Spurned

by R. Moses

  Chapter Twenty Six

  She pushed the door open and heard only a soft click. She looked up and down the wide hall, so familiar yet so alien. Nothing had changed. She, who had grown up surrounded by opulence her whole life, now saw how obscene it was as she put her foot down on the lush carpet. Most of the King's people were poor, heartrendingly so, working long hours under the hot sun to keep their Lords in comfort. Never mind the even worse suffering of the slaves...

  She had never realized how divided the kingdom was in terms of wealth until she had traveled with the carnival for a short year. Some of those villages barely had enough bread, never mind luxuries like ale and meat.

  Her heart thudded so hard her ears buzzed. New sweat bloomed under her hair. She had to do this, she had to.

  She saw no one, so she forced her feet forward, made her hand raise, made herself knock on his study door. These actions were so simple, yet so difficult.

  “Come,” her father drawled.

  She opened the door and he looked up from his liquor. She took a step in and closed the door behind her.

  He stared at her with red-rimmed eyes and said nothing for a little while, just blinked. He finally said, “Kara.”

  “Lord Brahm.”

  He smiled then, a weak smile, but a smile nonetheless. “I am glad to see you alive and well.”

  He nodded to the deep leather chair before his desk that Lady Brahm had sat in not so long ago. “Sit. There is much to speak of.”

  She sat, adjusting the satchel so that the bottom sat on the seat behind her. Her heart rate was slowing and the buzzing had disappeared at least; she realized she had been afraid he would not even hear her out. She was trespassing, after all.

  She decided not to dither. “You said you'd set Esha free if I paid a thousand gold coins.”

  “I did.”

  “I have the coin.”

  Through his drunken bleariness, he took a while to understand. “How? That is a fortune.”

  “It was dearly earned.”

  “I am sorry to hear that. Darling, the situation has changed. But for the better for all of us.”

  “I know. Twins. I have two sisters.”

  He shook his head. “I thought you would be back in a few years, not one. I was going to have everything ready for you by then.”

  She paused, curious. “Ready for what?”

  “Your ascending to the rightful Lady of this house.”

  Shocked silence greeted his words. She stammered, “But Anna, Lady Brahm's family-”

  “Will be dealt with. Have some faith in your old man. I-” He threw back another huge swallow of liquor. “I suspect she is not my own offspring.”

  Kara stared, waiting for him to continue. She knew that no matter the father of the child, a baby born in wedlock was legally assumed to be the husband's heir. He was honor bound to raise Anna as his own.

  Another thought struck her. “So she is not my sister?”

  “Perhaps. Think on this, Kara. Does she bear any resemblance to me?”

  Now that she thought about it, no. She had the fair skin and bronze hair of her mother, the light eyes of her mother's line. Anna did not look at all like her supposed sire. Kara said, “No.”

  “Yet you and the twins, despite their youth, already bear a strong resemblance to me. I am of the opinion that my wife strayed and Anna is not my own. I am gathering my resources to petition the King's council for a divorce and to disinherit Anna.”

  “But Lady Brahm's family will gather their army and attack you! They would never bear the insult!”

  Lord Brahm gave her a smile. “You are not familiar with the current gossip, my dear. My wife's family, the noble house of Erich, has fallen into hard times. It was quite a scandal involving two other houses, a border dispute, the besmirching of a maiden's honor, and a stolen pig. Now her family is shunned by the entire court.”

  “They could still raise an army.”

  “Not if the two other houses win the case against them and divvy up their lands and rights.”

  Kara had always known the nobility were conniving and more than willing to destroy other houses for their own gain, but this sounded worse than usual. What kind of upset was wreaking such havoc on the kingdom of late?

  She swallowed back a dozen questions. This was too much too fast. “How long will all of this take?”

  “Less than a year, if my lawyers do their jobs well. Come back to the estate, Kara. You are no longer spurned. Though I cannot make your mother my wife, I will free her and the twins. Keep quiet of these plans for now. It is best the whole truth come as complete surprise to Lady Brahm and her daughter. When we have them removed, we will present you to the court and have you officially declared my heir.”

  “What if you have a male borne to you? I mean, won't you remarry if the divorce is granted?”

  “Naturally, you would no longer be my heir if I remarried and had a male heir. But you would still be a Lady, married off to another great house. We can start your courtly etiquette training and lessons as soon as Anna is disinherited.”

  This all sounded a little too good to be true. She wanted what he offered so badly she could taste it. Anna cast out along with her mother, forced into exile or farmed out to distant branches of their family that were not involved in this dispute...

  She asked quietly, “What is the catch?”

  “There is no catch, other than staying quiet and waiting while my lawyers do their work.”

  She blurted out, “I am under a contract for three years of employment.”

  He sucked in his breath. “Three years? How much to break the contract?”

  “I just signed it.” She added up the coins in her head. “Nine hundred gold coins to break contract.” She had more than that in her satchel right now.

  He stared at her, blinking. She thought she saw panic or anger flash behind his drooping eyelids. He settled back in his chair. “No matter. We will sell something or other to appease your employer. Perhaps that dressing table of Lady Brahm's will go to auction. I never did like that set. And as soon as all this has settled, we shall have your mother and the babes freed.”

