Page 6 of Gambling with the Earl
The two servants glared at one another in a silent battle of wills and Kitty held her breath. What fresh bad news awaited them?
“She needs to know,” Alfred barked, his hands on his hips.
Kitty bit her lip to prevent herself crying out in frustration.
“Mercy, I can’t do it,” Lizzie sobbed into her clean apron.
Alfred sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Miss Katherine. The truth is, the jewels aren’t the only thing your father gambled with last night.”
Kitty laughed. She couldn’t help it. “We hardly have anything else.”
He avoided her gaze and didn’t smile back. “It was a high stakes game. Just Owain and the earl left in. When your father proposed his jewels, the earl said he couldn’t vouch for their quality.” The manservant ran out of words and fell silent.
“And?” Kitty prompted. Her stomach was a tangle of anxiety but she didn’t allow a trace of it to show in her voice.
“And your father suggested his eldest daughter in addition to the jewels,” Alfred said in a rush.
At first the words made no sense but as the meaning sank in, she knew the hottest, deepest flush of embarrassment she had ever experienced. Heat rose through her tightly strung bodice to sting her cheeks. “You don’t mean…” she trailed off. Beside her, Rosalind’s eyes opened wide.
“I’m afraid so.” Alfred looked anywhere but at her. “Your father lost the game. Which means that you belong to the Earl of Rossfarne.”
Bile rose in her throat. Her stomach heaved and she pushed past her sister, desperate to be outside. Once through the back door she took great lungfuls of fresh air, but the tang of the sea and the gentle breeze didn’t calm her as it had earlier. She might never be calm again. Deep, debilitating shame had taken root inside her heart.
She belonged to the Earl of Rossfarne.
She knew what that meant. It meant he could do as he pleased with her, in all ways. Although she wasn’t too sure what those ways might be. Her mother had died before she could explain the mysteries of the marriage bed, leaving Kitty to puzzle things out for herself. But she knew that years ago, when she was still a child, young women from Rossfarne had been lured to the castle by the old earl and most of them were never seen in the village again. Worse, they were spoken of with derision, as if by entering the castle gates they had abandoned all honour and standing.
But she’d heard whispered tales that were even more awful than that. The old earl’s insistence on the right of Prima Nocta, the first night with any bride on his lands. The unexplainedmystery of a high tower room. Women shamed, jumping off the harbour wall to avoid a life of torment.
Why had she thought that the new earl would behave differently?
Kitty couldn’t help herself—she began to tremble so violently her teeth chattered together.
Rosalind crept up beside her and slipped a cool hand into hers. “You don’t have to go. We could run away.” The wind caught hold of her shawl and it streamed out behind her.
Kitty looked down, shaking her head. “You’re not running anywhere,” she replied woodenly. Her intentions had been so clear just moments earlier, but now it was as if a fog had settled over her brain.
“Don’t ruin your life just for me.” Rosalind spoke with more passion than Kitty had ever heard from her before.
Kitty looked at her in surprise, noting the pink of her cheeks and the painful jutting of her shoulder blades. “It’s too late for that. Don’t you see? My life is already ruined.” The words came blurting out before she could stop them.
Rosalind tossed back her golden hair which she’d pinned back behind her ears. “It doesn’t have to be.”
Kitty fought an urge to pull her hand away from her sister’s. There was so much about the world that Rosalind simply didn’t understand.
“You still have choices,” her sister added pleadingly.
“Do I?” She raised her eyebrows. It didn’t feel like she had choices. But all the same, Rosalind’s pronouncement had sparked the beginnings of an idea.
“I heard what you said to Lizzie this morning.” Rosalind traced circles with her bare toes in the damp grass.
“You followed me out here?” Despite everything else going on, Kitty was still cross that Rosalind had risen early after such a restless night.
“Why shouldn’t I? You treat me like a child but I’ll be sixteen soon.”
“Not soon, Rosalind. Your sixteenth birthday falls on Michaelmas Eve.”
Rosalind made an impatient gesture. “You told Lizzie that you could find work anywhere, in the fields or on a farm. And it’s true. You could do anything. We could go anywhere.” She leaned forward to pluck a sprig of fresh mint and the pungent scent filled the air.
