Chapter 1
Thompson Townhouse
“Shh, Mama, do not cry. It will be all right.”
There was something strange about comforting one’s mother when the world seemed to be falling apart. A strange, powerless sort of feeling that, after today, Catherine Thompson vowed that she would never feel ever again.
Never again would she allow herself to fall victim to the follies and vices of others. From this day forward, she would take control over her own life. For her own sake, and for that of her poor mother, who stood beside her every bit the victim as she was.
“All right? How can you say that! They aretramplingeverything!” Lady Arabella Thompson sobbed, her voice breaking as the creditors ransacking their whole house seemed to take some sort of sick, perverse pleasure in repossessing their personal effects.
Catherine could hear them through the whole house as they appraised everything they could see and took what they felt was of any value. Same as they had been doing for hours now.
Arabella had begged and pleaded with them for more time, to have mercy or some shred of compassion as they carted off her jewels and the art from the walls. But it seemed that her husband had managed to dig them into deeper financial straits than he had led them to believe.
“It is only things, Mama. We still have one another.” Catherine pulled her mother into her arms as best as she could as the older woman sobbed and dabbed at her face with a very soiled handkerchief.
It was not thethingsthat Arabella was upset about, not really. Catherine knew that the wound inflicted upon them both today would run far deeper than that.
No, it had to do with the lurkers standing on the opposite side of the street from their home as they whispered behind their fans. The gossip would run wild, and their family would be not only ruined but deeply humiliated from this intrusion.
Naturally, her father had left them to handle things on their own. He had punched his own ticket and left this whole ordeal on their shoulders.
Arabella had been the talk of thetonin her day. She had married well. Catherine had always been prized as a jewel, whose entrance into society had been much anticipated. These days, Arabella was a shadow of her former self. The grief of her husband was something she could never seem to reconcile. The Thompson family were upstanding, well-beloved members of theton.
At least they were once.
Now, it was hard for Arabella and Catherine to head into town without being at the center of gossip and having eyes on them. On the worst days, some nosy busybodies would come and inquire about their fall from grace and the way that Lord Thompson’s antics had defiled them with his incessant gambling.
Catherine tried to take it all in stride. Just as she did now.
“But it iseverything.” Arabella hiccupped and shook her head.
“We will endure.” Catherine forced an uncomfortable, tense smile in hopes that her mother would take even the smallest bit of comfort from her words. “It will take time, but we shall overcome this. Somehow.”
“I wish that I had your resilience. Every painting that they peel from the walls feels as if it is a part of me that they are taking. I created these rooms. We made our life here, our memories. Now, when I walk into these rooms, they are going to feel…naked and wrong. They will be barren. How am I supposed to…”
Arabella’s words were cut off as a strange, off-key sound chimed from the far parlor, and Catherine felt her heart plummet into her gut.
“No…not that.” Catherine’s hands slipped from her mother as she gathered her skirts in her hands and took off running down the hall to where three poorly dressed men were attempting to painfully thunk her beloved pianoforte off of the platform on which it rested. “No!” she repeated as she lifted her hands to them.
“Get out of the way,” one man barked rudely at her.
“Certainly, you cannot need this! Truly! It is far too large and bulky to be bothered with it! I promise!” Catherine pleaded, her voice laced with desperation.
“Lady, we would take it simply because of how much it meant to you.” Another man sneered.
Catherine shook her head. “Please, if you mean to take things that mean something to me, I will offer you up my jewels—the pearl pins in my hair, the diamonds that were to be part of my dowry. Anything you like. Please, just do not take that!”
The first man seemed to exhale roughly through his nose as if dismissing her as he smirked cruelly. The men took no care in yanking the antique pianoforte sideways off the platform. Seeing her most beloved possession so abused shattered something in her.
Something that she could not quite explain. It was all that she could do to remain upright and keep from sinking to her knees in despair as the instrument was brutally carted out of the room and through the front doors.
Catherine could not watch it go. No. She could not see it further mistreated upon their wagons and lashed down without proper care and attention. She could not have even been able to guess as to how many hours of her life had been spent at that pianoforte.
The keys had started to wear in the shape of her own fingers. She had not skipped a day of practice in as long as she could remember. Music had always been her greatest passion, and just like that, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.
As if her father had not stolen enough from them as it was.
