Chapter 2
Agnes
The dress was wrong. It was a good dress, a well-worn dress: one of her favourites, in fact, that she had worn countless times.
Yet still, it was wrong.
Agnes Forrett held carefully still as Sara, her lady’s companion, made swift work of the ties at the back.
She turned to look at herself in the mirror. The dress fit exactly as it always did. It was as comfortable as it always had been, the fabric still soft and familiar through overwear. But wrong.
‘Is everything all right?’
Agnes tried to catch the wince before it showed on her face.
‘Yes,’ she lied, hoping that Sara had not seen her expression. ‘Yes, fine. Thank you.’
Sara raised her eyebrows disbelievingly. ‘Is it one of those days?’
It was impossible to hide much from Sara.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But there is nothing at all to be done about it.’
Sara was the daughter of one of her father’s innumerable allies, and Laurence Forrett had hoisted her upon Agnes as a lady’s companion when they were both far younger.
Agnes’s parents had insisted upon it: she required the company of another woman, someone who was not a nursemaid, and her sisters Muriel and Ada were too young for the role. It was time Agnes learned to behave.
Sara was a little older, with soft, light brown skin and waves of thick dark hair, which Agnes had delighted in plaiting when they were young.
Her father was a Moor, an accomplished knight who had journeyed to Scotland after winning favour in battle.
A lady in her own right, Sara had been picked to ensure compliance, to guard Agnes against sin, and to keep her from unwomanly habits.
The endeavour had been entirely unsuccessful.
Sara had been more of a mentor to Agnes than any of her tutors.
They were both strong-willed, and had found friendship in a shared sense of alienation.
Their bed in Agnes’s chambers had played host to all manner of experimentations and explorations, of touches both light and fierce.
It had never meant anything, but Agnes’s eyes had been opened under the tutelage of the more experienced girl.
When Sara began a brief dalliance with one of the family guards – who was, Agnes had to admit, very pretty – Agnes had hidden their affair. When Agnes had defied her parent’s wishes and begun to once again sneak from the home in her men’s attire, Sara had assisted.
When Sara had appeared in their chambers in messy tears after missing her bleeds, Agnes had been the one to calm her. She had been the one to risk her own reputation by procuring the right herbs. She had brewed the tincture and held Sara long into the night, until the pain stopped.
When Agnes journeyed across the border to marry her late husband Nicholas la Cleve at nineteen years old, it had only been right that Sara joined her.
Sara had been Agnes’s strongest ally in those times when her soul and body were at war.
She knew what it was like to feel other, even if not in the same way.
Sara gave Agnes a tight smile. Agnes kept her head down, avoiding the metal of the mirror. She could not bear to look at herself again – it would only make her head reel and reignite that horrible, itchy feeling that she was so familiar with. The terrible urge to step out of her own skin.
With luck, the feeling would pass soon enough. Earl Ashwy Barden – the man who would, in all likeliness, become her husband – would be arriving at the keep within the next few days. She dreaded the thought of entertaining him and assessing his suitability whilst she still felt like this.
Sara got to work wordlessly on Agnes’s hair, brushing it out in a long, red cascade that reached past Agnes’s waist. Agnes was quite fond of her hair, and settled herself on a stool patiently as Sara combed it before tying it in a tight, looping crown around her head.
She had barely finished slicking back the final loose strands when there was a knock at the door, and a familiar voice from without.
‘Agnes?’
Agnes sighed. ‘Come in.’
The door opened to reveal Agnes’s sister, Muriel. She had arrived at la Cleve Castle some time ago. There was barely a year between them – Agnes older – but oftentimes it felt as if it were the other way around.
Agnes had hoped that her family, and Muriel especially, would leave her be during the drawn-out process of finding a good match. Her luck had not won out. At least Muriel’s visit would soon be over: she would be returning to Scotland in a few days.
Muriel looked worried but determined as she entered the room. Agnes’s heart fell.
‘That will be all, Sara,’ she said, smoothing out her skirts. ‘Thank you.’
Sara gave her a knowing look. ‘My ladies.’
Another wince smothered. Sara only used the title for Muriel’s benefit, yet it still stung. Sara curtseyed to Muriel as she walked past, quietly shutting the door behind her.
‘Muriel.’ Agnes regarded her coolly. ‘Are you well?’
‘I am. I … I have come to speak to you. As a matter of some urgency.’
Agnes was sure she knew why Muriel had decided to talk to her. She raised her eyebrows. ‘Yes?’
