He was, everyone else said, a pretentious idiot.
A pretentious idiot with a whole lot of guns and the willingness to use them.
Whether Cilla had chosen to live with him or been forced into it, no one now would ever know. But there had come a time when, unable to bear the thought of yet another miserable day anchored on dreary,uninhabited moorland while her husband tried to find inspiration for a novel, she’d finally escaped.
Cecilia did not want to remember. She fought to wake completely, but memory got its scarred claws right around her and dragged her back down. She became a small child again, cold and frightened, clambering out a window into her mother’s arms...
“We have to run, darling,” Cilla had whispered, smiling despite the tears in her swollen eyes. “Don’t be afraid. A whole world of fun and games is ahead of us!”
Little Cecilia had not liked the sound of that, but she’d obeyed. They had fled across the moors, their dark cloaks swooping, the moonlight plucking at them with long, ghostly fingers. If Morvath had seen it he would have run after them with pen and paper, begging them to describe their emotions as they went (and then dragging them home). But Morvath had been hunched over a glass of brandy in his study, feeling sorry for himself, and by the time he realized they had gone and made chase, it was too late. “We’re safe now,” Cilla had promised as they made their way to London and Miss Darlington...
She had been wrong.
Two years later, on a sunlit field in Greenwich, as Cilla blew dandelions and Cecilia danced laughing after them, Morvath had finally caught up.
“Run!” her mother had cried then too, much louder and wilder than before. So Cecilia had run again, run alone into a world that held no more fun and games, at least not until she met a half-Italian pirate with a sweet, wayward smile. She’d run until Miss Darlington found her crouched shivering behind the Greenwich Observatory, seeing nothing but her father’s sword falling and her mother’s fragile white wishes rising...
And Miss Darlington had enfolded her in calm, strong arms.
She gasped, opening her eyes, desperately shoving memory away.
A hundred mad birds stared at her.
Blinking groggily, Cecilia realized she was in her old childhood bedroom. The yellow wallpaper, teeming with green and orange cockatiels, seemed to bulge and shrink as her vision adjusted. The dolls lined up along shelves leered at her. Cecilia turned over in the bed—
And found a young man seated at the bedside, watching her hungrily.
“I beg your pardon!” she admonished him, sitting up and reaching for a knife that was no longer up her sleeve. Nor in her garter belt. Nor under her waistband.
The young man leaned forward, his mustached smile slithering toward trim black sideburns. Cecilia moved as far from him as possible without falling out of the bed.
“Cousin,” he said. His voice was as silky as oil on water. “I’ve been guarding you whilst you lay here the past two nights like Sleeping Beauty, deep in a forcèd slumber, your innocence dependent on a hopeful awakening.”
Cecilia stared at him.
“You are,” he said, pressing a hand against his breast, “as lovely as I ever dreamed, as dew bright and morning soft, with buds of womanhood unfurling in your eyes.”
“What?” Cecilia said.
“You are a melody in form, a promise made real by the—”
“Who are you?” she asked. Her abruptness sliced through his effusions and left him silent, mouth agape. She watched as he regathered his superciliousness and slid it over his thin, jutting face. He was all gloss, from his slicked-back hair to his large, polished teeth; and yet, Cecilia noticed a scab of fear deep inside his gaze.
“I am your ardent servant and your cousin, Frederick Bassingthwaite,” he said, “imprisoned like you in this dour abbey under the cruel authority of Captain Morvath. Although we have never before met, dear Cecilia, I feel I know you intimately from the stories I’ve been told about your mother.” He brought forth a silver locket and, opening it, showed Cecilia the tiny portrait it contained of Cilla Bassingthwaite. “I keep this in lieu of a picture of you, for I was told how alike you were. It is not true, forsooth! Thou art more lovely, more graceful in the eye of the...”
Cecilia clambered out of bed. Her body swayed to starboard and her mind to port, but she took a deep breath and shoved them back into alignment by sheer will. Although she was still dressed in her riding habit, the jacket had been unbuttoned and her boots were off. Her hair hung loose down her back. Clearly someone had attended to her comfort after having drugged and kidnapped her.
She frowned. He’d had that chloroform with him the whole time, yet had not taken her to the Queen’s prison, nor to her father’s house until it landed right in front of them. He’d supported and protected her—and kissed her too, although she didn’t want to think about that. But then he’d declared himself Morvath’s servant all along and had chatted with Randall as he rendered her unconscious.
It did not matter. Ned Lightbourne did not matter, not even in the slightest. All that did was rescuing the Society and assassinating her father. Taking her boots from the floor, Cecilia shoved them on and buttoned them as fast as she could.
“When your father approached me,” Cousin Frederick was saying, “I felt disinclined to accept his hospitality. He brought me here anyway, determined to secure in my person your best happiness. Although I have been a wretched prisoner, fed only three times a day, and allowed no liberty but what is available within these dozens of walls, I care not! All I do, I do for you! Captain Morvath’s assurance that youwould make for me a perfect bride has been answered with the most joyous proof. Think, my dear cousin, how the wounds of the past shall be repaired between our families when we are united in matrimonial bliss!”
By the time he ended this speech, Cecilia had climbed over the bed, crossed the floor in three strides, discovered that the door was locked, and then turned to survey the room. It seemed everything had been left as it was when she lived here twelve years ago.
“You will love Starkthorn Castle just like your mother did,” Frederick continued, oblivious to both Cecilia’s mood and Cilla’s. “The orchard is rich with nature’s bounty, the same as your own Venusian form...”
Returning across the room, Cecilia began pulling dolls from the shelves, inspecting them closely before tossing them onto the bed.
