“And the doctors he paid to convince the world I was insane.”

Four words, and then five more, and they rearranged everything Caspian thought he knew about the woman he had married.

The rumors had said he’d wed a monster for her money — that Caspian Ashmoor, hard and calculating, had looked at the least loved daughter of a great family and seen only a bank account he could reach through a ring.

And it was true that the marriage had begun as an arrangement; he would not insult her by pretending otherwise.

But kneeling on the floor of that bedroom, looking up at the scars she had spent ten years hiding under long sleeves and heavy fabric, he understood the thing the rumors had gotten exactly backward.

He had not married a monster.