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“Miss Bigsby, you must forgive my impudence, but are you hoping to make a match with my son?”

Madeline’s throat closed up in frantic reaction. She did not know how to respond, her heart pounding so loud she could not hear her own thoughts. “I … My mother has hired a matchmaker to seek a suitable gentleman.”

“Someone appropriate to run your little stone business?”

Madeline picked up her tea to drink some more, attempting to calm the anxiety racing through her body. Her breath was coming in alarming pants. She was accustomed to dealing with difficult conversations, but for some reason, she was struggling to maintain her calm as her body reacted with alarming oversensitivity.

Finish this conversation and leave!

She could feel a flush stealing across the surface of her face, and Madeline tried to think what the shortest path to departing would be.

“I … Yes.” Madeline could no longer disguise her panic as she wheezed to draw air. Her throat was closing up and spots were appearing before her eyes. Desperate to maintain the appearance of calm, she grabbed the cup to drink again, hoping the hot liquid might provide solace to her raging anxiety.

“I do not think so. I think you have plotted to raise your station in this world by attempting to trap my boy into a wedding. Is that not why you were sneaking through the house? You wish to force his hand, perhaps, by causing a scandal so you might join the nobility?”

Madeline frowned, dropping the cup with a clatter onto the floor as she gripped her stomach. Searing pain had her doubling over. The baroness ignored all of it, continuing to speak as if nothing were out of place.

“My son was meant for greater things. He has a destiny to fulfill, and I shall not permit you to interfere. I thought I had rid us of you once, but here you are again, like a pernicious weed determined to ruin his life. It took considerable persuasion, but my husband finally heeded my warnings to keep Simon from meeting you. That night … it was as if destiny itself intervened, pushing Nicholas from the window and driving the two of you apart. A dreadful time, having my youngest son so near death, but I admit to a certain euphoria that Simon eventually came to understand his duty. He shall be the first of my line to ascend to an English title.”

Madeline could not follow the rambling threads, crumpling onto the floor as she struggled to focus on the room. Black shadows were filling her vision as she gasped for air, and with growing horror, she realized it was not her emotions causing such high-strung reactions … she had been poisoned!

Isla Scott rose to her feet and crossed the room, gazing down at Madeline from her imposing height. She stood, poised like a murderous china doll, her contempt radiating in waves of malice. “This will end soon, Miss Bigsby. You ought to have known your place. You are but a lowly trade rat, while Simon … Simon is a god, descended from a noble Scottish clan. He shall be the greatest Baron of Blackwood ever to grace this earth. It is his destiny. And yours … is to be cast out with the refuse.”

With that, the baroness stepped over Madeline’s writhing body and left the room, closing the door behind her. Madeline could feel a darkness reaching up to pull her into the abyss, pain racking through her abdomen as she tried to claw her way to the door for help. Her reticule was a cannonball roped around her wrist, but she was determined that the letters be found. She had loved Simon for so long, and she refused to allow death to claim her when they were so close to uniting. He was her Eros. They were destined to live for an eternity in their celestial garden, united by mutual love and respect. It could not end this way.

The door might as well have been seven miles away, each inch of progress a battle of will against her perishing body as she heaved and moaned. Then the door began to swing open, and fate itself intervened with a miracle as Simon appeared.

“Dy … ing,” she panted, clutching her stomach to quell the pain.