SIX BRIDES DIED BEFORE DAWN – THE SEVENTH FELL ASLEEP ON THE DUKE’S CHEST, THEN SOMEONE KNOCKED THREE TIMES…

SIX BRIDES DIED BEFORE DAWN – THE SEVENTH FELL ASLEEP ON THE DUKE’S CHEST, THEN SOMEONE KNOCKED THREE TIMES…

No bride of the Duke of Ashland had ever survived until morning.

Six weddings had ended beneath church bells.

Six wedding nights had ended beneath funeral cloth.

So when Casper Cornwall married for the seventh time, London did not ask whether his new duchess would die.

London only argued over the hour.

Three hours, one gentleman wagered.

Four, said another, if the girl proved stubborn.

By midnight, the candles in the ducal bedchamber had burned low.

Rain whispered against the windows.

A crystal vial stood untouched on the bedside table.

And Isla Marouin, the seventh Duchess of Ashland, was still breathing.

Her dark curls lay across Casper’s bare chest.

One hand rested over his heart.

She slept as though she had not been warned that the man beneath her was feared throughout England.

Casper had not moved for nearly an hour.

He barely dared to breathe.

Every previous bride had taken the physician’s restorative before bed.

Every previous bride had been found cold before dawn.

But Isla had examined the vial, looked Dr. Harwick directly in the eye, and placed it back on the tray.

“I do not swallow mysterious medicines offered by men I met yesterday.”

Casper had nearly smiled.

Then she had consumed too much wedding champagne, complained that dukes spoke in riddles, and fallen asleep against him before he could explain why her refusal mattered.

Now she was warm.

Alive.

Impossible.

A floorboard creaked beyond the door.

Casper’s hand slid beneath the mattress and closed around the pistol hidden there.

Three measured knocks followed.

Only one man in Ashland Manor knocked that way.

Casper looked down at Isla.

For the first time in years, fear did not feel like grief arriving too late.

It felt like someone was coming to take away the only living thing he had begun to want.

Three weeks earlier, Isla had stood beneath the chandeliers at Lady Featherby’s ball wearing a green gown repaired so carefully that only cruel eyes noticed.

London society possessed many cruel eyes.

Her father was dead.

Her mother had vanished years earlier.

Her younger brother Thomas required money to remain at Oxford.

Their family home was buried beneath debt.

At twenty-four, Isla had learned that poverty made a woman visible for all the wrong reasons.

She was studying a split seam on her glove when the ballroom changed around her.

Conversations lowered.

Mothers drew their daughters closer.

Men pretended not to stare.

The Duke of Ashland had arrived.

Casper Cornwall wore black without decoration.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, and still in the unsettling way of a man expecting an attack from every doorway.

The faint scar near his collar did less to frighten Isla than the exhaustion in his gray eyes.

“He does not look murderous,” she murmured.

Her cousin Emily nearly spilled her wine.

“His third duchess was reportedly found with bruises around her throat.”

“Lady Pembroke is reportedly bathing in champagne.”

“Lady Pembroke does bathe in champagne.”

“Then London is occasionally accurate by accident.”

Across the ballroom, Casper looked directly at Isla.

The noise seemed to retreat.

He did not smile.

He simply studied her as though she had done something no other woman in the room had managed.

She had looked back.

Minutes later, a footman approached.

“His Grace requests the next dance.”

Emily made a sound normally heard from kettles.

Isla considered fainting.

Curiosity proved stronger than caution.

Casper’s hand settled at the small of her back as the orchestra began.

His touch was controlled.

His attention was not.

“You are not afraid of me,” he said.

“Should I be?”

“Most people believe so.”

“Rumors make poor dancing partners.”

Something almost warm moved at the corner of his mouth.

When the music ended, he asked her to walk in the garden.

The request was improper.

The man making it was dangerous.

Isla accepted.

Rain clung to the roses outside.

Casper waited until the terrace doors had closed behind them.

Then he dismantled her life in four sentences.

