Late January. Windsor. The Nest.
The rumors came like frost—delicate at first, then consuming.
No one could trace their source, but everyone seemed to know the script. The same words whispered in drawing rooms, repeated in cafés, inked into gossip columns that never dared name their informant.
"Lady Maxwell rehearsed her tears."
"Suffox's duchess—his most beautiful puppet."
"First a crown prince, then a minister, now a duke. Some women never tire of power."
Serena heard the echoes everywhere. They came muffled through closed doors, disguised in polite silences. The city had rediscovered its favorite pastime—tearing apart the woman it could not forget.
By the second day, Emily stopped bringing the papers in. The parlor remained quiet except for the soft ticking of the clock and the distant sound of street vendors calling the day's headlines.
