Ever since Sedric had revealed his secret, she’d felt cut off from her Bingtown past. She couldn’t go back. Simply could not. Regardless of what happened with this expedition, she would not go home to Bingtown and Hest. She would never face him and their friends, never smile stupidly and look around a table of guests and wonder how many knew the secret of her empty marriage. She’d never confront Hest and watch his sneering smile widen as he enjoyed how he’d deceived her and trapped her. Well, she was trapped no longer. A marriage in Bingtown was, after all, like any other Trader contract. She could easily prove that Hest hadn’t lived up to his end of the bargain. He had never been sexually faithful to her, never intended that she and she alone be his life partner. He’d broken his word and with it broken the marriage contract and freed her from her word. She did not have to remain faithful to him. She was free to turn to Leftrin.

But then Sedric had shared that other rumor with her—the one that had left her wondering if she should ever trust her own judgment again. He had been so certain, but all his information seemed to have come from the vanished hunter, Jess. She had felt paralyzed since then, unable to move in any direction. She wanted Leftrin as she had never wanted anything or anyone else in her life. But the thought that he might not be what she had believed him to be, the idea that perhaps the real man differed from her imaginary lover, had frozen her. She had seen the puzzlement and the patience in his eyes. He had not rebuked her and had not pressured her. It was clear to her that he did not think that their one night together gave him a claim upon her. That should mean something, shouldn’t it?

Or did it merely indicate that she was not as important to him as he was to her? Was she merely a pleasure he would enjoy when it was offered to him, something that he could easily forgo when it was not? A cruel part of her mind replayed that night. She had been forward, aggressive even. Had all that had transpired happened only because she had made it happen? Silly to think that was so. Foolish to think it was not.

“Damn you, Sedric. You took everything else from me, my dignity, and my faith in my judgment, my belief that no one else in Bingtown knew what a sham my marriage was. Did you have to take this from me, too? Did you have to take my belief in Leftrin?”

Once taken, could anything restore her confidence in him? Or was it all spoiled for her, her doubt the crack in the cup that held happiness?