Prelude for a Lord (36 page)

A man standing with his back to the door turned and saw him. “Who the devil are you?” His thin voice was just shy of a whine.

Bayard shot him a look that made him flinch. In a low, snarling voice he said, “I should ask the same, as it is my house and you have upset my guest.”

The man’s brow cleared. “Oh. I am Trittonstone, Alethea’s cousin.” He bowed.

Bayard refused to return it. “What have you done?”

Movement to Bayard’s left had him twisting in alarm. Mr. Kinnier stood a few feet away, his dark eyes gleaming in triumph. He looked like a pale snake about to strike. “Congratulate me, Lord Dommick,” he said. “I have become betrothed to Lady Alethea.”

She had been sold. Again.

She was going to be sick.

Alethea rushed forward, pushing past Wilfred, past Dommick, out the drawing room door. She stumbled on the staircase and nearly fell, but she grabbed the bannister and regained her footing, only to hurtle herself down the last flight.

“My lady!” Forrow cried as she sprinted across the entrance hall, throwing herself against the front door. “My lady, it is raining—”

She unlatched the door and plunged into the dark.

The rain drenched her, shocking her with its cold. The wind sliced through her like an icy bayonet to her stomach, and still
she ran into the teeth of the gale, running away and yet feeling as though she were not moving. The gravel of the sweep bit through her thin slippers, and then she was sliding on the half-frozen grass, mud oozing between her toes. She ran on, across the vast lawn, heedless of direction until a faulty step sent her tumbling face-first.

The cold ground bit into her cheek like a serpent’s kiss. She dug her fingers into the mud and pushed herself upright, but could not rise from her knees. She knelt in the grass and pooling water, rain falling upon her shoulders.

She had been sold.

She heard her brother’s voice through the moaning of the wind.
Signed the papers this morning. You’ll marry my friend by special license tomorrow and he’ll give me a nice cut of your dowry.

Wilfred had said almost the same words tonight, and with them, had taken away everything. He had the power to force her to his will because she was not yet come of age and he had authority over her. She was twenty-eight years old, and he controlled her life as if she were eighteen. She squeezed her eyes shut and dug her fingers into the dirt.

If she ran away again, there was no certainty in her ability to hide from him until she reached her majority. He had the resources to find her.

She had built her dream like an oasis in a desert. She had clung to Italy as the only way she could be happy. And now it was gone.

She was helpless, and hopeless. The dark storm without was the same as the dark storm within.

A sound behind her made her jump and twist around, but it was Lucy with a cloak.

“How did you know I was here?” Alethea’s teeth chattered.

“Forrow found me and sent me. Come inside.”

“Lucy, Wilfred has sold me.”

Her sister’s hands, which had been draping the cloak around her
wet figure, tightened in the folds of cloth. “Like . . . your brother?” She did not need an answer, for Alethea’s face said enough. She threw her arms about Alethea and squeezed tightly.

Her sister’s fervent embrace opened the floodgates, and Alethea wept tears that felt like shards of glass slicing her skin. She wept for all she had lost. She wept for all that men had done to her. She wept for the life she would never know.

“Who is it?” Lucy whispered.

“Mr. Kinnier.”

Lucy jerked away, her hands tight on Alethea’s shoulders. “No. No. Alethea, you must run away again.”

“What?” Alethea had never seen her sister look so terrified.

“You must run away. You cannot marry him.”

“I escaped my brother last year because of the accident. I could not hope for something similar again. Wilfred would find me.”

“You will have me with you this time.”

“Richard—?”

“I won’t marry him. Alethea, I won’t leave you alone. We will escape. I will keep you safe from him.”

“What is it about Mr. Kinnier? You must tell me.”

Lucy pressed her hand to her mouth. Her eyes were wide and stark white in the darkness. “Alethea,” she said, her voice thick with tears, “Mr. Kinnier killed his first wife.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

M
r. Kinnier knew about her violin. Alethea was certain of it.

She didn’t know if he was the villain himself, or if he happened to uncover the truth about it and now coveted it. Regardless, he knew. She had seen it last night. While Wilfred pronounced the betrothal agreement with his usual indifference to sensibilities, Mr. Kinnier had regarded her with those small dark eyes, and a nasty smile had curled his perfect lips.

A cat, about to pounce. A snake, preparing to strike.

What did he know about the violin that they did not? She had heard from her aunt’s friends that Mr. Kinnier’s fortune was substantial enough that he would not need her dowry, which may be why he was willing to pay a significant bride-price for her. And after he married her? Would he kill her as he had killed his first wife?

She wandered through the wet grass, flattened by the storm last night, and followed the edge of the lake. The morning was grey
and bitterly cold, and she wrapped her cloak more tightly about her and trudged through the mud. A ball of ice lay in the centre of her body, numbing everything inside her, and so she did not mind the weather.

What did Dommick think of all this? She had not seen him, and he had not sought her out. It was not his affair, and he could do nothing. It would be laughable for a woman to insist on any legal rights in this matter.

Lucy was determined for Alethea to run away. Mr. Collum said he would assist them. He confirmed the rumours Lucy had heard about Mr. Kinnier.

