During my half-sister’s birthday celebrations at Royal Ascot, I was discovered in a compromising position with the lowest of the Duke’s stable hands. Yet instead of panic, I demanded my sister—the Duchess of Westminster—sanction our union. In my first life, I had drunk drugged champagne at this very event, awakening in the arms of my brother-in-law, Sir Richard Astor. My sister Beatrice collapsed in hysterics, "dying" only after summoning me to her bedside to beg me to marry Richard and raise her children. I agreed, swallowing my shame. For years, I endured society’s scorn, managing the Astor estates with my own funds, raising her children as my own—until the day her son graduated Oxford and her daughter married a German prince. That was when Richard returned with Beatrice on his arm. He handed me an annulment. My stepchildren demanded I surrender my title. When shock triggered my "hysteria," they bound me and threw me into the Thames. As I drowned, I heard Richard soothe Beatrice: "We only needed her labor." Then—I woke. Back at Ascot, the drug’s heat coiling in my veins once more. 1 The familiar, searing heat in my blood confirmed it: I was reborn. It was the day of Lady Beatrice’s birthday fête, the day my life was stolen. With newfound clarity, I pressed the half-empty bottle of drugged champagne into the hands of a grasping opera singer, a subtle glance towards Sir Richard’s private box all the instruction she needed. Then, feigning panic, I grabbed the nearest stable hand and dragged him into an empty horse stall. In my past life, desperate to preserve my honor after realizing I’d been drugged, I had hidden myself away in a guest suite. I’d awoken to find Sir Richard beside me. Just as my own horror began to dawn, Beatrice had thrown open the doors, a crowd of London’s most notorious gossips at her back. The sight of us—me disheveled, him feigning confusion—sent her into a spectacular, apochryphal fit of hysterics from which she never “recovered.” Society branded me a vulgar opportunist, a savage Scot who had preyed upon her own grieving brother-in-law to climb the social ladder. On her “deathbed,” she had played the magnanimous saint, forgiving me, her only wish that I take her place. For the next decade, I had honored that wish. I served the old Duke and Duchess, raised the children, and never rested. When the Astor finances dwindled, I used my own dowry—the wealth from my mother's Highland properties—to shore them up. Yet my stepchildren openly mocked me, calling me a bed-climbing harlot. Sir Richard treated me with utter contempt. On the rare occasions I conceived, he forced me to... end it, sneering that a woman of my “low birth” was unworthy of bearing an Astor heir. I exhausted my fortune and my health for them. And my reward? To be replaced by a miraculously resurrected Beatrice, still as beautiful as the day she had “died,” while I was a graying, broken woman. “Beatrice is back,” Richard had said, handing me the annulment papers. “You may go. I grant you permission to remarry.” “You were nothing but a bed-warmer,” my stepson had spat. “Did you really think you were the Duchess?” “If it weren't for your depravity, our mother would never have been forced to leave us for all these years!” my stepdaughter had shrieked. The shock had sent me into a real fit this time, gasping for air. “Let her die,” my stepson had said, prodding my convulsing body with his boot. “It’s cleaner this way. No one can accuse the family of being cruel if she simply… expires.” “Indeed,” his sister had agreed. “Common blood is so fragile. It’s hardly our fault.” They left me on the banks of the Thames, not yet dead, to be swallowed by the tide. In the ethereal moments after, I heard Beatrice’s jealous whining. Had he ever truly loved me? Richard’s laugh was a cold comfort. “Love her? My dear, she was a tool. A placeholder to raise our children. My heart has only ever been yours. But thank God for her diligence. Her servitude gave you the peace you needed to heal, so that we may be together forever.” Now, in the present, I heard Beatrice’s voice approaching, thick with staged tears. “My own half-sister… I treated her as if she were my own blood. And yet, to marry into this family, she would seduce my husband.” “What am I to do?” she lamented to her audience. I quickly arranged my dress, hiding the stable boy behind me just as Beatrice’s footman kicked open the stall door. The guests gasped at the sight of me, my gown torn, my skin flushed. Beatrice, her eyes blazing with righteous fury, strode forward and ripped me away from my hiding spot. “Eleanor! Have I not been good to you?” “If you desired the Duke, you only had to tell me! I would have arranged for you to be his mistress! Why must you resort to such vulgar, common tactics?” Just as she prepared to clutch her heart and faint, I shoved the man from the shadows. It was, very clearly, not Sir Richard Astor. The crowd froze. In that stunned silence, I fell to my knees before Beatrice. “My lady sister,” I cried, my voice ringing with false desperation. “I have lost my honor to this man. I have no choice but to marry him. I beg you, as head of our family, to sanction this union!” 