Always a Lady
Sneak Peek
Prologue
Inismorn, Ireland
Summer 1824
The stars sparkled like finely cut diamonds, spread out on a background of black velvet. A solitary figure huddled against the wall of the crumbling tower of Telamor Castle. She sat with her back pressed to the rough, moss-covered stone and her neck tilted at the optimum angle for stargazing through the battered crenellations. Below the tower lay the beach. She could hear the low roar of the ocean and the occasional sounds of voices, but she ignored them. Her attention was focused on the heavens as she studied the array of constellations visible in the northern sky, reciting the fanciful names her mother had taught her. She stared at the brightest star, then breathed a reverent sigh as one of its lesser companions streaked across the heavens.
“I wish that when I grow up I can marry a rich, handsome prince and live in this fine castle,” Mariah Shaughnessy prayed with all the fire and fervor a six-year-old could muster. “That I can have dogs and cats to love and ponies to ride, and that I can sit in the tower and eat cakes and biscuits and look up at the stars every night until I die.” She took a deep breath before continuing her litany of wishes. Falling stars were rare. They didn’t happen every night, and Mariah had learned to make the most of their magical powers. “And…”
“You’ll get fat if you eat cake every night.”
Mariah sat up straight and stared into the night. A boy stood holding a lantern on the top step of the spiral stairs that led to the tower.
“No, I won’t.” Mariah stuck out her bottom lip and dared the intruder to contradict her.
“Of course you will.” He left the top step and walked over to her. He leaned his back against the stone wall and slowly slid down it until he was sitting beside her. He trimmed the wick on the lantern so the light wouldn’t interfere with her stargazing, but he kept the light burning low. “And if you get fat eating cake, no prince will marry you.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. “But I like cake,” she replied.
He gave her a disgusted look. “Everyone likes cake.”
She sighed again. “It was good.”
“That’s why they call it cake,” he told her. “If it tasted awful, they would have called it turnips.”
“Will I get fat if I just wish for cake and biscuits every night?”
He shook his head. “No,” he promised. “Wishing for cake won’t make you fat. Only eating it.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Can you get fat from eating it once?”
“No.”
“Then I guess I’ll never get fat.”
“You’ve only had cake one time?” He was genuinely surprised. “In your whole life?”
“I think I had it when I was little,” she said. “But only once since I came here.”
“How come?” he asked.
“The sisters don’t believe in spoiling us.”
“How many sisters have you?” he asked.
She giggled. “I don’t have any sisters.”
“But you said—”
“The sisters in Christ. The ones at St. Agnes’s Sacred Heart Convent where I live.”
The boy shuddered, recalling the rambling old stone building a mile or so down the cart path from the castle. He didn’t have to be Catholic to know what convents were. But he had always thought they were reserved for nuns and older ladies. He had never heard of little girls living in them. “You live in a convent?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Down the hill and beyond the wall. I come here after evening vespers so I can look at the stars. See there!” She pointed through the hole in the ancient stonework. “That’s Draco, the Dragon.”
He looked to the heavens as she pointed out the cluster of stars that formed the shape of a dragon. “You come all the way up here just to look at the stars? Why don’t you just look out your window?”
She shook her head. “My room doesn’t have windows.”
“Oh.” He was thoughtful once again, almost unable to comprehend the idea of a room with no windows to look out. “How do you sneak out?”
“It has a door, silly,” she replied in a tone tinged with superiority. “It just doesn’t have windows.” She lifted her chin a notch. “I’m very good, you know. And very quiet. When you live in a convent, no one pays much attention to you as long as you’re quiet. I sneak out after everyone else goes to bed.”
He eyed the little girl with new respect. To sneak out of a convent and come all this way without a lantern was an enormous feat of bravery.
“Where are your mother and father?”
“I don’t remember my da,” she told him. “He died when I was little, and now my mummy’s gone to heaven, too. She’s a star. See that one up there? The shiniest one?” He nodded.
