I took a deep breath. I’d known this woman was going to give me a hard time. "I was overwhelmed. I just turned seventeen. Being the wife of the Lord of Death is a huge responsibility , and everything was happening so fast."
The women smiled and nodded as if they understood, except for Layla , who continued to eye me as if I were some sort of criminal.
Velna picked up the pastry that had been resting on her tiny plate. "Tell me, Keira. Why do you think he chose you? I mean out of all of the eligible women in Nowhere."
I had been wondering the same thing myself. "I don't know. You'd have to ask him that."
Layla scoffed. "Please, Velna. I think we all know the answer to that question. She's undeniably beautiful. Any powerful man, especially a man in Dunningham's position, wants a trophy on his arm."
My face warmed. I didn’t know how to respond to being called a trophy, so I said nothing.
Layla grinned at me. "Right, dear? I mean, what did he know about you before he asked for your hand in marriage?"
The other women squirmed uncomfortably. I knew Layla's words were true. Dunningham's interest in me was only superficial, but I didn't want to have this conversation. I felt as if Layla were accusing me of something, but none of this was my fault. I hadn't asked for any of it.
Velna touched her cloth napkin to each side of her mouth daintily. "Well, why he chose you doesn't matter as much as whether you can handle the position. Are you ready to be the First Lady of Nowhere? That comes with a lot of responsibility."
I stood and smoothed out my dress. "Ladies, please excuse me for a moment," I said as I let myself out of the room. Closing the door behind me, I leaned against it, breathing heavily. I had to get away from their prying questions.
Hesper walked toward me hurriedly, carrying a fresh pot of tea. "Ms. Keira, what's the matter?"
"I don't feel well." That wasn't entirely a lie. I felt the sudden urge to throw up. Before Hesper could ask any questions, I headed for the stairs. "Just send them home, please," I called behind me. I definitely wasn't looking forward to my next brunch and definitely not a whole lifetime of brunches.
In my bedroom, I flung myself on the bed, wondering what I had done to deserve this. It seemed more like a punishment than anything. Those women had been right : , many girls would have loved to be in my position, so the fact that it had been given to me I found unfair. I would gladly give it up to anyone willing to take it.
After a minute , there was a soft knock on the door. The door opened slowly. I didn't even look to see who it was. I could tell by the soft, careful footsteps that it was Hesper.
"I dismissed the ladies. It's time for your studies."
I turned over. "Great."
"You have your own study. For two hours every afternoon, you will go there, read, and look over the numbers. The wife of Mr. Dunningham has to be well versed in all things."
I sighed and followed Helena to my new study, which was a small room at the end of the hall that I had never seen before. This house seemed to be filled with an infinite number of rooms. The study held a tiny desk and four towering bookshelves full of books.
"Mr. Dunningham has placed your required reading on the desk," Hesper informed me. I stared at the two thick books on the desktop as Hesper let herself out. The sound of a lock closing told me that I would be sealed in for the next two hours.
I took a seat at the desk. I held the first book in my hands. Death in the Modern World was heavy and dusty. The second book, The Living and the Dead, wasn't as thick. I began with that one. Being a Grim, I was used to studying for long portions of the day, at home with my family. I was not accustomed to being locked in a study and treated like a captive. I opened Death in the Modern World and read, but there was no comprehension going on.
I stopped reading when the doorknob jiggled. I knew my two hours weren't up yet , so I assumed it was Dunningham coming in to check on me to make sure I was being the obedient fiancée I was supposed to be. I braced myself. I didn't want to be alone with him.
The door opened and closed. I turned to see Doyle standing there and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hi, Mr. Doyle."
He nodded. "Keira." He walked over and knelt in front of me. "Listen, Bram is coming to see you tonight. Be in the gazebo at nine o'clock."
"What? How? He can't be here. Dunningham will have him killed."
"He'll be wearing the invisibility cloak. He should be fine unless he does something stupid."
That wasn't very comforting. There was no telling what Bram would do at any given moment.
Tears welled in my eyes. "I don't want to stay here." I didn't know why I was confiding in Doyle, Dunningham's closest assistant. We'd never had any type of relationship, but right then he seemed like the only person I had in the world.
Doyle gave me a small smile and patted my knee. "I know. I know. Meet Bram tonight. That might make you feel better. Keira, right now you're in a position of power. Use it to your advantage. Use it to our advantage."
I didn't know what he meant , and he didn't give me a chance to ask because he left the room without saying another word.
I closed the book I'd been reading and rested my head on top of it. Staring at the bookshelf in front of me, I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
30
That night, Dunningham requested that the two of us retire to the garden for some after-dinner refreshment.
He had a glass filled with a dark liquid. I settled for a glass of water with lemon , and the two of us sat on a bench in his garden. It was dusk, my favorite time of day, with just a bit of light out. I sat as far away from him as possible. For a long time he said nothing, just sat there swirling his glass. All I heard was the sound of the ice cubes clinking together in his glass.
"How are you enjoying yourself so far?"
I wasn't enjoying myself at all, but I remembered what Hesper had said to me. Just do what you must to get along. "Your home is very lovely."
