Page 3 of The Princes of Stone and Steel

“Remember, clockwise, dear…” Mrs. Merchant reminded her as the girl ladled soup into her father’s bowl.

“Yes, Mum.”

“Serve from the right.”

“Yes, Mum.” Millicent sighed thinking that tomorrow would require an extended adventure to erase today’s events.

After all had been served, Millie took her seat, ready for the bisque she had helped prepare. All eyes bore down on every movement she made. When she slurped her soup, five throats cleared simultaneously.

“What? Have I something on my face? Why do you all keep staring at me?” She dabbed at her cheeks with a napkin.

Mr. Barnabas threw down his spoon, placing his hands on his hips. “Your backtalk is unacceptable. This will not continue.”

“I beg your pardon? Who are you to talk to me like this? If my parents are offended, then they may reprimand me.”

“I dare say!” Leland shot up from his chair, marching around the table, where he grabbed Millie by the arm and dragged her into the kitchen. “You will not speak to me with such reproach ever again. Do you understand me?”

“You are not my father, nor any other manner of guardian. You would do well to remember your place, sir.” She tried to break free from his grip, but he clamped down tighter with his fist and slapped her across the mouth with the other, making her bleed.

Millicent began crying, and Mr. Barnabas shoved her up against the wall. “I am about to become your husband via the accord your father and I have settled upon. You will listen to me. Do you understand?” She said nothing. “Do you understand?” He raised his fist once again.

“Yes…” she answered, cowering in the corner.

He released her arm and ordered her back into the dining room to finish her soup. When Mother saw Millie’s shattered lip, she jumped up from her seat, clutching the girl to her bosom.

“How could you? You…you….bloody beast!”

“Miriam.” Father Merchant scolded his wife.

“Sir, if you were in the habit of controlling the women in this house, the girl’s lip needn’t have been split,” said Leland.

The rest of the dinner went on with no conversation at all. Even Robert Kingscross, who made no excuses about how very much he disliked Millicent’s fanciful ideas and her common use of imagination, wouldn’t look at Millicent, opting to keep his head down. How could her father be so cruel as to thrust her into the hands of a man so vile in character?

That night, Millie lay crying in her bed, unable to fall asleep. Overhearing her parents’ bold discussion of the matter in the next room, didn’t help the situation either.

“You must please reconsider this, Anson. She cannot marry that man. He’s horrid and she’s too young.” Mother Merchant wept.

“Margaret is to marry in less than two months. Millie is seventeen. At sixteen, Meg had already promised to marry Robert. Now that his apprenticeship with me is almost completed—”

“Millie isn’t like Margaret, dear.”

“No, she’s not. That, I’m afraid, is the problem. Everyone is moving to Lancaster or Manchester for work in the factories. Our town is crumbling. No patrons for the store mean no income.”

“I know, I know.” Millicent heard her mother admit. “But there must be another young man who would treat her better.”

“I don’t like it any more than you, my love. But the fact remains, we can’t afford to keep her any longer and tales of her odd behaviors have spread. There are very few men left, and the ones who are available don’t want her.” Father Merchant paused. “Barnabas is the only man willing to take her because no other woman is willing to take him.”

Three

Millicent Merchant, 1820s…

MILLICENT AWOKE LATE IN THE MORNING, HAVING lost her usual zest for adventure. Mother Merchant came to persuade the girl to get on with her day, but overhearing what she’d overheard the previous night gave her no incentive to do so.

Life as she knew it was ending—abruptly ending—in the most divergent and hopeless way she could’ve ever imagined, and Millicent had a great deal of imagination.

“Millie…Millicent, you have to get up.” Margaret scuttled into the room shaking the creases out of Millicent’s dress that had been drying outside on the line, looking as beautiful and Margaret-like as she’d ever looked. “Please get up. Leland Barnabas is downstairs. He’s waiting for you.”

“I’m not his property yet. He has no say concerning any of my activities until he says ‘I do.’”

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