Page 4 of A Widow for the Earl
She smiled at the cypress trees that bordered the shabby driveway, watching them sway in the wind, the greenery so vivid in the bright morning sun that shone down from a cloudless sky. A good omen, by anyone’s reckoning.
“Not much. I have not met him,” she said. “I know that he is six-and-thirty, and he only agreed because he needed a wife quickly. What better bride to have than one with a ruined reputation, though not of the ordinarily scandalous kind?”
His name was Sebastian Hartley, the Viscount of Wycliffe, and that was pretty much everything else that her father had told her about him.
“What more do you need to know?”Henry had barked at her when she had dared to enquire.“He has accepted. You ought to be grateful and cease these silly questions. It was not easy to find someone who is willing to overlook the fact that you might have killed your previous two husbands, and he does not believe in superstitions or curses, so speak less and get out of my sight.”
Beatrice had not removed herself from his sight. Instead, she had asked a particular question that had been bothering her since Lord Albany’s untimely death, remembering a certain look in her father’s eyes when she had returned to Fetterton in the aftermath.
“Do you truly think I am capable of that?”she had asked bluntly.“Can you truly look at me, your daughter, and say you believe I might have killed those gentlemen?”
Her father had not answered. He had risen sharply from his chair in the study, cast her a withering glare that made her stomach churn, even now, and marched out without a word. He had said everything without saying anything at all.
“It may sound cold,” Beatrice said, her back still turned to her cousin and her friend, “but I wish that I had at least… consummated one of the marriages before my husbands died. Not because I am some manner of desperate minx, but because I would, at least, have had my independence. It continues to astound me that going through the rigmarole of a wedding is not considered enough.”
Valeria clicked her tongue, shaking her head. “Itispeculiar.”
“What makes it even stranger is that, for a man who clearly wants rid of me, my father has insisted on declaring my honor intact,” Beatrice muttered, no longer caring if there was an eavesdropper outside the bedchamber. “I would be quite content on my own, but no—apparently, to him, my absence in his life does not count unless I have a husband to ‘control’ me.”
As if summoned, a knock came at the door, though her father did not wait before marching in.
“The carriage is here,” he said gruffly, frowning at her gown. “Thatis what you are wearing?”
Beatrice flashed him a dry smile. “A ‘Sorceress’ must look the part. It was a choice between this and my black bombazine, but I thought a funereal appearance might be in bad taste. Red is a little more… mysterious. Something for the gossipmongers to really lose their minds about.”
The scandal sheets had referred to her by many other names aside from the ‘Bride of Death.’ She favored ‘Sorceress’ for it came closest to describing how she actually felt about her two dead husbands: cursed.
“Get in the carriage,” Henry spat, eyes flashing with fury. He did not temper his voice even a little as he turned to his niece and Teresa. “You too. The sooner this circus is over, the better.”
He had never cared for the people Beatrice actually cherished, and would not have remembered Teresa’s name if his life had depended on it. All he cared about was never having to deal with his daughter again.
Valeria took Teresa by the arm, leading her out of the room, flashing a curt look at Henry as she did. After all, he was a mere Viscount; they were Duchesses. Indeed, Valeria might have put him in his place if it had not been for Beatrice subtly shaking her head. She did not need anything else to make this day worse than it already was.
“They do say that the third time is lucky,” Beatrice said crisply, as she made to leave. “Let us hope that is true for me.”
Henry grabbed her by the arm, holding her back for a moment. “Yes, let us hope so,” he rasped, his grip painful, “for if anything should go awry this time, I will not accept you back. You are no longer my daughter. You are just a burden.”
“How hard it must have been for you,” Beatrice said coldly, prizing her father’s fingers off her arm. “Why, I imagine there is not a gentlemen’s club in England that will still have you, when you have such an embarrassment for a daughter. You must be looking forward to being able to show your face again.”
He glowered at her, lifting his hand as if he might slap her.
“I have never wanted tocomeback,” she continued, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her hurt by his words. “As such, you have my agreement: if this marriage does not go well, I will not return. Once the wedding is done, you have my word that you shall never see me again, not even at your funeral. Or mine. Whichever comes first.”
She strode out ahead of him, praying with all her might that this wedding, this marriage, would proceed without issue. It had never been something she wanted, to be married, especially not to a stranger of six-and-thirty who clearly just wanted a young bride as quickly as possible. But being the wife in a loveless marriage was preferable, at this juncture, to truly being labeled a murderess.
Indeed, better a life shackled to an irksome husband than a life spent in jail for deaths that had nothing to do with her. But insociety, suspicions were tantamount to evidence, and she did not want to find out what her punishment might be.
They already called her ‘Sorceress.’ She did not need a witch hunt.
CHAPTER THREE
The chapel was a small, gray thing on the edge of the Wycliffe Estate, shaded by an ancient yew tree. There were rowans growing nearby, piquing Beatrice’s interest as she stepped down from the carriage: all trees associated with magic and mysticism, mentioned often in the books she had procured after the death of her second husband, poor Lord Brinkley.
“This is rather pleasant,” she said to Valeria, who was making a last adjustment to the dried flower bouquet, putting it into Beatrice’s hands.
Valeria followed her cousin’s line of sight toward the manor in the distance. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
“What is?” Teresa joined them, weaving her arm through Beatrice’s.
