What Rumours Don't Say by Briana James

and felt when she was with child. Anne gave every indication of her condition and when I asked her, she did not deny it.”
    “You thought it was your husband’s child.”
    “Hush,” Lady Caroline told her. “Allow me to tell it in my own way.”
    Axelle nodded. Silently, she exulted at having finally freed her wrists and decided to wait for the right opportunity to make use of her freedom.
    “Since I could tell that she was already a little far along, I knew the child could not be Reeve’s. I knew, too, that Reeve did not know of the child’s existence. Men, after all, are slow to notice something they do not know much about. At once, I made the decision that the child could not be allowed to live. If Reeve knew of it, he would cast her out and she would no doubt come running to my husband and I could not have her ruining the family reputation or blackmailing Gilbert or getting money out of him, especially not when I had daughters.”
    Axelle kept silent, waiting for Lady Caroline to finish.
    “So one day, while I was riding and she was walking, I gave her a concoction, telling her that it would do her and the babe in her womb good and that I had taken it myself.”
    “But it was actually a concoction to make her lose the baby, wasn’t it?” Axelle asked. “You asked Belinda to get you one from her mother and then you gave it to Anne.”
    “And fool as she was, she drank it,” Lady Caroline said. “And it killed her.”
    “You knew it would kill her,” Axelle told her. “You knew that if a woman was already far along in carrying a child, losing a baby would kill her. You did not just try to get rid of the child. You tried to get rid of Anne.”
    “It was the only way,” Lady Caroline said, standing up and approaching Axelle. “Besides, it was better for me if she was gone entirely. She deserved it for having peddled herself to my husband.”
    “In all likelihood, it was your husband who approached her.”
    “She should have refused,” Lady Caroline said. “As should have all the women who my husband tried to take to his bed.”
    Axelle snorted.
    “Well, at any rate, that is in the past now,” Lady Caroline said. “My husband will never know he had a child with that woman.”
    “He might already know,” Axelle told her. “Reeve went to see him earlier today to talk about Anne.”
    At that piece of news, Lady Caroline’s eyes widened and her mouth gaped. Then, without warning, she approached Axelle and slapped her hard.
    “How…how could you do this to me?”
    “Your husband probably already knows you killed Anne,” Axelle said, ignoring the sting from the slap. “And Reeve, too. And if you kill me, he will certainly have you pay for it.”
    “He won’t be able to prove anything,” Lady Caroline promised. “And as for your death, I will make it look like an accident, as if you had fallen from your horse, and so he will have no cause to accuse or even suspect me.”
    Axelle gritted her teeth. “You will not get away with it.”
    Lady Caroline simply chuckled. “Oh, I have gotten away with many things. How can you be sure it won’t be the same with this one?”
    “Because I won’t let you.”
    At that moment, Axelle got up on her feet, pushing Lady Caroline back before quickly heading out the door, running away from the cottage as fast as she could.
    When she arrived at the bank of the river, she spotted the boat and was just about to untie it when she saw Lady Caroline coming with a pistol pointed at her.
    Given no choice, she stepped away from the boat and raised her hands, hoping that Lady Caroline would not shoot her.
    “Didn’t I tell you not to try and escape?” Lady Caroline said, clearly furious. “Now, you have certainly done something very foolish.”
    “No, Lady Caroline. It is you who have done something very foolish and you if you kill me, you will only add to that and your children will suffer for it.”
    “Do not talk about my children!” Lady Caroline stepped