Claiming his Cursed Duchess (Cursed Brides #2)

Prologue

FIVE YEARS AGO

“ I am so thrilled to have joined you all for this party,” Michael said.

The twenty-one-year-old man had recently assumed the title of the Earl of Claridge. His boyish smile was a rare sight, and at that moment, it shone as brightly as the lightning that flashed outside the carriage window.

Rosaline laughed at her brother. Even their mother, still in her mourning black since her husband’s death a year ago, smiled.

“I simply could not imagine any way I would prefer to be spending this lovely evening,” Michael continued as the rain drummed on the carriage roof, wind lashing it against the window so violently, that he finally drew the curtains shut. “I am certainly not envisioning a brandy by the fire in my warm, dry study.”

“How will you find a wife if you never leave your favorite armchair?” Rosaline teased.

“I am the earl; prospective brides and their mothers seem to find me no matter where I hide,” Michael scowled. “Even freshly in our grief, they come calling. I only attended the party tonight so they would stop accosting me in our home.”

“The ones who come calling uninvited and un-introduced are far too forward to make an appropriate match,” their mother sniffed, though her watery smiled betrayed her haughtiness.

Both Michael and Rosaline had grown up hearing the story of how their mother had fallen head-over-heels for their father, and pursued him relentlessly until he felt the same, loving her until his dying day.

Rosaline sighed, starry-eyed. “I hope to be wooed by an infatuated suitor like Father was.”

Their mother chuckled, smiling, and reached out to cup Rosaline’s cheek. “With Your Grace and beauty, you will be, my dear girl.”

“I shall have to approve of them first, of—” Michael chimed in, but suddenly, the carriage shook violently, jostling them all.

Michael slid open the small window to speak to the driver.

“What is happening?” he called over the storm, peering out and flinching at the rain, eyes widening as the carriage suddenly bolted forward.

“My lord, the Hindports’ carriage has slid off the road!” the driver cried out as he tried to rein in the spooked horses.

They reared as the thunder crashed, sending the three in the carriage tumbling as the carriage stopped abruptly.

“We must help our cousin, and signal to Lord Foxmere behind us to stop before they?—”

His warning came too late.

Michael’s directions were cut off by the sound of another carriage colliding with their own.

Rosaline pitched hard as the carriage tipped over, crying out as she broke through the carriage window, splintered glass and wood slicing into her arms, hands, and face.

She recoiled from the wreckage of the window, folding her arms against her chest as she gasped, wild-eyed, then looked up.

“Michael! Mother!”

It took a moment for Rosaline to realize that the carriage was fully on its side, and that the shrieking she heard outside was more than just the wind.

Horses were shrieking.

A flash of lightning lit up the sideways scene, and she saw Michael and her mother lying in the opposite corner of the carriage.

“Michael! Mother!” Rosaline gasped, crawling gingerly toward them, flinching as lightning flashed and shards of glass and wood bit into her palms and knees.

The wailing of the wind and the horses assailed her as much as the rain pelting through the broken window and gashes in the side of the carriage.

She reached Michael first, shaking him, grabbing his face to turn his head towards her, accidentally smearing her blood across his pale skin.

His hair was wet with the rain from the broken window, but his eyes…

They were dull. Empty.

“Michael, wake up!” Rosaline begged, shaking his shoulder.

When the lightning flashed again, Michael did not flinch. He did not blink. His chest did not rise or fall.

And, in the flash of lightning, Rosaline realized with horror that his hair was soaked, not with rain, but with blood.

Rosaline screamed—she could not help herself—and even as she did she thought she could hear her mother admonishing her that is was not ladylike to do so.

“Mother, are you hurt?” Rosaline asked through her tears, but the only answer was thunder.

“Mama?”

Rosaline felt her stomach twist and drop as if sinking into the earth below the carriage.

“Mama?” she whispered, looking at the unmoving form on her brother’s other side.

When the lightning flashed again, and Rosaline saw that she was truly alone, she wailed.

The blue of the eyes she shared with her family looked so dull in the absence of life. They looked so pale—their blood was so red.

And as Rosaline took another breath and wailed again, she felt the rain mix with her own blood, sheeting down her arms, down her neck, pouring from her face.

The world went fuzzy around her, then the calm, cool darkness enveloped her.