly took my spirit.

"Calm. Calm down!"

That voice I knew. I trembled as I waited, and a lamp lit to show Gareth's bruised face.

I nearly stepped back. He had one black eye, hit so severely that it nearly closed.

His lip was also split.

He looked a fright but then something else took up my attention. "You've...come to see Arabella?"

The fire danced in his blue irises. "I came to see you," he affirmed.

But my eyes drifted back toward the house to where Arabella'd disappeared.

"I've come a few times but...your parents turned me away," Gareth confessed. After a moment, he asked, "What are you doing out here?"

I could have asked him that; this was my home.

A noise had me freezing dead in my tracks. Gareth stepped before me. Lamp clutched tightly, he held it up and demanded, "Who's there?"

There was a quiet for eons before someone moved.

I stifled a shriek. Gareth dragged me behind him, and I gripped his shoulder.

"Stay close."

Thundering footsteps closed in, but it was no run, it was a march. Finally, a lamp lit and Edmond's serious expression, one of a deadly hate, came into focus.

"Unhand her," he commanded.

Gareth gasped. "Who are you to put demands on me? And what are you doing out here at this time of night?"

The muscles in Gareth's arms tensed, signaling me that whatever bruises he'd come with, weren't accidental and he was prone to gain some more.

"It's all right," I soothed, "it's only Edmond."

Gareth whipped his head around to regard me in awe and betrayal. "And he comes to your house in the dead of night—?"

"You're at her home in the dead of night," Edmond fired back.

They may have gone back and forth if I didn't remember my very light sleeping parents and shush them.

Despite quieting, the both of them looked at me. It hadn't occurred at first, but it finally dawned on me that they were waiting for me to dismiss one of them.

I looked between them and could not decide.

Gareth's fears were unfounded—this was Edmond. I'd trust him with my very life.

And Edmond's fears were equally unwarranted because Gareth was just now ready to put himself between me and a ghost, murderer, monster. He was just.

Because I could not choose, I told them both, "Please go back, the two of you. Anything we talk about must be said in the day."

Gareth took a step forward but countered that action. But it was Edmond who I truly felt sorry for. He gave me a languished look, willing me to send Gareth forth so we could converse.

A small pit formed in my stomach at first, and it slowly ate its way in all directions until I felt hollow.

He was leaving.

Somehow, I knew. Somehow, I knew with everything in me, that he was leaving, and he'd come to tell me something—perhaps farewell. But if I dismissed him now, I might never see him again.

Gareth's penetrating gaze bore into me and I lost my nerve and told Edmond, "Goodnight."

He stared back for a long minute then answered, "Goodbye," and turned to leave.

The moment he walked away, I felt cold, and not for the weather.

Fish could not walk on land, no more than foxes could live in rivers. Now and then, a fish may leap out of the safety of that water but return right back in. So, too, could a fox cross a strong current if it were beneficial.

But where they excelled was where they were safest. And no matter how often they peeked into the world of the unfamiliar, they wouldn't stay there for long. They couldn't survive there.

I imagined myself like a fox drowning in a river, gone far too deep, allowing overconfidence to mislead her from the shore. But it wasn't water cutting off my airflow, but rather, obligations and deceit.

I buried my sister in spring, but truly mourned in summer...a week after my wedding day. And like a fox dipping into the unfamiliar, I went against my rational nature and played a part that ended where I wanted it to—the moment my new husband thundered from our house, grabbed a horse, and galloped into town to seek out more agreeable companionship.

The large mahogany desk at which I sat belonged to my grandfather. Everything atop it was so pristine that I guessed no one had disturbed it since his departure. Whenever I thought of that fact, I hesitated to use it. I never knew the man. He went abroad before I was born, and never returned.

On the night of my wedding, I'd bolted myself within these walls. My wedding gown torn at my shoulder had painted a new world, one I feared had no escape. But it had been a wedding. And unconsummated or not, it would do what I needed it to. Those vows were as far into the unfamiliar as I could have stomached. Venturing into what was expected physically would have killed me. For more reasons than one.

Now, sitting here staring out the large window, a week from my wedding night but equally fortified for the same reasons, I felt numb yet tearful.

I could have bought this property, become a landlord rather than a wife. There were limitations as a woman—a widow—but there were ways around it. That was my familiar path, my world. But I chose differently. And I'd chosen wrong.

Giving my girls legitimacy meant more than the riches at my fingertips and now, in an effort to free myself of this feeling of dread swelling up inside me, with no salvation in sight, I struggled with a different decision: play the part I'd promise; weather this, walk into this new role properly and cease with these pitiful refusals. Otherwise, selling this manor was the only possible alternative as of now.

Tonight had rattled me. Unlike the wedding night, Gareth was neither drunk nor aggressive. I should have understood his intent when he brought a light sweet and put it onto this desk.

My tepid response alerted him to my disinterest.

I struggled to think how it all went wrong so quickly. But one thing remained with me, the words Gareth had said before he left.

"You're just like your sister, toying with men as if our feelings are incidental!"

I was angry, but not at him.

I shouldn't have said, "Men can provide for their families."

After that, the world turned white with the back of his hand meeting my face, and the door slammed. I lumbered to it and locked it before falling into this chair to stare out the window.

And now he was gone.

Edmond's heavy footsteps closed in. Keys jingled and the door opened. He set the lamp on the desk table. "Are you hurt?"

I still sat slumped by the window. The shake of my head was meant to be more convincing.

"You do not call for me. You do not let me know what you have planned. I hunted the house top and bottom for you two!"

