[...it would be so easy to get lost in the delusions of a nicer time, where the top education by private tutors and the dazzling allure of shiny baubles and trinkets were enough to distract her from the origins of how she'd ended up having access to any of it. It would be so easy to remember being locked away in her room with only bottles of wine and books for company, to remember the parties she'd gone to where her husband kept her glass perpetually full in the hopes that she'd never open her mouth to challenge his guests and be the eye candy he'd wanted her for instead. It would be so easy to get lost in the desperation of her rebellion, how she'd put aside all her elaborate gowns and shopping sprees to dress against the grain, to dare her position by starting an affair to feel even a little what it was like to have someone genuinely interested in her.

Ghosts of the whispers she'd heard that started putting the wheel of events that unfolded into motion echo in her ears, catching words like uncontrollable and embarrassing through ornately decorated walls, mentions of getting rid of the problem to save his reputation as if he hadn't asked for any of this setting her teeth on edge.

She almost wishes she had been the one to slit his throat after all, so she could watch him realize the consequences of his actions.]

His name was Luis. He...was a fairly wealthy merchant here in Antiva. [She looks over to Rosalind with a slightly bitter smile.] Funny how a man with that much money had to buy himself a wife, but greed doesn't get you everything right?