"Our home. Our home is very lovely. What's mine is yours now."
But I didn't want anything that was his.
Dunningham put his arm on the back of the bench. If I were sitting closer to him, his arm would have been around me. I stared straight ahead, feeling him staring me down.
"You're afraid," he said. "I can sense it."
"I am a little bit."
He moved closer to me and brushed my hair behind my ear. "You don't have to be afraid of anything. I'm going to be your husband in less than a year. You don't need to have a care in the world. You'll have everything you want and then some. Haven't I looked out for you so far? I didn't put your little friend to death when I should have. I made myself look weak in front of my people by going back on my word, but I did it for you. What are you afraid of?"
I was very grateful to him for sparing Naomi, even if it had been done with ulterior motives.
"I don't know if I'm ready for such an important position. I'm just a girl from Farrington."
"If you weren't ready, I wouldn't have picked you." He grabbed my chin with his hand and forced me to look at him. "You're not just anything. You're about to be my wife, the most important woman in Nowhere. You need to start acting like it."
I turned my head to get out of his grasp. "When I had brunch with those women earlier, they said you were only using me as a trophy. Is that true?"
Dunningham smirked. "I think those women are speaking out of jealousy. They would much rather their daughters or a woman from the Upper Estates be in your position. Don't let them get to you."
"Why did you choose me? You don't even know me."
He took a long gulp of his drink. "What does that have to do with anything?"
He had a point. Marriage arrangements had nothing to do with love or knowing each other.
"Mr. Dunningham, what happened to your other wives?"
He cleared his throat and took another swallow of his drink. His jaw twitched. "They weren't ready for the position, so they had to be removed."<
br />
"But where are they?"
"You will have it very easy here," he said, ignoring my question. "You don't have to go out and collect lives anymore. I will give you all the years you desire. Your family will be well taken care of. The two of us will live forever. All I ask for in return is respect."
I finally looked him in the eye, wishing that I had received enough serum from Marshall to cancel my immortality. The thought of spending an eternity with him as his wife made me want to cry, but I held it together.
He stood. "It's getting late. Let's go inside."
There was a sudden breeze. It felt lovely , and I wanted to stay out and enjoy it, not to mention that Bram would be coming at any moment.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to stay out a little longer just to think about some things."
"Okay, but not too long."
I watched him walk inside the house and shut the door behind him before going into the gazebo to wait for Bram.
Another breeze blew, this one colder, causing me to shiver. Someone had let Dunningham's dogs, Black and Blue, into the backyard. They sniffed around in the garden, then suddenly they barked and growled at something. Blue dashed around in circles. After a moment they calmed down and went about their business.
Footsteps creaked on the wooden floor of the gazebo.
"Bram?"
"Yeah."
He sat beside me.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah. You?"
"I'm good."
"And Josh and Naomi and Chase?"
"They're fine, too. She told us what happened at the mall. Hopefully they haven't figured out that we're on the farm." We were quiet for a moment.
"How's it going over there?" I asked.
"Good. You know, you haven't been gone that long."
I sighed. "I know, but it feels like an eternity."
"Sorry," Bram muttered. "I guess we should have been more careful."
I tried not to be envious of the others. While they were living in freedom, I had every second of my life planned out and dictated to me. I told Bram about my rigid schedule.
"I'm sorry. I hate that we're there and you have to live here with that douchebag. Ha, I learned that word when we were in the human world."
I couldn't even laugh at that.
Bram sighed. I wished I could see him. "I'm sorry, Keir. I'm really sorry. Listen, I'm not sure about the specifics, but something is going down. Just be patient for me."
"Okay. I should get inside," I said as I stood. "The longer you guys are gone, the more Dunningham is going to be pissed off. He asked me where you were."
Bram touched my face. "Hang in there. It'll get better. I promise."
Bram's promises always made everything better. He was a lot of things, but he kept his word.
There was another breeze , and Bram left me. I took a deep breath and went back inside.
Bram came back to the gazebo the following night. "We really need you to do something," he said.
"What?"
"You are in a position to get Dunningham to do practically anything you want."
I didn't feel that was true at all, but I wanted to hear him out.
"We need you to be really nice to Dunningham and ask him for some things."
I wished I could see Bram's face. What exactly was he asking me? "What do you mean , 'be really nice to him'?" I asked.
"Not that nice. But use your charm to butter him up."
I bit my lip like I always did when I was nervous. "What do I need to ask him for?"
"First, medical attention for the Grims who were hurt in the riot. People have been injured and lying in pain for weeks. That's ridiculous. Dunningham doesn't care because none of his precious people from the Upper Estates were hurt, but he should care about the others , too. Everyone works hard and does their part to make Nowhere work. Dunstan made an offer to send his doctors over, but Dunningham has yet to take it. Meanwhile, our people are lying in pain that's never going to go away."
The request sounded reasonable to me. "Okay," I said. "I'll ask him."
There was a pause. "Keira, just ask him, that's all." Bram sounded as if he were worried about what I might have to do to get that request filled. That was the last thing he had to worry about.