2 Beatrice froze, her hand, raised to strike me, hovering in mid-air. At that exact moment, one of Sir Richard’s valets came running, his face pale with panic. “Your Grace! You must come to the Duke’s private rooms at once!” “An opera singer… she claims the Duke has… compromised her! She was a virgin, she says, and now she demands satisfaction!” Every head turned. Beatrice’s face went white with rage. She shot me a look of pure venom before sweeping away, her gaggle of gossips trailing behind her. I quickly dressed and followed, eager to watch the fireworks. In the Duke’s rooms, the opera singer was on her knees, her dress artfully torn, weeping hysterically. Sir Richard stood by, attempting to straighten his cravat, his face a thundercloud. Beatrice grabbed the singer by the hair, looking as if she wanted to run her through with a hatpin. But she had an audience. She had to maintain her façade of the graceful, benevolent duchess. She asked the singer what she wanted. Money? Jewels? I stepped forward, fanning the flames. “Money and jewels? Surely her honor is worth more than that. The Duke must make her his mistress.” “My lady sister,” I continued, my voice dripping with concern, “you are so often unwell. Managing this great house is such a burden. Would not a mistress be a great help? Someone to share the load, to ease your mind?” Beatrice would never allow it. A mistress was not a governess. A mistress would compete for Richard’s affections, for his money. A mistress might produce more bastards. But under my pointed suggestions, the crowd began to murmur in agreement. It was, after all, the standard way of handling such… indiscretions. Beatrice, trapped by her own performance, finally succumbed to a genuine fit of rage, coughing and sputtering until she collapsed in a faint. I used the chaos to slip away. Back at our modest London lodgings, I found my mother. “We must pack,” I told her urgently. “Gather every penny we have. At dawn, we buy passage on the first ship sailing north.” Just as we had finished packing, my… stepfather, the man my mother had married after fleeing Scotland, burst into my room. “You wretched creature!” he roared. “Look what you’ve done!” Without another word, he took his cane to me, lashing me until my back was a ruin of bleeding welts. He then dragged me to the Astor townhouse, where Beatrice was weeping in Richard’s arms. “I cannot bear this humiliation,” she cried. “The scandal! My own sister, fornicating with a stable boy! The Duke’s mother will have me cast out! I should just hang myself and be done with it!” I gritted my teeth against the pain. “I was under the impression it was the Duke’s public affair with a singer that was the source of the scandal. I’m surprised my own indiscretion has so thoroughly eclipsed it.” “I have told you,” I said, my voice cold, “the man and I have an understanding. Sanction our marriage, and the rumors will cease.” “Why come here to weep and wail? Save your tears for when the Duke installs his new mistress. You will need them then.” My words earned me two sharp slaps across the face from Beatrice. “The stable boy has fled, you fool!” she hissed. “Do you still dream of marrying him?” “We are a respectable family! I am a Duchess! If you were to marry a common servant, how could we ever show our faces in society again?” “There is only one solution…” She turned to my stepfather, her expression one of utter sincerity. “No other respectable family in London will have her now. But the Duke… the Duke, in his great mercy, has said he does not care. He is willing to take Eleanor as his mistress.” “We will simply say that she was infatuated with the Duke all along. In her… agitated state… she mistook the man in the dark. The Duke, moved by her devotion, has agreed to take her under his protection. It will be seen as a great romance.” “Of course,” she added, turning to my mother, “we will need a significant sum to be settled upon her. A dowry, to help with the… expenses of the Dukedom.” The bitch was after my mother’s savings. I shot a hateful glare at Richard. He simply nodded. “It is my duty to ease my wife’s burdens. There is no need for thanks.” “As long as Eleanor is diligent in her duties to the household and the children once she joins us.” My mother rushed in, having heard the commotion. She fell to her knees before my stepfather. “My lord, you cannot! You promised me Eleanor would never be forced into such a position! It was the only reason I agreed to come to this city!” I pulled my mother to her feet, wiping her tears. “A mistress?” I said softly. “Very well. I