Chapter 2 Betrothal
BETROTHAL
The Gods choose who can apply while the High Sage chooses who gets accepted.
Once rejected, always rejected, unless a God intervenes.
Claudia’s twenty-third birthday falls like a scythe, slicing December in two.
She’s in the sitting room waiting to meet her betrothed for the first time.
While she waits for his arrival, she dangles a gray mouse by its tail like a pendulum—back and forth between life and death.
Bishop, her white rat snake, stretches across the blue rug at her feet and opens his mouth for dinner.
Usually, he’s upstairs in her room curled up in his enclosure, which is an old wooden trunk that’s too warped to close.
Claudia brought him down with her today for emotional support, and for defense in case Lord Fournier is too eager to touch her.
Bishop knows how to strike and run. He’s bitten Claudia’s father more than once, but never unprovoked.
“Get rid of that monstrous thing. You know I don’t approve and neither will your betrothed,” her father scolds while he paces the dim foyer.
He has hated Bishop ever since Claudia found him three years ago hidden in the snow, his body as white as the harsh winter that would have killed him if she had not brought him inside.
Her father’s hatred made her love Bishop all the more.
She has a talent for loving anything her father hates—snakes, stars, stories.
Most of all Claudia loves life, as cruel and cold as it can be.
Whereas he does everything he can to escape it, she wants more of it, as much life as she can swallow, even if she chokes on it. She wants to taste it all.
The mouse twitches and turns until it can meet Claudia’s cold green eyes.
Its tiny hands wring as if in prayer, and its black eyes glisten with fear.
She pulls the mouse farther back. Claudia has fed Bishop this way for years without so much as a flinch, but this mouse looks different, like it’s begging her to let it live.
Bishop ate fairly recently. He will survive a few more days until Claudia can find him another meal—one whose death won’t make her feel so guilty.
Surely there are older and uglier mice around here, and who knows the state of her newly betrothed’s home.
It could be perfectly rife with delicious rodents.
She could release this mouse and give it the chance that has been taken away from her.
There is a knock at the door. Claudia’s father snatches her arm. She drops the mouse directly into Bishop’s waiting mouth.
“No!” she yelps. Her father jerks her wrist, pulling her tightly to his side.
“No?” he growls.
The corners of her mouth fall when she glances over her shoulder. “I was going to save the mouse.”
Her father leans in, his acrid breath scraping the side of her cheek when he laughs. “You are no one’s hero.”
Her nostrils flare. “Am I not yours? Saving you from the debt you have wrought?”
“You’re the one indebted to me, you selfish girl.” His grip moves from her wrist to her ring finger. “You should have been married years ago. You were never meant to be my problem for so long. I had to find a way to keep you fed.”
Fed isn’t the word that Claudia would use. Alive, yes. But hardly fed. Her dresses lie like bedsheets around her frame. Hunger is a whetstone that has sharpened all of her features.
There is a second knock, this time louder with growing impatience. Claudia ushers Bishop under the couch. The mouse’s tail hangs from his mouth like a second tongue. Her father places a firm hand between her shoulder blades and shoves her toward the door.
She twists the knob slowly, terrified of the face that is waiting on the other side.
When the door screeches open, it’s worse than she imagined.
Lord Fournier is a shriveled man with spotted hands and thinning hair.
A gray coat swallows his frame. It must’ve fit once upon a time, but he’s shrunken with age.
His tired, lazy gaze roves over her body.
He seems pleased, though his face is doubled over in wrinkles.
His smile isn’t strong enough to reach his eyes.
“Lord Fournier,” her father says with a smile while he wraps a heavy arm around Claudia’s shoulders. “Allow me to introduce your betrothed—my beautiful daughter, Claudia Jolicoeur.”
The old man’s fingers tremble when he kisses the back of Claudia’s hand. “Hello, darling.” His voice sounds like wet skin sticking to itself. She winces. She’s not his darling. The title feels like shrugging on a too-tight coat.
He nearly loses his balance when Claudia retracts her hand.
She hates that she pities him when he’s the one stealing her future, but he looks so weak.
