Evelyn's POV
Evelyn Carter strolled round the halls of the Blackwood estate with a thought she couldn’t shake. Her pulse still carried the echo of the whispers she had overheard earlier, the maids’ hushed voices gossiping about Vanessa, about Damian, about pregnancy. The words had dug into her like the claws of a wild animal, sharper because she hadn’t been meant to hear them.
She could still see the way Damian had looked at her from across the hallway afterward. That piercing gaze of his, usually so controlled, had cracked with something she couldn’t name. Fear, maybe. Or guilt. But he hadn’t spoken, hadn’t denied it. He had just let her walk away.
Now the silence pressed in from every direction. The mansion, despite its size and grandeur, felt suffocating. Every marble corridor seeme
