Reborn as the Nightingale: Escaping the Duke's Poisoned Marriage

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Synopsis

I died with the taste of bitter almonds burning in my throat. My husband, Kian Ferguson, watched me collapse over the poisoned wine. He did not call for help. He did not kneel beside me. He only looked at me with cold, satisfied eyes, as if my death had finally made room for the woman he truly wanted—his delicate cousin, Isabelle. In my first life, I begged for his love. I endured his family's humiliation. I drank the bitter tonics they forced upon me in the name of fertility, even as my body grew weaker by the day. I was blamed for an empty nursery, mocked as a barren wife, and trapped in a marriage that was slowly killing me. Then I opened my eyes again. I was back five years in the past, riding beside Kian at the King's autumn hunt—the very day I first saw how he looked at Isabelle. This time, I did not weep. I did not fight for him. I returned to Blackwood Manor and asked for an annulment. Kian laughed in my face. "You want to leave?" he said, seizing my arms. "There are only two ways out of this marriage, Adeline. In a coffin, or with my permission. And I will grant you neither." I went to the King for justice. The Crown turned me away. They all believed I had nowhere left to run. A discarded wife. A useless vine. A woman with no power, no allies, and no future beyond the Duke's gilded cage. They were wrong. I sold my dowry in secret. I bought merchant ships under a hidden name. I gathered remedies, debts, secrets, and gold. If no one would grant me freedom, I would purchase it myself. If no one would give me justice, I would become powerful enough to demand it. And by the time Kian Ferguson realizes his unwanted wife has become the mysterious Nightingale, it will be far too late to cage me again.