“He is, whether we like it or not, the next Lord Elderwood. And if you marry him you will become the next Lady Elderwood. You will keep this house, the lands associated with it, and all its income. Cousin Ficus brings a respectable bride gift from his mother’s side. Enough to keep the House of Elderwood afloat. Enough to support you when I am gone.”
Her house. Her home. Her father’s title. That man would take it all, and she would get nothing, But here he was, extending an olive branch, so long as she was willing to be his wife and use her Elderwood blood to bear more legitimate heirs.
“MycousinFicus,” she said.
Her father shifted uncomfortably. “Once removed.”
“You know, some botanists study the impact of inbreeding. They’ve produced a number of fascinating diagrams of flowers with multiple heads.”
“It would not be the first consanguineous marriage in your family tree. Your mother and I were first cousins, you know, and you and your sister are both perfectly healthy. Such things are common among the nobility.”
“Yes, and Queen Viscaria has lost two sons to hemophilia because of it. I would prefer not to continue tangling the branches of the family tree, if it suits you.”
Her father looked helpless. “I am not sure there is a better option for you, Elswyth. But I am prepared to offer you a compromise. I have set aside enough funds for you to participate in this year’s social season. In addition, I have a modest dowry. You may go to London and stay with your Uncle Percival until the autumn.You might select your own husband—provided he is from a good family and is able to provide you with a life befitting a young lady of your status.”
“London,” she said. “Are you mad? To stay with the same man who let Persephone vanish under his watch? To leave you here to die alone?” The words choked out of her, half made of anger, half of grief so persistent she feared it had become a permanent part of her, as immutable as her scar.
“I will be here when you return, Elswyth. I promise. And your uncle may be a fool, but he is the only family you have in London who can act as your chaperone.”
“I have half a mind to think he’s involved. Isn’t it always the men closest to a missing woman that are outed as her killer? You yourself said that Lord Devereux is strange. An eccentric.”
“Perhaps he is. But that does not make him a killer. He has always loved you, if only because you remind him of your mother.”
“But—”
Her father raised a hand to cut her off.
“I will hear no objection. I am giving you a choice, and choices do not grow on trees for Elderwoods these days. You may marry Cousin Ficus and keep this house, these lands, and your ancestral title. Or you may go to London and seek your own match. Perhaps, even, an open-minded gentleman. One that would have the tolerance—and the funds—to send you to Oxford.”
Elswyth lifted her head. She was not convinced that such a man existed. Still, she was certain that Cousin Ficus would not allow her to pursue an education. She would be too busy bearing him an heir of pure Elderwood blood.
She prepared to fight her father, to rage against being forced into a marriage of convenience, when a thought crept over her ina cold trickle. It occurred to her that there might be more for her in London than just a favorable match. Persephone had lived there for months before her disappearance. Perhaps there were answers, too. And if the police could not determine what had happened to her sister, maybe Elswyth could.
She looked at the letter on the table and then up at the portrait of their family. “When must I decide?”
“The sooner the better. I can only hold off our lenders for so long. And if my condition worsens—if I should die sooner than the doctors say—then you will be alone. The sooner you find a husband, Elswyth, the safer you shall be.”
That night, Elswyth lay in her bed, tears streaming down her face and staining the old sheets. Outside, the winds swept over the forests and the moors, wailing down upon the house like a river of ghosts. To Elswyth, it sounded like a dirge.
The letter from Oxford lay abandoned on the floor. There was no purpose in it now. She drifted toward a fork in a river, desperate to take one course, struggling against the wash, while an unrelenting current pulled her down another path. She was never meant to be a wife. No man would want her, and there would be no man she herself would want. It was doomed to be a tragedy, and yet her father seemed unable to see the truth, insistent that she make a fool of herself in London or resign herself to wed a man she reviled.
But then there was Persephone. Elswyth had promised her grandmother that she would find out what had happened to her sister, no matter the cost. Perhaps this was the cost.
And if you fail? If no man in London will have you, and you wasted youracceptance to Oxford for nothing? If you are forced to wed your cousin, and Persephone is still lost—what then?
A thought prickled at her, seeming to start in her left hand and crawl up her scar until it sprouted in the back of her mind.
If father makes me marry that man,Elswyth thought,I will kill him. I will put nightshade in his wine on our wedding night, so that he might never touch me. I could seep hemlock from my lips if I wanted to. I could kill him with a kiss.
The thought made her stomach fill with ice. The callousness of it terrified her, and she stomped it out like a spark from the hearth before it could catch flame.
No, Elswyth,she thought,you will not kill him.
You will not kill.
Never again.
CHAPTER THREE
