Clara felt as if the floor beneath her was crumbling away. Her mother—the proud, imperious Lady Beatrix Beaumont—stood before her like a stranger wearing a familiar face. The elegant posture remained, but the carefully constructed facade had fallen away, revealing a desperate woman with haunted eyes.
"Mother," I whispered, my voice catching as I struggled to reconcile the woman I'd known my entire life with this... this survivor standing before me. "Please... tell me everything."
Mother's eyes darted to the window, where the silhouettes of Duke Thorne's men were visible against the moonlight. "We don't have much time, Clara."
"I need to understand," I insisted, wrapping my arms around myself. "If you want me to flee with you, to trust you... I need the truth. All of it."
She sank onto the edge of her bed, suddenly looking older than I'd ever seen her. The proud set of her shoulders sagged, and for a moment, I glimpsed the weight she'd been carrying all these years.