“Your brother’s education is in danger.”

Isla stopped walking.

“Your creditors will take your home before winter.”

Her face grew hot.

“Your family has no useful connections.”

She turned toward him.

“And your charm has apparently died with your wives.”

This time, the ghost of a smile appeared clearly.

“My reputation for charm was always exaggerated.”

“You investigated me.”

“Yes.”

He did not apologize.

That irritated her almost as much as the accuracy of his information.

Casper stopped beside a stone bench.

“You require security.”

“And what do you require?”

“A wife.”

Isla stared at him.

He proposed a one-year marriage.

Her debts would be erased.

Thomas would remain at Oxford.

The family house would be protected.

When the year ended, Isla would receive enough money to live independently.

He would demand no intimacy she did not willingly offer.

It sounded less like a proposal than an arrangement between two people standing at opposite ends of a burning bridge.

“Why would a duke need to purchase a wife under contract?”

“Because permanence has not served me well.”

She held his gaze.

“What happened to the others?”

The question erased the small warmth from his face.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

Then he gave her three conditions.

She must never enter the West Wing after midnight.

She must never dismiss a servant without informing him.

And if he ever told her to run, she must leave immediately without asking why.

“What would I be running from?”

Casper looked toward the black hedges.

“Something I cannot yet prove.”

Every sensible thought told Isla to refuse.

Then she remembered Thomas trying to hide an unpaid university notice.

She remembered the cracks in the roof at home.

She remembered creditors discussing her future as though she were furniture.

“Very well, Your Grace.”

Casper looked almost startled.

“I will marry you.”

Three weeks later, London filled a church to watch her die.

The wedding breakfast was bright with flowers, champagne, and badly concealed anticipation.

Guests smiled at Isla the way people smiled at condemned prisoners.

That night, Dr. Harwick personally delivered a restorative.

Isla refused it.

By morning, she woke with her cheek on Casper’s chest and his hand resting protectively at her waist.

When she lifted her head, pain from the champagne struck behind her eyes.

“Careful,” he said.

His voice sounded as though he had not slept.

She looked down in alarm.

Her night rail remained intact.

His hand immediately moved away.

“Nothing happened,” he said.

“Nothing?”

“You accused me of arrogance, refused Harwick’s tonic, delivered a lecture about secretive men, and then used me as furniture.”

Heat climbed her throat.

“How humiliating.”

“I have endured worse.”

“So London keeps reminding me.”

The warmth vanished from his expression.

Before Isla could repair the damage, something enormous shoved open the door.

A gray hound the size of a small bear entered the room.

He stared at Isla.

Then he sneezed with deep disapproval.

“This is Brick,” Casper said.

Brick ignored the new duchess and dropped his head beside Casper’s hand.

“He appears offended.”

“He believes you have invaded his territory.”

“I married his furniture.”

Casper laughed once.

The sound was low, brief, and so unexpected that Isla forgot her headache.

Then she remembered the three knocks.

“Someone came to the door last night.”

Casper’s hand stopped in Brick’s fur.

“House business.”

“At midnight?”

“Ashland Manor has never respected polite hours.”

The answer came too smoothly.

By noon, Isla had discovered that the house itself behaved like a frightened servant.

Conversations stopped when she entered.

Maids avoided her eyes.

Portraits had been removed from the corridors, leaving pale rectangles on the walls.

Servants passed the West Wing carrying fresh linens, warm water, and covered trays.

The wing was forbidden, but clearly not abandoned.

Casper became distant whenever others were present.

Yet small acts of attention followed Isla from room to room.

A fire was lit wherever she preferred to read.

A shawl appeared after she shivered once at breakfast.

A bottle of fresh ink replaced the empty one on her desk.

After he noticed the cracks in her gloves, a new pair arrived beneath a lunch tray.

A note rested on top.

You did not eat breakfast.

Please attempt not to starve yourself out of stubbornness.

The gloves are not charity.

Your old pair offended me personally.

Isla read the note twice before hiding her smile.