“I think that one must be my mummy ’cause she used to wear lots of sparkly things.” Tears welled up in her eyes once again, and her voice quavered with emotion.
He reached over and covered her small hand with his own, stunned by the magnitude of her loss. Life without his mother and father was unthinkable. “I’m sorry.”
She sniffled, then wiped her nose with the back of her other hand.
“Here, take this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief.
“Thank you,” she answered politely as she accepted his handkerchief and began to blow her nose. When she finished, she crumpled the handkerchief in her hand and held it out to him.
He shook his head and shifted uncomfortably against the wall. “You keep it.”
Mariah gifted him with a brilliant smile and hugged the handkerchief close. “If you’re sure it’s all right.”
“It’s just a handkerchief,” he told her. “You may need it again, and I have plenty more at home.”
“Thank you ever so much.”
“Did you ever come here with your mother?”
She nodded once again. “All the time. My mummy said that if you wish on the stars, God listens to your wishes, and if you wish on a shooting star, God makes the wish come true.”
“Do you always wish to marry a handsome prince and live in this castle eating cake and biscuits every day?”
“No,” she answered truthfully. “Most of the time I wish for my mummy to come back down from heaven and get me. But sometimes I wish that I’ll grow up and marry a handsome prince and live in this castle and have cake to eat whenever I want it.” Her voice broke and she quickly covered her mouth with her hand.
“A handsome prince might marry you,” he said, offering what comfort he could. “And give you cake to eat. As long as you don’t eat it every day.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. My wishes won’t come true now anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Because I told you about them.”
“So?”
“So, wishes don’t come true if you say them out loud or share them with anybody else. They only come true if you keep them all to yourself.”
“Kit!” A loud masculine shout echoed through the ruins from the ground below. “Your mother’s finished. Time to go.”
The boy shot Mariah an apologetic glance. “Papa’s calling me,” he told her. “I have to leave now. My mama and papa were collecting sea creatures from the beach for my mama to draw. Papa only let me come to the ruins because the groundskeeper swore they were safe. We’re going home tomorrow, and I wanted to see the old tower.”
“Oh.”
She sounded so bereft that his heart went out to her. “Will an earl do?” he asked.
“Huh?’
“I’m not a prince,” he explained. “I’m an earl. But my mama says I’m handsome, and one day when I’m all grown up, I’ll come back and marry you if you like.”
“Truly?” she breathed. “You would come back and marry me someday?”
“Why not?” he answered with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. “I have to marry someone. It might as well be you.”
“Will we live here at Telamor?”
He shook his head. “I don’t own Telamor. But we have a very nice house in England. It’s not a castle, but it’s as big as one, and the attic stairs go all the way to the roof. My papa and I go up there and look over the estate, and I’ll bet it’s a grand place for looking at the stars.”
“All right, then.” She smiled up at him. “I wanted to live at Telamor, but your house sounds very nice and I like you.”
“Then it’s settled.” He pulled her close and planted a clumsy kiss on her lips the way he’d seen his papa do to his mama.
“Kit!” His father’s voice sounded louder, closer. “Where are you?”
“Coming, Papa,” Kit called down the stairs, before turning back to look at the girl. “I have to go.”
“You won’t tell anyone about this?” She glanced around. “About my being here? If the nuns find out...”
“I won’t tell.” He turned and started down the stairs.
“Wait!” The urgency of her whisper halted him in his tracks. “You forgot your lantern.” She picked it up and held it out to him.
“You keep it,” he said. “And use it to find your way to and from the tower in the dark.” He smiled at her once again. “Now that we’re betrothed, you have to take care of yourself.”
“You won’t forget?”
“I won’t forget,” he promised.
He waved once more, and then he was gone.
Always a Lady
Book 2 in the “Mistress of the Marquess” Series
Ever a Princess
Book 3 in the Borrowed Brides Series
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Once a Mistress Page 40