Page 29 of Beneath the Haunting Sea

The Baron’s face grew very pale, lines pressing deep into his forehead. “I didn’t know—I didn’t—realize. Your poor mother. You poor child.” Moisture gleamed in the cornersof his eyes. “How did she die?”

Talia hated the Baron for asking that question. She hated his affectation that her misery meant anything to him at all.

“Father,” said Caiden sharply. “That’s hardly an appropriate—”

“She drowned. She threw herself overboard in the middle of a storm and she drowned.”

All three of them stared at her, shocked into silence.

Talia jerked up from her seat and accidentallyknocked her wine glass over. The crystal hit the table with a delicatetink,and deep red liquid leaked across the polished wood. She stood staring at the spilled wine, her fingers digging hard into the back of her chair.

“I’m so sorry,” came Wen’s quiet voice.

She met his eyes, and saw a pain there that mirrored her own.

Caiden gave her a tight smile. “How awful for you.”

“Forgive me formy presumptuous questions,” said the Baron. His voice shook.

The rain beat against the window and the fire burned too hot, and Talia felt like she was going to fracture into a thousand pieces. She couldn’t stand it any longer.

She left the room without another word.

She sat in the window seat in her room, knees drawn up to her chin, staring down at the distant sea. The rain had stopped andthe night was dark, but light from some downstairs window glinted on the water. The waves grasped fruitlessly for the rocky shore, and fell away again.

There was a knock at the door and Talia turned from the window. “What is it?” she called.

The door creaked open and Lyna and Ro came in, hefting a trunk between them. Dairon followed just behind.

“Good evening, Miss,” said Dairon crisply. “I’vebrought your clothes. We would have had them ready earlier, but didn’t know you would arrive without a stitch to your name.” She frowned. “Lyna, Ro, set it down by the bed, please.”

The maids did as she asked, plopping the trunk on the carpet in a cloud of dust and the sudden scent of cedar. Ro creaked the lid open, and Talia reluctantly left the window seat to come and see what all the fusswas about.

Lyna drew a gown out of the trunk that shimmered with blue and silver beading. She eyed Talia, then nodded and laid the dress on the bed. “The late Baroness seems to have been about your size, Miss. That’s fortunate.”

“Both late Baronesses, you mean,” quipped Ro, pulling out a second gown. This one was dusty pink with long sleeves and a split skirt, for riding.

“Hold your tongue,girl,” Dairon snapped at her.

Ro shrugged, and unearthed another dress. “My apologies, Miss.”

Slowly, Lyna and Ro emptied the contents of the trunk, and Talia’s bed was soon piled high with silk and velvet and satin. Dairon instructed the two maids to hang the dresses in the wardrobe while she took the empty trunk away and went to fetch something else. She stepped from the room and the moodlightened considerably.

The maids waved off Talia’s offers to help, so she perched back in the window seat and watched them. “What did you mean ‘both late Baronesses?’”

Ro quirked a grin at her, and slid a yellow gown onto a hanger. “The Baron was married twice.” She leaned toward her conspiratorially. “Both of his wives died under mysterious circumstances.”

“Utter nonsense,” said Lyna, hanginga blue patterned dress in the wardrobe. “The Baron has just been very unlucky.”

“Maybe,” said Ro, putting the yellow gown by the blue one, “or maybe what they say about the house is true.”

“What do they say?”

“That it’s cursed.” Ro fitted another gown onto a hanger and deposited it in the wardrobe. “That it was touched by the gods. They say the house is built on the same patch of land wherethe Tree lay for nine hundred years. That gods and men dwelled here together in the old days. Communed with heaven. That sort of thing.”

Why did the old stories seem to be haunting her every step? “I have no interest in superstition.”

“Oh, but it’snotsuperstition. At least, the stuff about the house is not.”

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