Casper never asked whether she was lonely.

He simply made the enormous house feel less cold.

Dr. Harwick visited every other morning.

Each time, he asked about her sleep.

Each time, he offered a new vial.

Each time, Isla refused.

On his third visit, Casper entered as Harwick placed another restorative beside her tea.

Casper picked it up and slipped it into his coat.

“My wife requires breakfast, not tonics.”

Harwick smiled politely.

The skin near his mouth tightened.

That evening, Isla found her scandalous French novel missing from the library.

A heavy volume of sermons had replaced it.

When she opened the cover, she discovered that someone had hollowed out the sermon book and hidden her novel inside.

Casper stood in the doorway.

“Your taste in literature threatens the moral foundations of the estate.”

“You stole my book.”

“I protected the household.”

“By reading it?”

“I needed to know what made you blush on page forty-seven.”

Isla nearly dropped the volume.

Page forty-seven involved a moonlit carriage, several missing buttons, and behavior unfit for a duchess.

“You read page forty-seven?”

“I found it educational.”

He moved closer.

The amusement in his eyes darkened into something warmer.

His hand lifted as though he meant to touch her face.

Then Brick forced his massive head between them and leaned possessively against Casper.

Isla laughed.

Casper looked at the dog.

“You are impossible to compete with.”

Brick huffed in triumph.

For one dangerous moment, Isla imagined that her marriage might become something more than a contract.

Then a maid hurried through the archway behind Casper.

She was carrying folded blankets into the West Wing.

Curiosity became suspicion.

Suspicion became resolve.

Three nights later, Isla waited until the house slept.

She wrapped herself in a dressing gown, lit a candle, and entered the forbidden corridor.

The West Wing smelled of lavender.

Furniture stood beneath white sheets.

Portraits had been turned toward the walls.

At the end of the corridor, she found a door with a new lock.

The lock was open.

Moonlight revealed a nursery preserved perfectly against time.

Picture books lined the shelves.

A painted rocking horse waited beside the hearth.

Tiny blankets had been folded recently.

Someone still cared for the room.

Then Isla saw the portrait.

A young woman in pale blue silk stared from the far wall.

She had dark hair.

Fine features.

Solemn eyes.

She was not identical to Isla.

But she resembled her enough to make Isla’s stomach tighten.

Perhaps Casper had not selected a practical stranger.

Perhaps he had selected a replacement.

The floor creaked behind her.

Casper stood in the doorway.

His face held something worse than anger.

“I told you not to enter this wing.”

“Did you love her?”

His gaze moved to the portrait.

“Not in the way people imagine.”

“Did you love any of them?”

“I cared for them.”

His voice dropped.

“I tried to protect every one of them.”

“And failed?”

“Yes.”

The answer carried no self-pity.

Only punishment.

Isla looked at the nursery.

“Why preserve this room?”

“The first duchess lost a child before she died.”

The portrait suddenly looked less like a rival and more like an accusation.

“And me?” Isla asked before pride could stop her.

Casper’s eyes found hers.

“You are the first person who has ever made me forget to be afraid.”

He took one step closer.

His hand rose.

This time, Isla did not want him to stop.

Rapid footsteps sounded outside.

A rain-soaked man appeared in the doorway.

He was called Mr. Su, and he handled matters the Duke preferred London never to hear about.

“I found the account,” Su said.

They gathered in the library.

Su opened a leather folio filled with household ledgers, physician records, and payments hidden beneath false names.

Small sums had begun before the second duchess died.

Larger sums followed before each later death.

Servants received money and disappeared after the funerals.

Dr. Harwick’s salary had doubled before the third duchess was buried.

“You suspected murder,” Isla said.

Casper stared into the fire.

“I suspected everything except the right person in time.”

Over the following week, the library became their secret battlefield.

Isla studied the remedies prescribed to the dead women.

Nerves.

Palpitations.

Weakness.

Sleeplessness.

Every treatment encouraged deep sleep.

Every woman declined rapidly.

