Once Charmed, Twice Cursed

Chapter 1

Chapter One

T here’s only one man I want to marry, and he isn’t one of the ninety-nine who have proposed.

I stand by the window in our grandiose second-floor hallway, staring out at the graveled drive below. Today is the last day any prospective husbands can make an offer for me.

Tomorrow, my brother will decide who I’ll marry.

At the thought, my breathing accelerates. The drive outside is empty, as is the road beyond, and the sun is already making a rapid dive toward the trees. But before the day ends, there will be a hundredth proposal. Any moment now, Weston Wildes will come stomping up the road, his golden brows pulled low over the eyes that never fail to drive a shiver through me.

I can see it already. Weston will let himself into our home without so much as a knock, the same way he always does. He’ll clomp upstairs and glower at my brother because he glowers at everyone, then clap Brendan on the back to let him know they’re still friends, regardless. The ease with which they touch one another will make my chest ache. The ease with which Weston touches everyone but me.

But then will come the moment. My favorite moment. Weston will peer past Brendan, searching. His gaze will collide with mine.

I’ll forget how to breathe. The knowledge will desert me just as readily the thousandth time as the first, and I’ll stand transfixed, my entire body kindling under that piercing stare.

Brendan will start yammering about finances, but Weston will hold up a hand, halting my brother mid-sentence. He’ll step past and come close to me. Closer than propriety strictly allows, but not so close that we risk touching. He’ll rummage in the pocket of his modest tailcoat and produce a careworn book, one he probably spent half an hour choosing for me.

At the sight of it, my heart will threaten to overflow. My brother will try to ruin the moment by mocking his best friend for indulging my love of stories, but only because Brendan never catches the way Weston’s glower eases when we’re close like this. He won’t see how the ruthless angles of that beautiful face soften only for me.

Weston will hand me the book. He’ll ensure our fingers don’t brush, even though he will have pulled on his gloves, like he always does when he’s in this house.

I’ll smile. Pretend not to imagine what his hand would feel like against mine, the warmth of it.

“Hello, Birdie,” Weston will say. He’ll do it in that way of his, like my nickname is a secret he’s keeping from the rest of the world. Then we’ll talk, and he won’t once let his gaze stray downward. He’ll ignore my Mark entirely, and I’ll marvel at the effort, because every gown I own boasts a neckline low enough to put the triquetra between my collarbones on prominent display.

But Weston will study my face. Only my face.

Once he’s told me why I’ll love the story he’s brought—and he’ll be right, he’s always right—Weston will follow my brother upstairs to his office. On the third floor, they’ll talk accounting and business and boxing, and then the man I’ve loved for a decade, the one I fell for on sight at fourteen, will finally muster the courage to ask for me.

Weston will be the last man to propose. The hundredth. And the only one who actually matters.

“Bria.”

I turn at the sound of my name. My brother stands amid the hallway’s opulence, his hands loose at his sides. His satin waistcoat gleams in the slanted light. “Is there a reason you’re standing there, staring out the window?”

I shift my weight. “I’m waiting.”

An easy smile tilts his mouth. “For?”

The answer swirls in my veins, filling the spaces between my ribs. Weston , I want to say. Freedom.

But Brendan has no idea I’ve spent the last decade yearning for the one man I’m not allowed to touch. For the gift only Weston can give me.

I’m not sure what he would do if he did.

“To see if anyone else comes,” I hedge.

My brother chuckles and wanders over. The late light deepens the green of his eyes and gilds the streaks in his light brown hair. I imagine it does the same to me, because our coloring is identical, enough that when we were younger, people often mistook us for twins. In actuality, Brendan is a year older, but as children, we stuck so closely to one another that people assumed we shared a birthday.

That was before , though. Before I retreated into books, and my brother into things like satin waistcoats and matched cutlery sets.

Brendan studies the window, using its reflection to arrange his hair into a more stylish configuration. “There’s no one left, Bria. Every man in Pine’s End has already thrown his hat into the ring.”

I inspect the drive. It’s still empty, but with any luck, Weston will round the bend in the road in moments.

And that’s the thing—when it comes to luck, I have lots. I have all the luck in the world, in fact.

The fortune goddess decided so herself, before I was even born. She inked her three-pointed knot onto my skin when I was still in the womb, marking me as one of her favored.

Good luck has followed me ever since. When I was three, a freak storm leveled half of Pine’s End, but my family remained unaffected, our home the only one without so much as a shingle blown out of place.

When I was seven, I went digging for crabs at the seashore and unearthed a chest of gold instead, stashed there by some long-ago pirate. The found fortune allowed us to move from the humble industrial town of Pine’s End to this lavish country estate six miles southward, where my parents now count dukes and lords among their neighbors.

And my luck hasn’t ended there. It spills over onto those around me. Whenever I pass by in the street, people find lost trinkets in their pockets, or remember things they’d tried desperately not to forget. In the market, a vendor might knock a carton of eggs from a table, only for it to land unharmed in my basket. Someone will cast a handful of dice in my presence and come up with exactly the roll they wanted.

Serendipity billows off me like perfume, and anyone standing close enough can inhale a bit for themselves.

Hence the ninety-nine offers of marriage.

It’s not because those men actually care about me. None of them even know me. Not really.

“Not every man,” I tell Brendan.

My brother’s smile turns puzzled. “There are a hundred bachelors in Pine’s End. You’ve had ninety-nine proposals. Surely you can do the math.”

I lift my eyebrows and give him a significant look.

His smile dims. “You can’t mean... Come on. Not Weston .”

