The House That Cast Me Out

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

When Ashford House cast me out with nothing to my name, I was so close to freezing to death that I could barely feel my own hands.

A hard-faced soldier found me and carried me home.

He did not care that I had once been a house entertainer in a great noble house, a woman already used up and thrown away in other people’s eyes. And I, in turn, never treated the sickly little boy left behind by his dead wife as anything less than my own.

That was how the three of us came to live—plainly, quietly, one day after another.

But one day, my stepson accidentally offended the most favored young master of Ashford House. And when I begged and tried to shield him, the little boy’s eyes turned red as he glared at me and spat out each word.

“Fine. If you can’t bear to see him kneel, then you kneel.”

It was the Lantern Festival.

All across the Royal Capital, fireworks burst like crimson blossoms in the night. Auntie Liu, who sold flatbread at the corner, came pounding on our door in a panic.

“Ninth Miss! Julian’s in trouble!”

I sprang up from the stove, not even stopping to untie the sleeve band tied around my arms. In two steps I was at the courtyard gate.

Before I could ask what had happened, Auntie Liu seized my wrist and dragged me at a run out of the alley.

East Market Street opened in every direction, crowded and bright. Taverns and entertainment houses lined both sides. A bridge cut across the middle of the street, and performers moved through the crowds breathing fire and juggling to the delight of the festival-goers.

By the time I reached the end of the bridge, I was breathing hard.

Then I saw Julian’s gray-blue cap.

A lavish carriage stood at the bridgehead, ringed by guards and servants whose bearing made it obvious they belonged to someone powerful. Julian was being held by the collar by a guard with a hunting falcon perched on his shoulder.

His thin, delicate fingers were clenched tightly around something. No matter what they did, he would not let go.

Word by word, stubborn to the end, he said, “I won’t give it to you. My mother got this protective charm for me.”

A young boy’s voice came from inside the carriage, childish and yet cold.

“You’re lying.”

Then he gave the order.

“Garrick. Break his neck.”

The moment the words fell, the guard called Garrick lifted his hand without the slightest change in expression.

No—!

I rushed forward and pulled Julian into my arms. I knew at once this was some young master no one like us could afford to offend, so I kept my head lowered and begged as humbly as I could.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“My lord, I don’t know how this child offended you, but I beg your pardon on his behalf.”

The carriage stayed silent for a long moment. Then it seemed someone inside lifted the curtain, because I felt a burning gaze fasten onto me.

I lowered my head even further.

The highborn boy asked softly, “You want to apologize in his place? What are you to him?”

His tone was light, but something in it made my chest tighten.

“I’m his mother,” I answered.

For some reason, that only seemed to anger him. He let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Fine. An apology, then. Do you plan to offer it standing up?”

I understood at once.

I dropped to my knees in the snow and bowed my head to the ground. Hard enough to make a sound.

It was an old habit by now. Whenever those born above the clouds took offense, people like me had only one way to survive.

I did not feel humiliated.

Only this could keep us safe.

But Julian was terrified. He was not a child who cried easily, yet now he burst into tears and clutched at me, trying to pull me up.

“Mother—Mother, don’t do that! It was my fault, all of it was my fault!”

Strangely, the little noble seemed to freeze as well. I had only struck my head to the ground twice before the guard hurried forward and yanked me upright.

But hidden beneath the snow were broken stones. They split the skin at my temple, and thick blood ran down into my eyes, blurring my vision. I never once saw the young master’s face clearly.

When they finally stopped making trouble for us, I took Julian’s hand and led him down off the bridge, his sobs still catching in his throat.

Everything around us was unnaturally quiet. The wind moved evenly through the air, and a fine, icy snow drifted down.

Then, without warning, a man’s elegant voice sighed from inside the carriage behind us.

“The snow is too heavy. Come inside.”

At the sound of that voice, the still water inside my heart stopped dead.

Even the snow falling against my face seemed to turn to needles, pricking me with a thousand tiny pains.

I turned back then and finally saw the crest painted on the hanging lantern by the carriage door.

Ashford House.

I had been away from that place for so long—so long I had almost convinced myself I could hear its name without feeling anything at all.

Almost.

But who in the Royal Capital could hear Adrian Ashford’s name and not feel a chill? If there was the slightest disturbance at the execution platform in the western market, no one even needed to ask. Everyone knew the Marquess of Northreach was purging another enemy.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

His power was boundless. His methods were ruthless. Yet where women were concerned, he had always been strangely restrained. He was in the prime of life, but his household held only one lawful wife, the girl he had grown up with. Even though she could bear him no children, he never took another.

And yet one day, a lowly house entertainer had ended up carrying Adrian Ashford’s child. Everyone said she was greedy for rank and riches, that she must have used some shameless trick to win that fortune.

In the end, the marquess never cared about the woman at all. He only let her give birth, then shut her away in a remote courtyard without name or status. Later, no one knew what line she had crossed, but in the dead of winter she was thrown out of the estate and nearly froze to death.

That woman was me.

If Jonah Rowan had not found me beneath the wall while on patrol and taken me home—if he had not fed me, clothed me, given me shelter—I would never have lived to see this day.

For two full years, Adrian Ashford had not spared a thought for the insignificant woman he had discarded. And now, to run into him like this without warning—

Fear clenched so hard inside me I could barely breathe.

“Do I need to come down and invite you myself?” Adrian asked through the carriage door, his voice gentle.

I knew that tone. The gentler he sounded, the more tightly he was holding down his anger.

I looked around, but there was no one who could save Julian or me. There was nothing to do but obey.

So I pressed my lips together and climbed into the carriage, taking Julian with me, though he still looked dazed.

Inside, the air was heavy with warm incense. After the snow outside, it felt almost like spring. Adrian sat there in broad robes and a fur-lined cloak, and beside him was a young boy with the same eyes and brows. Judging by appearance alone, no one would ever have pinned the words cruel and vicious on that father and son.

Julian and I sat opposite them in our plain clothes, stiff and awkward. Blood still clung messily to my forehead. Adrian looked at me as if I had brought every bit of it on myself.

“Do you know what pain feels like now?” he asked.

I said nothing. I raised my sleeve and scrubbed at my face hard. Julian frowned, then pulled out the embroidered handkerchief I had made for him. Straightening to his knees, he carefully wiped my face for me.

That picture of mother and son together drew a cold laugh from Lucian Ashford.

He could not hold back. “You treat a bastard like that?” he said. “Then my mother was right about you. No virtue, no decency—born low and filthy.”

I had heard words like that often enough in Ashford House.