Every death had been called heart failure.

Harwick had not been curing frightened brides.

He had been making certain they could not wake.

The danger should have pushed Isla away from Casper.

Instead, it drew them closer.

He stopped hiding papers from her.

She stopped pretending his rare smiles meant nothing.

They worked until candles guttered.

He learned that she argued more brilliantly after eating.

She learned that he drank his tea sweet when exhausted.

One night, their hands met over the same ledger.

Neither moved.

Casper looked at her mouth.

Brick woke from the hearth, crossed the room, and dropped half his body across their laps.

Isla scratched behind the hound’s ear.

Brick leaned into her hand.

Casper watched them with open betrayal.

“Even my dog has abandoned me.”

“Perhaps he recognizes superior judgment.”

“He is not the only one affected by you.”

The quiet words changed the air.

But before either could answer them, Isla discovered a folded page hidden behind a list from Lady Featherby’s ball.

Her own name appeared halfway down.

Isla Marouin.

Father deceased.

Mother absent.

Brother dependent.

Estate heavily encumbered.

Limited protection.

Beneath it, another line had been written.

Recommended by Edmund Cornwall.

Matches the prior profile perfectly.

Isla read the words until they blurred.

“Who is Edmund Cornwall?”

Casper went still.

“My cousin.”

“You knew I had been recommended.”

“Yes.”

“Because I resembled the others?”

“Because you had little protection.”

The truth struck harder than any lie.

“You chose me because whoever killed them might try again.”

Casper’s face lost color.

“I believed I could watch you closely enough.”

“You used me as bait.”

“I thought I could control the danger.”

“Did you also control the gloves?”

His silence hurt more than an answer.

“The fires?”

“Isla.”

“The food?”

“Those were not part of the plan.”

She wanted to believe him.

That was the worst part.

Casper stepped toward her.

“I never expected you to become real to me.”

The confession broke something she had not realized she was protecting.

She folded the page carefully.

“If I had died, would you have called me your wife or your evidence?”

He had no answer fast enough to save them.

Isla left the library.

By morning, two trunks waited beside the stairs.

Casper had already ridden away to find Edmund.

Before Isla’s carriage could depart, Thomas arrived unexpectedly from Oxford.

Casper had invited him weeks earlier as a surprise.

The gesture was kind.

That did not make the betrayal less cruel.

Thomas took one look at Isla’s packed trunks.

“What did he do?”

“He decided what my life was worth without asking me.”

Thomas studied her.

“You become terrifyingly calm when your heart is broken.”

“My heart is not broken.”

“Then the ceiling must be leaking directly into your eyes.”

She almost smiled.

The carriage was delayed by weather, then by a cracked wheel.

Late that afternoon, Isla entered the sitting room and found Thomas on the floor.

A broken teacup lay beside him.

His lips had gone pale.

His breathing was shallow.

The tea had been prepared for Isla.

Thomas had entered first and drunk it.

For several terrible minutes, Isla believed her brother was dying because she had married a man who turned women into traps.

Then anger cleared her mind.

She ordered Thomas moved to the blue room.

She barred Dr. Harwick from entering.

Nothing that touched Thomas was allowed to leave her sight.

When his pulse steadied, she asked who had delivered the tea.

“A maid,” Thomas whispered.

“Freckles.”

“Brown cap.”

“Frightened.”

Isla found the girl trying to escape through the servant corridor.

Brick found her first.

The hound planted his enormous body across the passage and sat.

The maid collided with him and fell backward.

Brick looked offended by her poor judgment.

The girl began to cry.

“I did not know what was in the tea.”

“My brother may die.”

“He told me it would only make you sleep.”

“Who told you?”

The girl looked toward the dark corridor.

“Mr. Cornwall.”

Edmund Cornwall.

Casper’s cousin had recommended Isla.

Edmund’s money had reached the servants.

Edmund had known which rooms she used.

And Edmund had expected the seventh bride to follow the previous six into the grave.