He could die from a tight embrace. All of these sad imaginations fill her mind: Old Lord Fournier eating alone, across from the empty chair where his true love once sat.
Old Lord Fournier’s hands shaking while he throws back his morning medicine.
Old Lord Fournier wishing his kids still lived close.
He’s such a sad sight. She almost feels bad for him.
Almost.
“Shall we retire to the sitting room?” her father says when the silence stretches too long.
“Please,” Lord Fournier says, stumbling through the doorway, bracing himself on a gilded cane.
Her father sits on a torn leather chair in the corner.
Lord Fournier sits on the long sofa and sinks into the thin cushions.
Claudia begins to sit in her mother’s old rocking chair, but her betrothed says, “Won’t you sit beside me, darling? ”
Her father glares at her, eyes full of warning. Slowly, she moves toward the couch, toward the man who bought her before she knew she had been fitted with a price.
The conversation between the two men hums like wasps in her ears.
Their words sound muddy when they talk numbers—what is Claudia worth, down to the dollar?
She is pretty enough, with moon-pale skin, sparkly eyes, and a pouty smile.
But can she manage a house? Does she know how to clean?
Can she sit still enough without making a sound so that she can be admired by his colleagues as if she were a painting above a mantel?
They discuss her age—plenty of time to give Lord Fournier at least three children if not more.
They ask her to stand, turn, bend. They comment on the swell of her breasts, the width of her hips. Every inch of her is appraised.
She had once thought that she was just like her snake—sharp tongue, sharp teeth, always ready and able to strike.
Now, as she stands before her father and her betrothed, still and breathless as stone, she wonders why she is not fighting back.
At this moment, she should be wicked. Ugly.
Undesirable. Whatever it takes to ruin her betrothal to this man.
But she looks around their home filled with tattered curtains and worn furniture and empty glass bottles.
She can’t stay here. Then she thinks of her harsh rejection from Cygnus University.
What other choice does she have? Where else can she go?
A marriage to a wealthy man is her only hope for a decent life.
It is a miracle, as her father loves to remind her, that they were able to find a man of Lord Fournier’s station who would accept this proposition in the first place.
Merciful, her father called him. Merciful is the man who would take a girl from a terrible life and give her a new one that may or may not be worse.
The men come to some sort of agreement about her fate. Now that Lord Fournier has approved of her, he will stay the night here in a guest room. Tomorrow, the two of them will be wed, and Claudia will be taken away.
Despite the wintry air, they take to the park for a promenade.
The trees are thin as bones, dressed in stubborn black leaves.
It’s so cold that the breeze turns white.
Claudia’s donned multiple layers for warmth—tall boots, green cloak, black scarf—but this wind has teeth.
It bites through everything from velvet to leather to skin.
In places like London and Paris, the marital season is in the summer when it’s warm, but Kulden has its own customs. Here, the marital season begins at the end of the year in hopes that couples begin the new year as one.
Lord Fournier stumbles through the walk, so Claudia serves as his cane to steady him. His hot breath moistens her cheek. He won’t let go of her hand.
It’s humiliating.
Walking toward them is Genevieve Thornington, previously Genevieve Marlow, who lucked into marrying Lord Thornington, the richest man in town.
Claudia’s father had once tried to pair her with him, but Lord Thornington declined for two reasons: He had no interest in paying off Lord Jolicoeur’s debt in exchange for a bride, and mainly, he found Claudia to be “far too disagreeable to be a wife.”
Claudia dislikes the term disagreeable. It’s too passive. It’s inherently reactionary. Claudia prefers to be thought of as opinionative, and argumentative when the situation calls for it.
Lord and Lady Thornington are a pair out of a Kulden postcard—white-blond, icy eyes, lips that look like wet wounds against their pale skin.
Both dressed in fine garb in the same shade of yellow, they are like drops of sunlight gliding across the shoveled stone path.
The newlyweds smile at Claudia and her betrothed when they pass by, then follow with snickering at their backs.
Claudia’s cheeks burn. She wants to turn around and spit out insults, but she holds her tongue.