accept.” “I will only need a few days to prepare my things.” Seeing me agree, they relented. Late that night, my mother and I slipped out through the back garden. But the trail of blood from my wounds betrayed us. The Astor household guards found us quickly. Just as they were about to seize me, I saw him. The stable boy, standing at the end of the street, staring at the Astor townhouse. His eyes widened as he saw my injuries. I shoved my mother towards him. “They’re taking me back! They mean to force me into the Duke’s bed! If they take me, so be it. But if they catch my mother, they will kill her! I beg you, for the memory of our… encounter… save her!” “Please!” The hesitation in the man’s eyes hardened into resolve. “My name is Alistair MacGregor,” he said, his voice a low Highland burr. “Wait for me. I swear on my clan, I will come back for you.” With that, he grabbed my mother and vanished into the night. I was dragged back to the Astor townhouse and, to prevent another escape, locked in the cold, damp cellar. 3 The "ceremony" was set for three days’ time. Normally, installing a mistress was a private affair. But Beatrice, determined to maximize my humiliation, organized a small, exclusive gathering, inviting London’s most venomous gossips. As they picked at their cakes, Beatrice told her story, dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “She is my sister, after all. She has long harbored a secret affection for my husband. And since her… unfortunate mistake… I had to do what was right.” “She is so foolish. If she had only confided in me, did she think I would deny her? She never would have… mistaken her bed, and lost her honor.” The ladies murmured their sympathies for Beatrice and shot me looks of utter contempt. I was the author of my own misfortune. They forced a draught down my throat that stole my voice and led me to the bedchamber. Richard entered and lifted my veil. “This is all your fault,” he said coldly. “Now Beatrice must clean up your sordid mess.” “I have no desire to be here. Let us get this over with.” With that, he pushed me onto the bed. But before he could proceed, a frantic knock came at the door. A maid’s voice, choked with sobs. “My Lord Duke! Her Grace… she was so overcome with grief… she’s coughed up blood! She’s dead!” “Please, my lord, come quickly!” Beatrice. The manipulative sow was faking her death again, leaving me to manage the fallout. I shoved Richard away and scrambled out of the room. In the main hall, Beatrice was already laid out in an open casket, dressed in white. The guests, who had come for a sordid celebration, now found themselves at a funeral. The Dowager Duchess slapped me across the face. “You whore! If you hadn’t been so desperate to get into this house, Beatrice would never have been driven to this! She was a saint! You should be the one in that coffin!” The two children were weeping by the casket, their cries of “Mother!” wringing tears from the assembled crowd. A lady-in-waiting, one of Beatrice’s closest confidantes, sobbed, “Lady Beatrice was the soul of grace. To be driven to her death by a common strumpet…” “Hollis,” she asked, turning to Beatrice’s personal maid. “Did your lady have any final words?” Hollis, a key player in their schemes, fell to her knees before me. “Her Grace asked for nothing,” she wailed. “Only that Miss Eleanor honor her memory by serving the Dowager Duchess and caring for her children. Only then, she said, could she rest in peace.” The room filled with praise for Beatrice’s boundless generosity and curses for my wickedness. But she was alive. I could see the faint flutter of her pulse in her neck. Unable to speak, I bit my own finger and began to write in blood on the marble floor. SHE IS NOT DEAD. They called me a demon, a ghoul, defiling the memory of a saint. In desperation, I lunged for the coffin, determined to drag her out and expose the lie. Richard, seeing me claw at the polished wood, kicked me away with brutal force. “You bitch,” he snarled, his boot connecting with my ribs, snapping them like twigs. “Beatrice thought only of you, and you repay her with these vile slanders. You would disturb her even in death.” He kicked me again and again. My fresh wounds burst open, my simple white dress blooming with crimson. Just as my vision began to fade, my mother’s voice screamed my name. She burst into the room, followed by dozens of men in the royal livery. At their head was Alistair MacGregor. He lifted me from the floor and forced an antidote down my throat. My voice returned. I took a ragged breath. “There is a cholera epidemic in the city,” I gasped. “My sister coughed up blood. She died of the plague.” “According to the Queen’s own law, her body must be cremated immediately, on site, to prevent the spread. I implore the Duke to follow the law and set fire to the pyre at once.”
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