“Did you kill him, Preshea?”

“No. But I did poison him. Not enough. A little cyanide here and there. Every time I was home. Once, I put foxglove in his minced veal simply to watch his heart race away from him, there at the dinner table. Then, the final year, I let him catch me at it.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “His face was so shocked, demanding an explanation. As if, by right of blood, I was the betrayer for knowing he was against me. I reminded him that he had sent me to that school. He knew the curriculum.”

Gavin stayed frozen, waiting.

She spoke, each word an arrow aimed to hit a mark. “I told him that when I was home, he would never be safe. I reminded him of how many household items are deadly, and that I knew them all.” She moved to the fireplace, looking into the flames instead of at him. Her face, in profile, was marble. “Did you know that even wood ash from a fire, mixed with water, can be poison?”

Gavin shook his head.

She gave a tiny grimace, fracturing the marble. “I can’t forget his face. He was very handsome. But he wasn’t at that moment. He was so scared. I” —her voice splintered— “I enjoyed that. So, I told him about phossy jaw. Did you know radium is disfiguring and difficult to detect? My father’s greatest fear, I think – ugliness. I gave him two options. He could have me committed to an insane asylum or he could marry me off. The first would be embarrassing, the second lucrative. Of course, he chose marriage. Although I did say I could not guarantee my husband’s safety. I advised him to choose wisely. You see, I’m not a kind person.”

Gavin shifted to sit more upright, careful with his movements. She didn’t want his kindness; the best he could give her right now was his attention. “Did he?”

“Did he what?”

“Choose wisely?”

Preshea slumped, sinking down into a chair. Still graceful, but she looked not so much ethereal as frail. He ached to go to her. Not yet.

“Not really. My first husband could be quite brutal. Especially in his cups.” She gestured to her body. “It was a good change. Well, not good exactly, but at least different after seventeen years.”

Gavin felt his gut coil and surge with bile. He couldn’t stand the thought of her hurting, not the tiniest bit of it. Not his Preshea, not this pristine weapon of a woman.

She kept talking as if driven by his disgust. “I believe that he, too, was proud of my looks. Never touched my face. Mostly pinching – upper arms, ribs. Did you know that if you twist your fingers just so, the bruise is heart-shaped? He died, one dose for each heart he gave me.”

Gavin felt almost as though he could taste her revenge, feel it for her. He wanted more than that.

She saw the question in his face. “He died.” Her tone was final. “Please don’t ask me how exactly. The others died too. Naturally, not so naturally, what does it matter? They were all arranged for me. My father might think he chose, but he did not. I did my duty under the terms of my indenture. You’re a soldier, you know what it is to follow orders, to do what you are told.”

“Aye, lass, I do at that. Even the unpleasant stuff.” Gavin was not feeling so casual as he appeared. In fact, he was finding it difficult to breathe, listening to her speak of the men who had come before him.

“And the next one?” If she were in a forthcoming mood, he wouldn’t stop her. Even if it kept her across the room, half a mile away. Gavin didn’t know why he wanted to know about the infamous husbands of Lady Preshea Villentia so badly. Perhaps because it was insight into her.

Slowly, carefully, then faster, she began to tell him about the others. The second: “Not particularly capable, and resentful of me because of it. Liked to yell a lot, he did, spilled all his secrets that way.”

She talked of them flatly, her words ice crystals of clear, perfect misery. It was the voice she used when she wanted nothing to show. Each phrase assassinated by its own punctuation.

“He did nothing to me physically, nothing at all. Turns out he had... other preferences.”

Gavin tried for sympathy. “Men?”

“Children.”

Gavin could not hide his repulsion.

“Exactly.” She noted his expression with approval. “Hard to regret, that one.” A pause. “Richard was third. He was fine, a tradesman. Liked me as a status symbol. Left me to myself and wasn’t mean with my allowance. We rattled along well enough. He kept out of my business. I kept out of his. In fact, after a single unsatisfying bedroom encounter, he ignored me. Perhaps that’s worse?”

Gavin felt nothing but anger for these husbands of hers. He was not jealous at all, just sad, and sorry for her, and ashamed of himself and his sex.

“What happened to him, then, if you weren’t… If he wasn’t intended…” Gavin struggled for the correct words. He was a forthright man, a soldier; espionage was not a comfortable place.

“Died in a carriage accident with his mistress. Six months after our wedding.”

He blinked, surprised at the blatancy of the statement.

“Oh” —she grinned— “it wasn’t a secret. It also wasn’t my doing. Not my style. I suspect it was arranged, though. Pity about the girl.”

She paused, frowning. Remembering to feel concern for someone she never knew, or simply gathering her thoughts?

“Last was Alfred – Viscount Villentia.” She gestured to herself as if to say as you see me now. “I was twenty-four when we married. He was seventy-six.”