She needs to make this betrothal work for her, and all she has to do is keep her composure until they say their vows.
Once her future and her fortune are secured, she can open her big mouth again.
Until then, she’ll keep this tight smile plastered onto her face, even as her cheeks twitch and ache.
From across the park, an angry Lord Wexford—face red as his hair, exaggerated by his heavy black overcoat—eagerly spots the two of them and circles the stone path to speak to them.
Claudia has met him several times, though never under happy circumstances.
Her father owes him the most. Lord Wexford has sent threatening letters; he’s cornered Claudia and her father in town; he’s even shown up on their doorstep in the middle of the night demanding to be paid.
In a drunken daze, Lord Jolicoeur once offered Claudia in lieu of money.
Lord Wexford said no, for he’s already married and, in his words, “no woman is worth the amount you owe me.”
“Hello, Lord Wexford. You look rouged,” Claudia says mockingly. Lord Wexford doesn’t deign to look at her.
“Lord Fournier,” Lord Wexford says. “I spoke to Hubert”—Claudia winces at hearing her father’s name without the title; how little these people think of her and her family—“and he instructed me to speak to you about retrieving what I am owed.”
Lord Fournier nods. “Tomorrow, Lord Wexford.” He squeezes Claudia’s hand. “Once she and I are married, I will keep my word.”
With a tight scowl, Lord Wexford nods. “Tomorrow, then. No longer. I’ve already waited for the better half of a year.” He looks Claudia up and down. “Do right by him. You cannot grasp the magnitude of the favor he’s doing for your family.”
Claudia’s eye twitches. Lord Fournier is no savior—he’s a bargainer.
While they walk, Lord Fournier says, “Darling, I can sense your concern, and I’d like to offer some words that may put that at ease.”
Claudia smiles at him, hoping he’ll say something miraculous like I plan to give you lots of money and leave you alone forever! Or maybe Don’t worry, darling, I’m already terminally ill!
That would be perfect. She could escape with the Fournier fortune and fall for someone from his house staff—a handsome footman, or maybe have a forbidden affair with a gorgeous handmaiden. She gives him a dreamy, hopeful look while he clears his throat.
He looks down at her with tired eyes and a soft, thin-lipped smile. “You fear you will not be an adequate wife, for you’ve faced so much rejection.”
Claudia swallows down a laugh. She doesn’t fear being a bad wife—she doesn’t even want to be a good one. She doesn’t want to be a wife at all. No dismissal from a suitor has ever hurt her. The only truly painful rejection she’s ever received was the one from Cygnus University.
“But do not worry,” Lord Fournier continues. “From what I have seen, you are a good, quiet girl. You are submissive and obedient. You are polite, decently groomed, and a pleasure upon the eyes.” He pauses, narrowing his gaze to gauge her reaction.
She’s frozen. The way he just described her is everything she never wanted to be. Somehow, he reads her face as pleased, and he nods happily.
“See? Nothing to fear, darling. I’m confident you’ll suit all of my needs, and in turn, I promise to care for you so long as you are mine.”
Mine. His word loops in her mind. It’s the threat that wakes her up.
She can’t accept this. He’s not offering her a life—he’s forcing her into a slow, sad, boring death.
She can see it all now as if it’s already happened; she’ll surrender her body to this man, bear his children, and then he’ll die.
If she has no boys, her father will take over Lord Fournier’s estate and Claudia will watch him drain another fortune.
She’ll be too stretched and used and old to convince another man to take her hand, and she’ll be left in a worse position than she’s in right now.
There has to be another option. Something. Somewhere. Someone.
When they return home, Lord Fournier kisses her hand before he retires to his room, and she feels entirely numb.
Once she and her father are alone, he says, “Good.” That’s all.
Not as a compliment to her or a remark upon her behavior.
Just an observation of the situation. No more debt. No more daughter.
Good.
Bishop slithers out from beneath the couch. Claudia carries him back to her room, noticing his slanted smile and his fat belly.
Her stomach churns. The mouse has been swallowed, and so, too, has she.