The Betrothed

“I would be delighted if that happened! Jameson deserves someone who understands his position, who’s suited to be royalty.”

“You are suited to be royalty,” Mother insisted, coming down the steps. “We are suited to be royalty! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Claudia,” Father said warningly.

“I haven’t forgotten,” she shot back. I realized then they were keeping secrets from me, and I didn’t have the slightest idea what they were. “Hollis, I hate to disappoint you, but you cannot marry this boy. He’s common. He’s Isolten.”

“Mother,” I urged her under my breath. Lady Eastoffe was still right behind us.

“She knows she’s a foreigner! That her son is! How could it be missed? Hollis, your departure has made us the laughingstock of court. Now, you will get in that carriage and make this right before anyone realizes why you left. The king has been so generous with you! He adores you! And if you give him the opportunity, I’m sure he would do everything he could to make you happy.”

“Perhaps he would, Mother,” I replied, my quiet voice almost startling next to her barks. “But try as he may, he would fail. I don’t love him.”

She stared at me, refusing to budge. “Hollis, so help me, you will get in that carriage.”

“Or?”

“Or you will be on your own,” my father finished.

I watched him, trying to understand. Behind him, the front doors were shut tight, and my parents were in their traveling clothes. I only just then saw the trunk that I’d taken to the castle was sitting on the steps.

I was never going into my house, not if I didn’t agree to go back to Jameson.

“I’m your only child,” I whispered. “I know I wasn’t a boy, and I was never as smart or talented as you would have hoped, but I have done my best. Don’t lock me out of my own home.”

“Get. In. The carriage,” my mother insisted again.

I looked over at it, black and shiny and deadly. And then I looked back at my mother and father. And I shook my head.

That was my last chance.

With a nod of my father’s head, the doorman picked up my trunk and threw it down the steps to my feet. I heard something smash inside it. I was hoping a broken bottle of perfume wasn’t ruining what little I had left to my name.

“Oh my goodness,” Lady Eastoffe said, hurrying out of the coach. “Help me with this,” she said to her driver, who quickly came over to pick up the trunk. Lady Eastoffe looked up at my mother, not bothering to disguise the rage in her eyes.

“Do you have something to say?” my mother shot at her.

Lady Eastoffe shook her head, holding her arms around me as I stood in stunned silence. “I’ve gone through so much to keep my family in one piece. I don’t understand how you can tear yours apart without so much as a second thought. She’s your daughter.”

“I will not take lessons from you. If you’re so concerned, you can be responsible for her now. Wait until you see how she repays you.”

“I will be responsible for her! I’m proud to have her as my own. And I wouldn’t be surprised if she accomplishes more than all of us one day.”

Mother dropped her voice. “Not if she’s married to your pig of a son.”

“Come,” I whispered. “There’s no point talking to them. Let’s go.”

Having the class to hold her tongue, Lady Eastoffe guided me back into the coach. I climbed back in on unsteady feet, taking the seat that looked out at Varinger Hall. I had plucked apples from those trees as a girl. Danced in the tall grass. I could still see the swing I’d climbed in the distance. I think, once, we were all happy here. Before they realized I was their only hope, before I let them down.

I watched as my parents went back inside, closing the doors behind them. It was the cold sound of them screeching shut that finalized what I had already suspected: I had no one but Silas now.

There were no friends waiting for me back at the castle, no apartments to comfort me. My family no longer wanted me for their own, and I wasn’t welcome in my childhood home. And so I left, thankful only for the arm wrapped tightly around my shoulder.

Twenty-Nine

IN AN EFFORT TO MAKE sure Silas and I could get married within two short weeks, all repairs to Abicrest Manor were focused on the main floor. The Eastoffes intended to invite all the nearby families, both as a gesture of goodwill and as a chance to show them they weren’t heathens. The floors were scrubbed, bringing new life to the stone. Furniture and tapestries the Eastoffes had brought from Isolte were aired out and placed where they were highly visible. Staff was acquired quickly, and the Eastoffes bought their loyalty with kindness and extra food.

In short time, I was grafted into the family, and much pain was taken to make sure that when it was official, it would be done through the best celebration they could afford.

“Is this the one?” Lady Eastoffe asked, looking at the fabrics brought in for me to choose for my wedding dress. She was lingering over my signature gold. “I have heard more brides are swinging toward white. It’s meant to symbolize purity.”

I tried to be discreet about rolling my eyes. “After leaving the castle the way I did, I worry white would only invite criticism.”

Scarlet gasped at me. “Hollis! If you want white, you should wear it! Can you please pull this one out more, sir?” she asked, grabbing at a bolt of ivory fabric.

“No, no,” I insisted. “Besides, Silas says I’m his shining sun. I think he’d like the gold.”

“That’s so sweet,” Scarlet commented. “Then I think you’re right. It should be gold.”

My happiness was ever so slightly tainted by the knowledge that my parents were just on the other side of the plain, past the forest, and on lands that we’d held for generations, but that they refused to come see me. Too ashamed to return to the castle, they were staying in the country; they might as well have been on the other side of the continent for how close they felt. Without their approval, this was dangerously close to eloping. I was certain the reason Jameson had a hard time convincing the lords to approve of me was because of how much of the law circled around marriage. In most families, there were written contracts where the parties would make agreements upon goods exchanged to prove the match was being done for the mutual benefit of both groups. If an engagement was officially made, it took another contract to undo it, and if a parent made an agreement on behalf of their child, sometimes that took the work of a holy man to undo, if not the king himself. Eloping and marrying quickly without the express approval of one’s family told the world those laws were insignificant, and it brought on unending judgment.

One look at Delia Grace’s life was enough to prove that.

But where the family I was leaving had nothing to say, the one I was entering did nothing but fawn over me. The proof was in the preparation for my wedding, the fuss they made over gaining another daughter.

“Gold it is,” Lady Eastoffe confirmed. “What do you want for the style? I know the sleeves of Isolten gowns can be heavy, but I thought maybe we could round the neckline. Try to pull the two together?”