  She stared at her father and thought of the choice he offered her. A dream come true. Her mother free. Her the heir of the Brahm estate. A deep instinct warned her none of this would pass in the manner he offered. It was her father's foolish dreams, his drunken rambling. Even if he was speaking mostly truth, there was no guarantee his lawyers could win the case. Meanwhile, Kara would be right there as Anna's plots unfolded. And if he remarried and bore a son...

  She would just be shuffled off to be wed to some other noble, not for love, but for the best advantage possible to her father, which meant she could never free the slaves on this particular estate, the ones she had grown up with, laughed with, worked with. And in a way, she would still be his property, still on a leash.

  And she did not want to leave the carnival. Icari's face flashed before her and she shivered. She would never, in a million years, be able to be his friend openly because he was foreign and brown. On the road, as a nameless carny, she could live with nearly as many freedoms as a man. She could be friends with whom she pleased; wed or bed whom she pleased. But as the Lady of a noble house, custom decreed who her friends and husband would be. She would have to drop everything and travel to the court if the King declared a council of nobles, never mind her obligations to her personal estate...

  She said carefully, “It is a great honor you are bestowing on me. I do not know what to say.”

  “Say you will abandon this job of yours and move back to the green suite. It has been readied for your eventual return. What is your employment, again?”

  She looked away, embarrassed. “I work at a carnival as a knife throwing act.” It was not technically a lie...

  To her surprise, he roared with laughter. “How scandalous!”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. Knowing how weak her father was, knowing how unlikely it was for him to s
ucceed in divorcing Lady Brahm, made this whole conversation seem pointless. Kara would never inherit the estate so smoothly. She would have to rip it from Anna, tear it away with trickery and deceit and possibly even murder.

  She also knew he was too much of a fool to see Anna for what she really was. And Kara had only one way to show him. She asked, “If I can prove to you that Esha, the babes, Lady Brahm, and yourself are in danger, will you free Esha and the babes for one thousand gold coins and five flawless diamonds?”

  “That is preposterous. Why would any of us be in danger?”

  “It's a long story.”

  “Most tall tales are.”

  “I can prove it! Just let me take mother and the babes away until the divorce is final and Lady Brahm and Anna are removed from the estate! You said less than a year. That is not so long.”

  He sighed. “This is nonsense.” He waved his hand languidly. “Go find your proof and I shall make a decision.” His indulgent tone said it would not be a decision in her favor.

  “It's in Anna's journal. I tried to tell you before you spurned me how evil she is.”

  He cocked his head. “How is she evil? What could Anna do to endanger the lives of our family?”

  She took a deep breath. This was so hard, so very hard. He would not believe her unless she found the journal. “Anna plots to kill you and her own mother the day after she turns eighteen and can inherit the estate without a steward holding it for her. Her journal explains everything. She was stupid enough to write it all down and to think no one would find it.”

  No one would likely have found the journal if Kara had not been spying on her sister one boring afternoon. She had watched her sister dig the journal out of the loose board under her window seat and write in it with a mean, little smile lighting up her face.

  “Utter nonsense. Even if she did keep a journal, young people are often prone to anger against authorities. Surely she meant nothing written.”

  Kara did not dare to tell him that in Anna's own hand, she claimed to have smothered Lord and Lady Brahm's two other children while they were in their cribs so she would have no competition for the Ladyship of the house of Brahm. One of the babes had been a boy by the name of Richard, his father's pride and joy for such a short time. He finally had his male heir...

  Until he was found, small and blue and dead in his crib two months after birth. Just like his sister Cyna. Kara's fingers curled into fists as her anger ramped up all over again. What kind of monster would slay two innocent babes, two innocent babes that were also her half-siblings?

  She implored, “Twice she has had her hounds 'accidentally' attack me. You remember. Then there was the time bitter poisons were dropped in my tea. The only way I caught it was because Esha told me how to sniff out certain poisons. Explain that, father.”

  He shifted, uncomfortable. She wondered if he did suspect. Why else keep Esha protected so well? Who else would possibly want to threaten her other than Anna and Lady Brahm? She stood up and looked down on her father. “Let me find her journal and bring it to you. If she is plotting as I say, let me take away mother and the babes.”

  He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “Go. Find your evidence.”

  She was turning to leave even as he finished his sentence. She ran out of the study, making sure to close his door so he could not see how she entered the secret tunnels, ran across the hall, and pressed the third decorative knob up from the floor. The hidden door swung back and she hopped in and closed it as quickly as possible. She lit her candle.

  She turned right and began to fly through the familiar maze, up another flight of stairs, left, right, left. She skidded to a stop before the panel that opened into Anna's room, her breath coming in short, hard gasps. She took a quick swig of water then slid the peephole panels back. All was quiet. She unlatched the panel and tip-toed into her sister's domain.

  It was as she remembered. A huge, mahogany four poster with billowing white clouds of cloth draped atop the canopy. Lush new carpet, a luxury Lady Brahm had insisted upon at her eldest daughter's birth. Large windows, also decorated with white cloth, looking out over the beauty of the formal gardens.

  The space was as light and airy and as beautiful as any room with such ponderous old antiques could be. This room practically sang with the dual harmonies of good taste and innocence. Anna had a collection of hunting dog figurines perched upon her dresser. Her unfinished needlework sat on a tall stand, each stitch perfect.

  Kara made herself hurry over to the window seat, hoping Anna had not destroyed the journal or moved it. Her room was huge and the manor enormous. There were no end to the places in which the journal could be hidden.

  She pushed the white cushion from the seat then wedged her fingers under the loose board and pulled.