My fingers tremble, and I bury them in my skirts to hide the tell. I’ve never dared to confront Brendan about my feelings for his best friend. Truth be told, I’ve never really dared to confront anyone about anything. My luck has always tilted the world in such a way that I haven’t had to. Everything always comes to me.

Everything except Weston, that is.

“Well, why not?” I say.

Brendan’s gaze narrows. “Bria. That isn’t funny.”

“Who said I was joking?”

“I did,” he says crisply. “Forget that he’s my best friend and I’d break his nose if he so much as sniffed at you in that way. He’s a Null , Bria. I know you two are friendly, but you can never forget his Mark.”

I press my lips together. I haven’t forgotten Weston’s curse. Or the terrible luck that plagues him because of it. I never do. “I know. I only thought that... That maybe...” A fist closes around my windpipe, and my courage dries up. Damnit.

Brendan cocks his head. “What? You figured he’d like having you around to cancel his curse all the time? That you might avoid a real marriage by working out some sort of friendship situation with him?”

Shock nearly pinches my throat shut. “What? No, I?—”

“First off, he has no money to offer,” Brendan says, as if I haven’t even spoken. “He may be the most brilliant accountant in Pine’s End, but he can’t compete with what the others have promised, not on his salary. Even if he could, no man is going to marry a woman he can never touch.”

I do my best not to flinch, but Brendan may as well have just slapped me across the face.

My brother’s eyes drop to my neckline. I squash the urge to plaster my hands over my triquetra, because there’s no point in trying to hide my Mark. Or the dismayed heat creeping up my chest.

He sighs. “Look, I know you want to help him, but his Mark is his problem, not yours. Even if he could offer for you, even if he swore to give you your own room and be your husband only in name, I’d never put you in that position. All he’d have to do is touch your hand for a minute. He’d be so tempted. Sooner or later, he’d slip. And you’re too valuable for that.”

My throat burns. “My Mark is too valuable, you mean?”

“Right. Yes.”

Hurt yanks at my insides. Suddenly, I want to push him. Knock him down and shout that my worth as a human and as a vehicle of divine favor are not one and the same.

That I amount to more than this tattoo at my collar .

But emotion clogs my throat, walling off the words, so I turn back to the window. Weston will come. He has to. I’ve never wished this hard for something and not gotten it.

Another half-minute slinks by, but the drive remains vacant. So does the road, and when the sun kisses the treetops, bitter doubts creep in.

The fortune goddess can’t actually help me with this, I realize. No amount of divine luck in the world can affect Weston Wildes.

Because he’s Marked, too. Except his triquetra—an inverted version of mine—marks him as a Null. Not blessed by Fortuna, but forsaken. Bad luck follows him as faithfully as favor follows me, though when we stand close enough, our magic temporarily cancels out.

If we ever touched each other... We’d both lose our luck, good and bad. Forever.

My yearning for him swells into something monstrous. Maybe I can’t wish Weston here through magic, but he’ll come for me, even without Fortuna’s intervention. Ten years of heated looks and loaned books and sheer, unadulterated longing can’t possibly end with me marrying someone else. Can they?

Brendan checks his pocket watch and sighs. “Look, I know you weren’t thrilled about Mom and Dad deciding you should marry, but you might as well let this idea about Weston go. He’s fighting tonight, anyway.”

I jolt. “He’s what?”

“Fighting. In town. At the cotton mill.”

I almost choke. “What? Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“But...he didn’t tell me that. ”

My brother frowns. “Why would he?”

“Because,” I say, unable to scrub the alarm from my voice. “I should be there. I have to be there.”

Without me nearby, Weston’s Mark will be in full effect. And for all his surly grace, for all that he can absorb a punch without flinching, something will happen to throw the match. A section of the ceiling will collapse as he prepares to land the winning blow, or someone will spark a cigarette and accidentally burn the place down. A floorboard will give way under Weston’s feet, and he’ll fall and break his neck. Something.

“I have to go,” I say.

Brendan shakes his head. “What? No, you don’t.”

“I do. He’ll lose without me there.”

“So he’ll lose.” His eyes narrow. “Honestly, what’s gotten into you? He fights all the time without you there. This is no different.”

That brings me up short. Weston always invites me to his matches. Or so I thought. “He fights without me? Regularly?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?”

Bitterness floods my tongue. “Has he ever won? When he was on his own?”

Brendan rubs a hand across his jaw. “Once, maybe. Twice? But that’s not the point. The point is that he’s a grown man. He can make his own decisions. Without you.”

A burn takes up residence in my chest and spreads outward. I have to get to Weston. Keep him safe. I don’t care what Brendan says.

I turn on my heel and sail down the hall. I’ve already wasted half the afternoon standing at this window like an idiot, and Weston is probably getting his face punched in as we speak .

“Bria! Where are you going?”

“To help Weston win,” I call back.

“Stop.”

I don’t. I don’t even slow. I just hurry down the staircase and out into the cooling evening, then make for the stables. No time to bother with a cloak.

I saddle my yellow mare and vault into the stirrups, then bolt out into the falling darkness.

As the manor retreats and Pine’s End draws nearer, betrayal slices across my heart. Weston isn’t coming for me. He never was, and I don’t know what that means. How that could possibly be. How he could let Brendan marry me off to someone who doesn’t even care about me.

Nor do I know what I’ll do once I reach him, because I’ve never had to fight for anything before. I’m not sure I even know where to start.

But I am certain of one thing.

I’ll do everything— everything —in my power to keep Weston’s luck from hurting him.