Page 1 of Stained
Prologue
Danica Moreau was not a fan of her father’s private parties. When they weren’t stuffed with old, boring men who only talked in code, they were the over-patronizing weirdos who wormed their way in when Russell Moreau was drunk on enough brandy or high on enough dust to not give a fuck about who he associated with behind closed doors.
In truth, Danica avoided these parties. Yet her gut told her to come home for a week that summer, a week in which she, for once, had no other plans booked. Princeton was her current mistress, having been admitted before she reached the age of majority and already working on two concurrent majors that made her advisor fan himself in exhaustion. That summer was dedicated to an internship at one of her father’s friends’ companies. Until then, however, Danica was free to do as she pleased. After returning from a sojourn to London – a woman might want to study abroad at Oxford, after all – Danica wandered home. Or as much as she could call her father’s three-story penthouse in the middle of a bustling city home, anyway.
She wasn’t old enough to rent a car, but she was old enough to know premium whiskey when she saw it. A scantily clad server carrying a tray full of shots wandered by, enticing the young Mistress Moreau with more than a shot.Maybe later.She waved the woman off after having her shot.Nice. Both the shot and the girl.
The lounge was full of the types Russell Moreau didn’t usually consort with. Either the master of the house was gone for the weekend, or he was in one of his two-day hazes in which he recreated Victorian opium dens. A fortune-teller looked up from a sofa and grinned at Danica.
“I knew you were coming, Ms. Moreau,” she said with a faux-French accent. “Gabriella at your service. Care for a reading?”
The man she had been speaking with excused himself to join a game of billiards. Acrobats who lost bets had to perform tricks upon a priceless Persian rug. Animal tamers traded bawdy stories at the open bar, each one more grotesque than the last. Women in nothing more than their underwear came and went from an adjacent study.My father’s study. Danica looked away. None of her business.
“I’m not much for parlor tricks, sorry.” Danica looked for the exit. At this rate, she would stay the night in her old room and be out of there after breakfast. With any luck, she would trade some greetings with her father.
The woman clicked her tongue. “I assure you, I do more than parlor tricks, Ms. Moreau. I am a teller of genuine fortunes. I don’t claim to consort with spirits, but I read what is in the air, and tell your future from your aura and how it interacts with my mediums.” She drank from a flute of champagne. “So! What’s your fancy? I’ve got tea leaves and Tarot cards at my disposal.” When Danica didn’t bite, she continued, “You like art, yes? My cards are one of a kind. At the very least, allow me to show themto you. Drawn by a master artist from the south of France.” She smiled. “My brother.”
Danica sat on the couch across from her, an antique coffee table between them. “Fine. I’ll take a look.”
Smiling, the fortune teller pulled a leather satchel out of her large bag. Inside was a deck of Tarot cards.That certainly is unique. Not that Danica had seen many in her life. The only time her father let such deviances into his home was when he was in a stupor.
The art was classically Dutch, with references to Rembrandt and Vermeer. Every card contained an illustration of the subject matter, acted out by a myriad of men, women, and cherubs in various stages of undress. Danica perused them, making the occasional comment. She was about to lose interest when Gabriella snatched them up to shuffle.
“Let me give you a complimentary reading, Ms. Moreau. What’s your poison? Wealth?” she chuckled. “No, you don’t need any help with that, do you?”
Danica was unresponsive.
“Health? Those are the two things people ask me about the most.” She paused. “Those and love.”
Danica didn’t want to admit that her ears perked, but they did.Love, huh?Thus far in her short life, Danica had been unlucky. Oh, she could sleep with who she fancied, but it wasn’t the same as having her heart plucked like a well-used lute. It wasn’t fashionable in her circles to admit a lust for love.Just lust. It didn’t help that her father always shoved would-be marriages of convenience in her direction.All male, of course.He had ignored his daughter’s lust (and love) for her own gender if she didn’t “flaunt” it in his face.“Don’t have to make any decisions until you’re finished with your schooling,”Russell had reassured his daughter more than once.“Just make sure that if you find the one, they’re of the right breeding.”Her fatherwas always going on about “the one.” Danica would know “him” when she saw them, of course.
“Ah. Love it is, then.” Gabriella made no other comments as she handed Danica the deck of cards. “Shuffle these whilst thinking of your heart’s innermost desires. They will then tell us all we need to know about your romantic future.”
Against her better judgment, a slightly tipsy Danica shuffled the cards. However, she didn’t think of anything at all. Besides Gabriella’s breasts spilling from their casement, anyway.
She took the cards back and pulled the first seven off the top. She flipped the first one. Upside-down for her. Upside-right for Danica.
Breath snatched from the air.That’s… the most beautifully painted woman in the world?Yes. Yes, it was.
Golden blond locks fell across the pale woman’s milky white shoulders. Her button nose rode high on her face, tiny eyes staring right back at Danica. She had seen a lot of beautiful women before, especially blondes. This one? She may have only been a painting, but there was something about that delightful demeanor that made her wish for one second that she was real. Dangerous. Such a wish wasdangerous.
“My, my.” Gabriella uncovered the other six cards, but Danica didn’t care to look at the men and dowdy women on them. The blond woman was too enticing. Too enrapturing. Too… enchanting. She spoke to every cynical chamber of Danica’s heart. There was still that one, however, that stole looks at fairy tales and even recited a couple of Disney movies as if she were an eight-year-old girl. (She never unleashed this talent on her friends, however.) “This is quite the spread, Ms. Moreau.”
She finally tore her eyes off the painting. “Hm?”
Gabriella tapped her long fingernails against her chin. “Yes. You are lucky. The fates are describing the perfect woman for you to call your own one day.” She smiled. “Not many peopleget this, but the universe seems determined to match you with a lucky woman. No other will compare to her… they will all fall. Do you want to know more about her?”
Before, Danica would have said no. Who believed in such so-called art? Except telling Gabriella no meant no longer looking at the picture on the first card. Couldn’t they wait a bit longer? “Sure. Lay it on me.”
Gabriella chuckled. “You will not meet your fated intended until the eve of her thirtieth birthday. How old she is now, I cannot glean. She may be your age. Perhaps she is older than you, and this event isn’t so far away. Or she could be yet to be born. I cannot tell you.”
How convenient.
“She will have been waiting for someone like you, just as you have been waiting for someone like her. She is intelligent and capable. Fertile enough to give you many children if you do not interfere with nature. In fact, if you’re not careful, she may take over all aspects of your life.” Gabriella said this with a smile, as if that was a good thing.
Danica, however, could not stop looking at the card before her.A family…“Don’t suppose you could tell me what she looks like? It would help to know who it is when I see her.”
The fortune teller caught her staring at the card. “Imagine your dream woman, in appearances only. There she is. Waiting for you.”