After speaking to Bram, I retreated to my bedroom. Dunningham and Doyle had been locked away in the study. They hadn't even come out for dinner. I was okay with that. I'd had a delicious dinner at a huge table all to myself.
When I entered my bedroom, I found Hesper there putting things away in my drawer.
She smiled when she saw me. I sat on my bed and folded my long legs beneath me.
She pushed a drawer closed. "Would you like me to draw you a bath?"
"Sure, if you want." I was fully capable of drawing my own bath, but I had declined Hesper's help all day, so I figured I should let her do something for me.
As she closed the final drawer, I asked her the question that had been weighing on my mind. I knew she had to know.
"Hesper, tell me the truth. What happened to Dunningham's other wives?"
She paused. "They're not together anymore."
"Yeah, I know that, but where are they? They just disappeared."
She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it quickly. "I should start your bath. You may join me if you want."
My annoyance at my question being ignored went away once I heard the roar of water running into the tub. I followed her into the bathroom. Hesper stepped close to me and lowered her voice. I strained to hear her over the water.
"He got rid of them."
"He got rid of them?" I knew it.
"Shhh," she hissed. "The first one had an affair. Of course, it was a great embarrassment to him. Thankfully only a few people knew about it. The second one, she had a son—Dunningham's son."
My jaw dropped. "What do you mean? Dunningham never had any children."
"His second wife got pregnant and bore him a son. It was Dunningham's greatest fear to have to give his throne up to his son on his eighteenth birthday, so he instructed one of the servant girls to get rid of the child at birth. He told his wife that the child had stopped breathing and died."
"So, that's why he killed her? For having a son?"
"Not entirely. She didn't believe him. She wanted to see the child's body. She kept going on and on about it, so you know… Dunningham couldn't risk people talking and asking questions. He wanted everyone to think the child died at birth, but the mother had heard her baby's healthy cry. She knew he was alive."
I looked into Hesper's coal-black eyes. "You were here then. What happened to the baby?"
"The servant girl killed him as Dunningham instructed," Hesper answered.
My heart dropped into my stomach. If a man would kill his own child, an innocent baby, he'd kill anyone. "What did he do to the women?" I asked.
Hesper dropped her voice even lower. "He took them to the year-subtraction chamber, then he had them beheaded privately in the backyard. That's his favorite type of execution. [C5]It's a rumor among the staff that he keeps their heads around here, but there's no evidence of that. I sure haven't seen them , and I know every nook and cranny of this house."
Hesper walked away from me. She grabbed a metal container from the edge of the sink, opened it, and began to sprinkle red rose petals into the warm water.
Once she was done, she patted my shoulder. "Don't worry, dear. You'll be fine. Just do as he says and you'll be fine."
Hesper turned the water off and left me alone to take my bath. I felt the weight of a huge responsibility on my shoulders. One, I had to get Dunningham to help the injured people of Nowhere, and two, I had to keep myself alive.
The next day , I asked Hesper for a run-down of Mr. Dunningham's likes and dislikes. She seemed to know him better than anyone. Hesper assumed that I had been frightened by her story about his previous wives from the night before , and was trying to stay on his good side. I let her think that. I found m
yself trusting Hesper a little bit, but the less she knew the better.
She told me that his favorite color was gray. So I slipped into a long, slinky gray dress that came down to the floor. The spaghetti straps cut into my shoulders and were completely uncomfortable, but I would have to endure it. I also had them prepare Dunningham's favorite dessert, plum pie.
Carefully, I walked to his room with a silver tray, balancing the oil and the small plate of pie. I held the tray in one hand and knocked on the door gently.
"Who's there?"
"It's me, Keira."
"Come in," he said after a brief pause.
I opened the door and carried the tray into the room. I had never been in Dunningham's bedroom before. The room was massive, dark, and lit only by candlelight. In the center of the room sat a large black bed with pillars in each corner. Black-painted walls. Straight silver curtains. The room was very masculine, yet beautiful at the same time. He sat in a recliner smoking a cigar.
I closed the door with my foot and stood there awkwardly. I reminded myself of what Bram needed me to do . O , o therwise I would have high-tailed it out of there.
Dunningham blew a puff of smoke. "You look nice."
"Thanks. I-I thought I would bring you a snack before you went to sleep."
He smiled with half of his mouth. "Thank you."
I walked over to him and offered him the tray with the pie. He looked at the pie for a moment, then he looked at me. I hated the way his eyes traveled down my body.
After a while, I grew impatient. "Aren't you going to take the pie?"
He took another drag on his cigar. "Aren't you going to feed it to me? My hands are full." He waved the cigar.
Every fiber of my being told me to make him wear the pie, but I controlled myself. "Sure."
Placing the tray on the dresser next to him, I dragged a chair over from the desk that stood in the corner. I sat beside him and dug into the plum pie. He opened his mouth as I offered him the forkful. I cringed at the noises he made as he ate.
"I could get used to this," he stated. "It's nice to see you coming around."
Keira Grim: The Final Breath Chronicles Book Two Page 22