A Most Unlikely Betrothal by Alice Kirks
Prologue
Marlena sat in the drawing-room and looked down at her hands where they rested on the black taffeta of her gown, the white skin contrasting with the dark fabric. She focused on them, willing herself to feel something.
She wished she could feel some emotion that would connect her to herself. Right now, she felt like those were someone else’s hands and not hers, as if she was somewhere else, floating above the black-clad young woman with the pale brown hair pulled back in a severe style.
“Can I fetch you something, Marlena?” her mother asked. She was standing across from her, black-dressed, her own dark hair pulled back from her face. She had a teapot in her hand, from which she poured cups of tea for the guests.
“No, thank you,” Marlena said.
She didn’t want to eat or drink anything. She didn’t want to be here. If she had the choice, she would be out riding in the fields, her hair loose, soaked with the rain as she screamed her pain and sorrow to the empty skies. She would not be here in this cold, emotionless drawing-room with cold, silent people pretending they felt nothing.
If she could, she would scream James’ name so loud the windows would shatter.
He was her brother, and he was dead, and it was wrong.
Why could she not cry?
“Would you care to go outdoors?”
Marlena nodded. Charles, her elder brother, was here, newly returned from the army. She was so grateful that he had managed to attend and cared for her as always. He sat across from her on the chaise-longue beside their father, and his blue eyes were gentle as they regarded her. Marlena felt like he understood her. He was, in many ways, like her. He would rather be elsewhere, she thought.
“Thank you,” she said. “I would.”
She knew that if there were any difficulty in leaving, he would attend to it. He had a strong character like hers, not like James, who lay in the churchyard. James was so gentle, so tender. He was the younger of her two brothers, and he had never hurt anyone, never so much as said a cross word.
He nodded to her and stood, stretching his back as he did so. “Mother, Father … we are going to take the air outside a moment. Excuse us.”
“Charles, that isn’t proper …” his mother began.
He smiled at her gently. “Mother, it’s quite acceptable. Nobody will mind if we take five minutes to walk and stretch our legs. We shall be back in plenty of time.”
Marlena looked gratefully at Charles. He had always had a good way about him – able to stand firm but without needing to resort to anger to do so. He would make a fine viscount, she was sure.
She glanced at their father on the way to the door. He nodded to her from where he sat on the chaise-longue, blue eyes troubled. He looked drawn and pale, and she felt her heart thump, filled with worry for him. She squeezed her own blue eyes shut for a moment as she walked along with Charles. Her father had been so ill, and she feared the shock of James passing would challenge his already-weakened health.
“Thank you,” she said again when they were out of earshot.
Charles smiled at her. His blue eyes were sad, but he still managed to find the strength somewhere to grin at her. “I thought we could both use some fresh air.”
“Yes,” Marlena murmured. It was stifling in the drawing-room – stiflingly silent. She couldn’t bear it. She looked up at Charles. “I can’t make sense of it,” she said.
Charles inclined his head, agreeing distantly. “I know,” he said. He looked out over the lawns, his own face still. “I think it makes no sense. Someone so young, to be gone so quickly.” Charles was older than Marlena by eight years and older than James by five.
“I don’t mean that,” Marlena said softly. “I mean, it makes no sense that our brother passed in a riding accident. You knew how good he was.” She walked across the grass beside him, feeling the need to move.
Charles looked into her eyes, stopping beside her. “Marlena, it doesn’t always matter. Some accidents have very little to do with skill. Anyone can have an accident.”
Marlena shut her eyes a moment, feeling distressed. This was her brother, the one person who she could talk to besides her maidservant Henriette. Why could he not understand what she meant?
She felt as though there was something behind James’ death, something more. That it hadn’t been as told in the story they had received. She knew James, and what she might not have known about him in person, she knew about his skill as a horseman.
She had raced him so often! She knew his strengths and knew without question how good he was – she reckoned him to be among the best riders in the ton. He would not have come off his horse as they had been told he had.
“I just can’t help how I feel about it,” she said. She didn’t know what to say to him to make him hear her.
Charles took her hand. “Grief is a strange thing, my sister. It can take years before one comes to terms with something. I feel we would do better not to try to make sense of it now … maybe in a year, we will be able to see it with a clearer perspective. For now, we should just weep and scream if we have to, and let ourselves slowly heal.”
Marlena felt tears down her cheeks. She looked up at her brother and rested a hand on his shoulder. She knew he was being kind, and his words had touched her heart. She knew, too, that in many ways, he was right. Her heart would slowly heal over the years, and she would slowly come to an understanding of what happened. But there were things that didn’t fit.
“Thank you, Charles,” she said. She knew she would not make him understand.
He rested a hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes. “You are my dearest sister,” he said gently. “You’re so strong; your spirit inspires my own.”
“Thank you, Charles,” she repeated. She felt his kindness melted her heart, and, suddenly she found herself clinging to him, tears pouring down her cheeks as she held him, like when she was a toddler, and she had come to Charles, her safe place in a cold and confusing world. He wrapped his arms around her, like he had when she was just a baby, and held her and let her weep. It was the first time she had cried, and she knew that it would be months – maybe years – before she could cry for James properly. Now, she cried mainly for herself.
Charles held her for a long moment. After she sniffed slowly, her tears running down her face, he stood back. “All right?”
She nodded, reaching into the little drawstring bag she had around her wrist, where she kept a handkerchief. She blew her nose, sniffing noisily. “Yes,” she said.
He smiled. “My wild sister. Look at you … all windswept.”
She lifted a hand to her head where some of her honey-blonde hair had escaped. She shook her head, flushing.
“It just does that.”
He smiled softly, took her hand, and led her back to the house.
She held his hand and felt better, but she could not shake the feeling that the story they had heard of James’ death was not quite right. She could not accept that he had simply been thrown from his horse.
And she was going to London to find the truth, whatever anyone said to her.