“At my last position before Mrs. Ramsland,” he’d said, “I’d been hired with two other new grooms who had left Mr. Kinnier’s employ after Mrs. Kinnier died. The local magistrate turned a blind eye, but all the servants knew Mr. Kinnier had struck her—and not for the first time—and then pushed her down the staircase. The two grooms said they couldn’t work for a murderer.”

Alethea found herself in the wilderness garden, following the rushing stream to the gazebo. She brushed damp leaves from the bench and sat. The sound of the water flowing past made her feel as if she were being left behind.

Here in the stillness, with only the stream to speak to her, she gave in to the stabbing pain in her stomach. She doubled over, sobbing. She was so alone.

Why had such a thing happened to her? Why was she at the mercy of men such as her cousin and Mr. Kinnier? Why were men so determined to hurt her? Who in this entire world would ever not hurt her?

A divine relationship
.

She did not know what that meant. The God she had known in her church had been condemning, and his people had been judgmental and hypocritical.

But hadn’t Mrs. Coon shown her that there was something more? Hadn’t she told Alethea not to base her impression of God upon the people in her life?

Well then, who was God? How could Alethea discover who he was? Was this divine relationship real?

She did not know how long she sat there, staring at the water, when she suddenly became aware of a splashing out of rhythm with the ripple of the stream. Within moments, Margaret appeared.

“Margaret, get out of the water! You’ll catch your death of cold.” Alethea rushed to the bank.

“I can’t feel my feet. It’s quite a curious sensation.” Margaret clambered onto the wet grass, clutching a long tree limb in her hand. She’d had the foresight to tuck her skirts into her sash so only her stockings and shoes were wet. In addition to her spencer, she wore a heavy wool shawl.

“What were you doing in the water? You are supposed to be at Mrs. Coon’s home.” A most alarming thought occurred to her. “Margaret, what happened?”

Margaret untucked her skirts and cloak and they fell to slap against her wet ankles. “We got into another argument.”

“Again? Oh, Margaret.”

“It wasn’t bad this time, I promise. We were playing Knights of the Round Table when Mr. Hokes came by. He was quite boosey.”

“This early in the morning? How unfortunate. And how did you come to hear such cant?”

“It was Maria who said he was boosey. I was shocked, but Louisa said he came by often in this condition to see their mother for food, and that we ought to love him because he was a sinner. And I said that the rector in my Aunt Nancy’s village said that God hates all sinners and only loves the good Christians. But Maria said that God loves sinners if they are remorseful. And then Louisa said that God loves sinners if they give a lot of money into the poor box.
So, we argued about it until Mrs. Coon sent Mr. Hokes away and caught us quarreling.”

“Margaret, could you ever play with those girls and not quarrel about something?”

“I played with them yesterday and we didn’t argue once.” Margaret blinked. “Well, sort of.” She rushed on, “Mrs. Coon said that God loves everyone even if they do not love him back.”

The divine relationship.

Margaret continued, “And then, for quarreling, she made us write out some passages from the Bible about God’s love. I finished before Maria and Louisa. Their copperplate was so bad that Mrs. Coon made them rewrite it.” She dug into her pocket and pulled out a rock and a folded piece of paper.

Alethea found herself interested in reading the passages, although she noted that the rock, smooth and flat, was quite perfect for skipping across the lake. “Margaret, I hope you don’t intend to throw this through a window.”

“Of course not.” Margaret regarded her with raised eyebrows. “It’s a perfect skipping stone.” She then proceeded to slash about with her stick, narrowly missing Alethea’s elbow. “I only came to the river to find a new sword. Maria broke my other one.”

“For Knights of the Round Table?” Alethea stepped out of the path of the swinging “blade.”

“I shall go back to the rectory now, for Maria and Louisa will be finished copying passages. Will you keep my skipping stone safe? Louisa wanted it very badly.”

“I shall guard it with my life.”

Margaret was gone in a whirl of muddied skirts and squishing half-boots.

Alethea returned to the bench in the gazebo. She did not immediately open the paper Margaret had handed her. The wilderness seemed more loquacious now, with the wind rustling the
tree leaves and the peep of an occasional bird. The stream rushed on, heedless and winding.

She had sat there only moments before the storm that was Margaret, and she had been wondering, perhaps even asking God, about the divine relationship. And now she held Bible verses in her hand. She felt a little afraid, as if she had been poking a bear, thinking it was stuffed, only to find that it was very much alive and she had awakened it.

She opened the paper.

“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”—Romans 5:8

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”—Romans 8:38–39

“The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”—Jeremiah 31:3

“The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.”—Zephaniah 3:17

Alethea had been taught the death of Christ upon the cross for the sins of the world, but she had not before drawn the connection that he had done so out of love. That the God who would die for her loved her.

Loved
her
.

She, who had known the intolerance of her neighbors, the whispers of her peers. She, who had believed there must be something wrong with her, that she was an oddity compared to the people around her. She, who had felt isolated and misunderstood. She had felt so alone, but perhaps she had never been alone.