Isla locked the maid in a pantry and stopped all messages leaving the house.

Then she wrote to Casper.

The note contained no greeting.

Thomas was poisoned.

The tea was meant for me.

The maid named Edmund.

Come home.

At the bottom, she added two words she had not meant to write.

Please hurry.

Casper returned before dawn.

Rain soaked his coat.

Mud covered his boots.

When he entered Thomas’s room, his gaze found Isla first.

Relief crossed his face so openly that she nearly forgot to remain angry.

Thomas was breathing steadily.

Edmund had escaped.

They still lacked the confession necessary to destroy him.

“Let the house report that I am dying,” Isla said.

Casper’s answer came immediately.

“No.”

“You used me as bait once without my consent.”

His jaw tightened.

“I will not do it again.”

“This time, I am choosing.”

“That does not make it safe.”

“No, but it makes the choice mine.”

The difference silenced him.

By noon, Ashland Manor had learned to lie.

A maid left the kitchen weeping.

A footman whispered in the stables that the new duchess had taken a sudden turn.

A servant known to carry messages heard that Isla had developed the same symptoms as the six dead brides.

Dr. Harwick broke first.

Faced with the poisoned tea, the maid’s testimony, and Su’s ledgers, he confessed to supplying the sleeping drafts.

He had told himself he was only following instructions.

He had told himself the women were already doomed.

Cowards often required many words to rename murder.

By evening, Isla lay in the same bed where she had once fallen asleep on Casper’s chest.

Powder drained the color from her face.

The curtains were drawn.

The fire had been lowered.

A teacup waited beside the bed.

Brick guarded the threshold.

A magistrate and Mr. Su hid in the adjoining room with Harwick.

Casper stood near the window.

“You are staring,” Isla whispered.

“I am making certain you continue breathing.”

“I have been doing it successfully for years.”

“I should have told you everything.”

“Yes.”

“I thought knowledge would make you a target.”

“I became a target when I agreed to marry you.”

He accepted the blow without defending himself.

At dusk, carriage wheels sounded outside.

Edmund arrived wearing a dark blue coat and an expression of perfect concern.

He was fair-haired, polished, and warm where Casper appeared severe.

He entered the chamber like a loving cousin.

“My God, is it true?”

“She worsened this afternoon,” Casper said.

Edmund approached the bed.

Isla kept her breathing shallow.

He studied her pale face.

Then he sighed.

“I had hoped this one might last longer.”

Casper’s voice became dangerously quiet.

“For my sake?”

“For everyone’s.”

Edmund turned toward the fire.

“You inherited Ashland and abandoned it to grief.”

“You stole from it.”

“I preserved it.”

“With murder?”

Edmund’s mouth tightened.

“You disappeared into these halls while tenants came to me, creditors came to me, servants begged me for wages.”

“And the women?”

Edmund looked toward the bed.

“Collateral.”

Casper took one step forward.

Edmund lifted his chin.

“Do not look at me as though you are innocent.”

“You married them.”

“You brought them here.”

“You gave me the opportunity.”

The words struck exactly where Casper was already wounded.

Isla saw guilt enter his face.

She opened her eyes.

“Enough.”

Edmund turned.

The color left him.

Isla slowly sat upright.

“You do not get to blame your murders on his grief.”

For one second, Edmund looked like a man watching the dead rise.

Then the connecting door opened.

Mr. Su entered first.

The magistrate followed.

Dr. Harwick came last, gray-faced and trembling.

“You planned this,” Edmund whispered.

“No,” Isla said.

“I did.”

Edmund’s charming mask finally broke.

He had resented Casper since childhood.

Casper had been born first.

Casper had inherited the title, the land, and the authority Edmund believed should have belonged to the man willing to manage it.

Each dead duchess had deepened the legend of a cursed duke.

Each funeral had pushed Casper farther from public life.

Each year of grief had allowed Edmund to control more of Ashland’s money through false accounts.

If Casper died without an heir, Edmund stood close enough to claim what remained.

