“Isn’t your sister meant to be chaperoningyou?” Ambrose inquired with a devilish arch of his dark brow.
Mara had the good grace to blush. “Kitty is more accustomed to being looked after than being the one doing the looking. This is rather new territory for her.”
“A common trait amidst younger siblings, I suppose. When did your mother pass?” he asked, watching her closely. It was the first time that the duke had broached such a sensitive, intimate subject, and her initial instinct was to deflect his query with a change of subject. But if they were to be married (something she was seriously considering after that kiss), wasn’t that the point of having a husband? A steadfast partner to share your innermost doubts and insecurities with. A safe harbor that contained all of your secrets, even those you wanted to hide from yourself.
“My mother was... my motherdiedwhen I was twelve and Kitty ten.”
“I’m sorry.” He reached for her hand and ran his thumb across her knuckles. An absent gesture of affection that had her blinking the sting from her eyes. “That must have been difficult, to lose her at such a young age. Was she ill?”
The shout of voices. Her father’s deep and booming. Her mother’s shrill and high-pitched.
“Be quiet!” Elizabeth had cried. “You’ll wake the children.”
But Mara and Kitty, huddled under the same blanket in their room, were the least of Eriam’s concerns on that awful, terrible, deadly night.
The sound of cursing.
Of doors slamming.
Of furniture splintering.
The race of footsteps, light and quick, on the steps... followed by the heavy stomp of drunken boots.
More yelling.
Mara covered her sister’s ears.
She closed her eyes.
But she couldn’t block out the screaming.
The fighting.
Then a single scream.
Just one.
A scream that ended in the middle where no scream should end. Cut off, like a snipped thread. And a thump, thump, thump, THUMP as something—someone—fell down the stairs.
“Stay here,” Mara had whispered to Kitty. “Don’t move, no matter what.”
On the quietest tiptoes she went out into the hall and peered over the railing to the foyer below. Saw a crumple of purple on the floorboards. Her mother, sleeping. What a strange place to take a nap, but it was the only reality that Mara’s mind would entertain. Her mother was resting. Or perhaps she’d fainted. But it was nothing worse than that. It was nothing more permanent than that. Except there was too much red. An entire puddle of it that spread to another puddle, and another. A lake’s worth of red. Reaching all the way to the rug, and that was how she knew her mother was dead. Elizabeth could not abide a stain and were she able, were she breathing, she would have rushed for the nearest bucket and filled it with sudsy water. But she didn’t move. Not a finger. Not a foot. Nothing stirred. Nothing jerked or trembled or flopped.
The viscountess was dead.
The viscount had killed her.
And Mara... Mara had paid witness to it.
“No, my mother wasn’t ill.” But before she could decide if she wanted to say more, if her tongue, heavy in her mouth, wouldallowher to say more, Kitty, red faced and cross, stumbled upon them.
“Thereyou are,” she said, glaring. “Why didn’t you wait for me? Don’t you know better than to run off? What if you were found alone? That would reflect poorly on me! I’m your chaperone, Mara, and—”
“Lady Marabelle was in excellent hands,” Ambrose interceded smoothly, his double entendre bringing a prickle of heat to the secret garden between Mara’s thighs that she was forbidden to think about. “But the morning hour is growing late, and I should probably return both of you to your father before he starts to worry.”
Situated as he was beside Mara, the duke missed her instinctive flinch. But Kitty saw it, and she gave a fast, hard shake of her chin. A silent warning not to speak of the troubles that plagued them at home. Toneverspeak of them. To anyone.
A suitor might overlook their small dowries, but Society would hardly permit him to marry the daughter of a murderer. Even thehintof such a scandal would be enough to ruin them and any future prospects they might have. And without future prospects, how were they ever to escape their past?
