Lessons from a Scandalous Bride (Forgotten Princesses #2)

Lessons from a Scandalous Bride (Forgotten Princesses #2)

Sophie Jordan




Chapter One

The late-evening sea air swept through the open window. Cleo inhaled greedily, glad for the fresh gust of salty wind. The cottage was stale, rank from too many bodies and the ripe, coppery tang of blood drifting downstairs. She shook a strand of hair away from where it dangled in her eyes and readjusted the sleeping toddler in arms that had long since gone numb.

She knew from experience that it would be days before the stench faded. And even then she would still smell it. The odor of death never completely vanished from her senses.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the plank stairs and she moved the sleeping toddler from her arms. Quickly, gently, she laid Bess on one of several pallets lining the floor before the stove.

A total of fourteen children slept on the ground floor. More crowded than usual. The youngest four usually slept in the loft with Cleo’s mother and stepfather while the rest of them bedded down on the first floor each night. The pallets were always cleared away each morning like a bad dream erased and forgotten.

Except Cleo could never forget. It was a wretched existence. Even though she knew nothing but this life, Cleo knew this. She felt it, absorbed this awareness of her squalid surroundings with every sip of breath. Pulling the threadbare blanket up over Bess, she swung around as Mrs. Dubbins reached the bottom floor.

Cleo rose to face their neighbor expectantly, her heart a tight, twisting mass in her chest. Mrs. Dubbins had helped with her mother every time, too many times for Cleo to count . . . which made her a regular fixture in their home.

“How is she?” Her hands fisted at her sides.

Mrs. Dubbins shook her gray-streaked head, the weathered lines of her face drawn and tight. “She can’t do this again.”

Cleo nodded jerkily. They were the same words Mrs. Dubbins had advised last time. The last five times. Still, he didn’t listen. Didn’t care. Didn’t stop.

Her eyes ached, but no tears burned there. She stared with dry eyes. She was past weeping. Tears would not help. Nothing could be done. Her stepfather would never change.

As if the thought conjured him, the thud of his boots shook the stairs. She looked up, watching as he descended. His large frame ate up all the space in the small cottage.

Cleo gazed at his ruddy, thick-boned face, carefully schooling her features to reveal none of the loathing she felt for this man. He’d been handsome once. She could see the evidence in the swollen features of his face, the nose bulbous from too much drink and hard living.

Her mother claimed that he’d been charming once, too, a catch. Which made it all the more incomprehensible that he’d ever wanted Cleo’s mother—an unwed mother, ruined and reviled—living off the charity of relations. And yet wanted her he had. Even with a four-year-old Cleo in tow.

She saw nothing appealing about him as he stopped before her, his boots sliding to a halt.

“See to this,” he said, holding out the small blanket-wrapped bundle.

A familiar command.

With a single nod, she took the still warm bundle and brought it close to her body, waiting as he fished the halfpenny from his pocket. With great reluctance he handed it to her.

She knew if he could, he’d simply toss the body into the sea, but people would know. Ceremony and ritual were everything. Such an act would bring the wrath of their neighbors upon them. He’d do the bare minimum and see that the babe was laid to rest on consecrated soil.

With a murmured farewell to Mrs. Dubbins, Cleo collected her cloak from the hook by the door and set out into the night.

She held the bundle close. She always did—always felt an overwhelming compulsion to hug the little one. She felt the need to give something to the child who, even gone from this earth, had never had anything—and never would. Not even a proper burial.

The waves crashed against the sea wall as she walked a steady line on the broken path in her worn-thin slippers. Leaving the row of cottages behind, she made her way toward the end of town. As the small spire came into view, she muttered a quick prayer over the child, the sibling she would never know.

She opened the squeaky gate into the still churchyard. A single light shone in the window of the caretaker’s cottage. The place was smaller than her home.

She knocked briskly upon the door of splintered and cracking wood, shivering inside her cloak. It always felt wrong doing this. A sacrilege. Not that she had any choice in the matter.

All warmth had faded from the small bundle in her arms. She peeled back the cloth to take a glimpse. She had to do this. She did so each time. It was all she could do—give the lost babe a final glimpse, acknowledgement that its life mattered.

It was a boy this time. His little nose tiny as a button. His small lips wrinkled blue with death. She brushed a finger against the tiny curve of his cheek, surprisingly smooth. Cold as marble. She blinked. Suddenly her eyes didn’t feel so dry.

“You deserved better than this,” she lowered her head and said so softly she could scarcely hear herself.

The door opened, flooding her in a burst of light. She lifted her head and dropped her hand from the tender, nearly translucent cheek, shielding her dead brother with the blanket again.

Training her features into her usual mask of impassivity, she lifted her chin a notch and faced the caretaker. “Good evening, Mr. Hollis.”

“Ah, got another one there, do you?”