If Casper lived but became permanently disgraced, Edmund could continue ruling the estate from the shadows.

The brides had not been selected randomly.

They had been women with debt, weak family protection, or limited influence.

Women whose deaths could be mourned without being seriously investigated.

Isla had matched the pattern.

But she had done the one thing the others had not.

She had refused the vial.

Edmund Cornwall was arrested in the room where he had expected to see another dead woman.

Dr. Harwick was taken with him.

The ledgers opened investigations into vanished servants, hidden payments, and six deaths society had treated as entertainment.

Ashland Manor did not heal quickly.

Houses built around fear rarely did.

But doors began remaining open after dark.

Servants spoke in normal voices.

The West Wing no longer felt like a mouth waiting to close.

Thomas recovered and claimed the experience had improved his Latin.

Brick appointed himself guardian of every teacup in the house.

Casper visited Isla each evening.

Sometimes he brought reports.

Sometimes he brought tea.

Once, after Thomas complained about missing oranges, the Duke of Ashland carried an entire crate upstairs himself.

But Casper never asked Isla to stay.

Perhaps he had finally learned that love offered without choice was simply another elegant prison.

A week later, Thomas was strong enough to travel.

Casper walked Isla to the waiting carriage.

Rain darkened his coat.

Brick followed with his head lowered.

“You could remain,” Casper said.

Isla looked at him.

“There you are.”

“Where?”

“The man who finally asks instead of deciding.”

Something vulnerable moved across his face.

“I am late to many things.”

“Yes.”

“I shall miss you unbearably.”

The honesty almost undid her.

She touched the front of his coat.

“Good.”

His broken laugh followed her into the carriage.

Weeks passed.

Then a letter arrived sealed in black wax.

Casper wrote about the night they first danced.

He had noticed her because she had looked at him without fear.

He wrote about the wedding night and how terrified he had been when she fell asleep against his chest.

He wrote about the gloves, the hidden novel, the West Wing, and every moment fear had made him silent.

At the end, he wrote the only truth that mattered.

I stopped hoping long before I met you.

Then you arrived, and survival began to feel insufficient.

I would burn England to the ground for you, Isla.

But I understand now that I should have simply asked whether you wished to stay.

Isla read the final line until the ink blurred.

Thomas looked up from his book.

“Duke trouble?”

“Hopeless duke trouble.”

“Are you returning?”

Isla folded the letter.

“Yes.”

Two nights later, rain whispered against the windows of Ashland Manor.

Casper stood in the same bedchamber where London had once expected Isla to die.

When she entered, he turned so quickly that dignity briefly abandoned him.

“You came back.”

“Someone must prevent you from making catastrophic decisions without supervision.”

His laugh broke open.

“You are an impossible woman.”

“You appear fond of impossible things.”

Casper crossed the room slowly.

He stopped close enough to touch her, but far enough to let her choose.

“I love you.”

The words escaped as though they had been fighting him for weeks.

“You are reckless, infuriating, stubborn, and entirely incapable of following instructions.”

“I survived you anyway.”

“Barely.”

His voice cracked.

Isla heard every night he had imagined losing her.

“You do not get to love me from a distance anymore.”

“If you remain, I will spend every day trying to deserve you.”

She kissed him first.

His restraint lasted three seconds.

Then Brick shoved the door open.

The enormous hound carried one of Isla’s green gloves in his mouth.

It was the glove she had left behind in the library.

He placed it at her feet and sat expectantly.

“Is this a dowry?” Isla asked.

“A bribe,” Casper said.

“He has slept on it every night since you left.”

Brick leaned against her legs.

Isla knelt and scratched behind his ears.

“I accept your terms, Sir Brick.”

His tail struck the floor hard enough to rattle the door.

Later, the candles burned low.

Rain softened against the glass.

Isla fell asleep with one hand over Casper’s heart.

This time, he did not lie rigid beneath her waiting for death.

He closed his eyes.

And for the first time in years, Ashland Manor slept without listening for three knocks at the door.