Several draws opened then closed and Edmond brought the lamp near to my face to examine me. What he saw made him click his tongue, displeased.

The door opened. Rather than focus in the dim light, I closed my eyes. The thundering stomps as he descended the steps to the first floor came with muffled cursing. And then he was back.

Edmond was here. Rather than this rush of panic of what I'd gotten myself into, a soothing wave of calm washed over me. I had help. I was not alone. Another fox fought these choppy waters with me.

He held up a small bottle and the rank fragrance of iodine hit hard.

"You should have told me," he insisted, anger dripping from each word. "I was only fetching wood for a moment."

I countered, saying, "And you would have done what, exactly? Chaperoned us all night?"

Once Edmond was satisfied with dabbing the iodine on the corner of my bottom lip, he sat back on his heels. "Are you saying you have no faith in me?"

The gasp to leave me was unintentional.

He knew that was not true. He must have known.

Edmond waited for me to deny his words but all I could manage was, "What's done is done."

Ashamed, I broke from his gaze.

"But you are no temptress," he reminded me. "And I am no knight. We must make do with what we have. Be direct with him and tell him you know of his situation. Stop with the pretense. Let him know this is no romance and that you've come for Cinderella."

Fed up, I boxed the cloth in his hand aside as he brought more iodine. The action surprised him. He looked lost and confused when he glanced between me and his own hand.

What I'd done was unfair. He was right. Of course, he was right.

I thought to apologize but he handed me the bottle and cloth. "Here, you can do it. But put some more, I beg."

My hands wouldn't move. I was too angry. I was too angry at him—I was angry at Arabella.

I'll keep your secret strung together in my mind on a wheel with no end. What secret? With whom was she corresponding? Why couldn't she have confided in me?

As Edmond crouched before me, helpful dark eyes at the ready, I thought of seventeen years ago and how he'd wronged me.

I'd blamed myself. I'd blamed Arabella. But not once had I ever blamed the true source of my suffering. Edmond.

He was why I'd ended up with Gareth.

And I felt cold at the thought of it.

Early the next morning, the day after Gareth and Edmond's impromptu visit to my home in the dead of night, we were summoned by a servant to Grandmother's. The carriage couldn't have arrived fast enough for me.

It was an emergency, Grandmother'd said.

Upon our arrival, my weary grandmother stopped at the doorway, shoving a maid aside as she announced, "Gone. They're gone. Those ungrateful wretches! They're gone. Like thieves in the night."

Arabella was the last to leave the carriage. She took the pristine estate in and even I noticed it.

Everything was clean and trimmed well.

Edmond.

He'd left that gift but that hardly mattered.

My father, sensing that Arabella was no longer Grandmother's most hated, hurried to help her on the steps, going so far as to call to her, "Mother, you shouldn't be outside. It's so cold."

Until now, she'd always corrected him out of calling her that. Long gone were the days of, "Mother-in-law."

She looked weary, and I suspected that the shiver that ran through her had nothing to do with the biting winter upon us.

I felt nothing.

A snowflake floated around me then another and yet...nothing. They were gone.

Deep down, deep inside, I knew I'd never see them both together again. Never. Not ever.

My childhood was at an end. At seventeen, it was at an end. It should have been much sooner, but that time was gone and it would never return.

Gone were the carefree days of running around this estate with no worries. For every mistake, trick, joke, story, imaginary battle scar, it was all gone.

And worst yet...I had no say in it.

Tears in my eyes, I focused on Arabella but she didn't seem to mind.

Her reaction was why I convinced myself that my feelings were wrong.

They were going to leave eventually. Edmond had said as much.

But I hated the way he left. I loathed it.

Grandmother surprised me the most. She looked her age as she cursed and screamed, "And who is going to get my medicine or help me write my letters!"

My mother had little success in calming her. "You have so many maids, Mother—"

"Edmond knew how I liked everything done!"

I felt weary as I made my way to the main door. Arabella was somewhere, perhaps fetching tea. I? I walked outside despite the snow.

My grandmother's rants lasted for ages and ended with my father promising to go and look for them. Only then did peace reign. Whatever was happening inside, I waited on the steps in the snow. Somewhere in my head, I'd convinced myself that being here would make a difference. It wouldn't.

The snow picked up and father was forced to come back within the hour, a fact that lost him many favors with Grandmother. Now he was her son-in-law once more.

Someone else surprised me by emerging from the gate. Arabella. The sight of her confused me. For one, wasn't she inside all this time...? For another, she was bawling as she ran up the path and stomped into the manor.

Her entry brought the house to life, screams and shouts erupted but while the snow drew others in, it forced me out. I started walking down the little path past the barn. Grandmother didn't keep much livestock, and certainly not close to the house. Beyond that area was a little hut Edmond and Raphael had shared, behind the servants' quarters.

The sight of it brought me to tears. Equally, it made me angry. Despite the snow, so thick I could barely make out where the sky and the ground met, I wanted to spend the better part of the day kicking this house down.

We needed no reminders.

He'd told me. He'd said it twice. And perhaps he came that night to say it properly, better, but I didn't care. He'd still left like a fugitive. He'd left and I found it unfair.

My fingers were numb when the thought finally occurred to me that I should find shelter from the snow. It came down without end. Everything in me said to go back to the manor, but my feet took me to the hut instead. There was no lock on the door.

It wasn't a bad structure. It would at least keep the cold out for a time. There must have been a place for a fire, I suspected. The little chimney on top said as much.

With little recourse, I pulled the door opened and froze in shock at the shivering man staring back at me.