‘I have heard … worrying rumours, about the man you are to meet.’
Muriel was talking cautiously, as if to speak too boldly may shock Agnes into hysterics. Agnes, of course, had caught wind of the rumours a day or so ago: there had been a fight during the funeral of the late Griffin Barden. She wondered how Muriel had come to know of it.
‘Oh?’ she prompted, feigning ignorance, keen to see how their stories differed. ‘What kind of rumours?’
Muriel’s face paled. ‘Very concerning ones.’
Agnes made a do tell gesture, silently waiting for Muriel to continue.
‘It may not be anything,’ she said, hands clasped tight in front of her. ‘But I was talking to … to a friend, and …’
‘Muriel. What word do you have?’
Muriel stopped twisting her hands together.
‘There was a fight at Lord Griffin’s funeral,’ she said. ‘Between Lord Barden and his cousin.’
Agnes paused, hands impassively in her lap. She needed to know precisely what her sister had discovered.
‘A fight?’
‘It was awful apparently,’ Muriel admitted at last. ‘Quite a sensation. The cousin was badly hurt.’
‘And Lord Barden?’
‘Cuts and bruises mostly.’
‘And did anyone mention why there was a fight? Or who threw the first fist?’
Muriel’s anxious look only deepened. ‘Lord Barden started it,’ she said quietly. ‘As to why …’
‘Muriel?’
‘I am not sure—’
‘Why would a newly titled earl start a brawl at his own father’s funeral?’
Muriel chewed on her bottom lip.
‘Rumour will suffice,’ Agnes added.
‘The word is that the new earl has taken his father’s death very poorly,’ Muriel said at last. ‘That he was already a volatile man – he was at war in France, and badly injured, which I’m sure you already know – but he returned, ah—’
Agnes waited.
‘Wrong,’ Muriel concluded darkly. ‘Aggressive. Cruel. Unpredictable.’
Agnes nodded solemnly. ‘And where did you hear this?’
Muriel’s expression wavered for just a moment. ‘Everyone is talking about it,’ she said.
Agnes’s first instinct was to distrust her sister. But she was not wrong; word spread fast, especially amongst their staff.
She had known that Barden had suffered in France, and had been equally made aware that his nature was not, perhaps, the most placid.
But neither was hers, not really, and more so: something felt off about the rumour.
Something she could not place her finger on, no matter how many directions she turned it in her head.
Not all the reports of Lord Barden had been poor ones. He had been recommended to her, in fact, as a good match, even though he was far past the age where he ought to have taken a bride. But that was before the funeral, before these new tales had sprung up.
She was determined to work him out for herself, and not have her mind made up for her by people who were equally unacquainted with the man.
Her sister seemed to be taking her thoughtful silence as nerves that equalled her own.
‘Are you sure you wish to go ahead with this?’ she asked.
Agnes took a quick, sharp breath. ‘I am.’
Muriel pouted. ‘You know you do not have to. If you would just listen to Father, Francis cares for you ever so much, and—’
‘I tire of hearing that man’s name in my home, Muriel. I know I do not have to meet Lord Barden. But I intend to do so all the same, even if you all believe I would be better wed to Francis.’
‘We’re just worried about you, Aggie.’
This wince was not suppressed at all. ‘Agnes.’
‘Agnes, then.’ Muriel swooped on her, taking her hands in her own. ‘We are worried about you. I am worried about you. I worry what sort of man you may be tying yourself to.’
That, too, was a thought Agnes had mused over.
But if she acquiesced to their parents’ demands and did return to Scotland to marry Francis mac Cainnich, she knew already what sort of man she was tying herself to: one fuelled by spite, who would never allow her freedom.
A man she wanted very little to do with.
At least Lord Barden – no matter what rumours followed him – was a chance for something else.
If Barden was as violent and mad as the rumours told, then she would break off the arrangement before it had even been made.
If his invitation to the keep, even after hearing news of the scandal that had erupted at his father’s funeral, irked her family, well …
it was a hardship she was willing to live with.
Eagerly willing, perhaps. She would not have them dictate her life for her.
She had been married once already. She had run a keep, both when her husband had slipped into his all-consuming illness and after his passing.
She was more than capable of dealing with an earl with a temper.
Muriel was still looking nervous. ‘I will prolong my visit and stay with you, at least, whilst he is here.’
Agnes set her shoulders. ‘And why would you do that?’
‘So you are not alone, of course! You do not have to suffer him without support.’