It was her wedding day.
Her stomach emitted an unladylike growl.
“And of course, no one thought to bring me breakfast,” she grumbled. She wasn’t about to repeat her activity from last night, however. She intended to be the lady of the castle, not the cook.
“Ten o’clock. Didn’t this Higgins say the wedding is in the chapel at ten o’clock?” She pulled out her pocket watch and shrieked. It was a quarter to ten. She had to get ready, and it very much seemed that no maid was here to help her.
Birdie scrambled into a clean, but crumpled, blue dress, pulled back her frizzy hair in a loose bun and squashed her spectacles on her nose. Then she pushed the dresser away from the door. She drew on a coat, grabbed her bonnet, and left the room.
The front door in the hall was unlocked.
She pushed it open and stood in the bailey, looking around her with narrowed eyes. A raindrop fell on her nose. Higgins had said the wedding would be in the church.
What church? Where?
Did he mean that little building beyond, nestled between two outer buildings; the one with a small steeple that could pass as a chapel?
She walked across the courtyard towards the building and pushed the door open.
She narrowed her eyes in the sudden dark and discerned four figures inside. Finally, some living beings!
Her heart thudding, she walked down the aisle, wondering which one was Captain Eversleigh.
There was, undeniably, Higgins’ spindly figure. There was a reverend, who stood in front of the altar, recognisable in his black double-breasted cassock, gown and cap. A man in rough clothes, looking like a farm’s hand, stood in the front, turning his battered hat in his hands. She looked at him doubtfully. That couldn’t be Captain Eversleigh, could it?
Her eyes wandered over to the fourth man, who was sitting hunched in a pew, half in shadow.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Birdie said breathlessly, as she stumbled down the aisle.
The seated figure detached itself from the shadows and rose as she approached.
“Miss Cecily Burns,” he said in the deepest voice she’d ever heard. “I am Gabriel Eversleigh.”
At that moment, thunder clapped, and lightning flashed, illuminating the horrifying figure of the creature who stood before her.
Birdie screamed.
Away.Away! She stumbled outside, running through the bailey. Rain pelted down, and lighting flashed in the blackened sky.
She ran across the drawbridge. The wood was wet, and she skidded, slid, rotated both arms, and fell face long into the mud. She remained lying there, completely stunned.
A monster.
He was a monster!
It was that creature from the tower. A creature of shadow and fire, a phantom. She hadn’t imagined it at all. The same fearful height, the same shadow, the same gleaming pale face. That was Captain Eversleigh?
Rain poured down and thunder rattled through the sky, and drummed on her face, in biting ice-cold little stabs. Oddly enough, that calmed her down.
There are no such things as monsters.
But she’d clearly seen it.
That figure, dark and tall, dressed entirely in black. He’d risen and turned. He’d looked perfectly normal on one side, with a profile of a sensuous mouth and a proud Grecian nose. He was almost dashing, in fact—then he’d turned his head, and his face emerged from the darkness.
It was completely disfigured. It’d been the stark contrast that had startled her so. One half was beautiful, the other—
Oh, dear sweet heaven. She clapped her hands over her face. The other side was as though it had melted away. There was a black hole where the eye was supposed to be. She hadn’t seen more because she’d screamed like a banshee and fled.
