The Marquess Married a Murderess (The Brelsford Brothers #1)
Prologue
“Come along, Selena!” her cousin Anne called.
Selena hesitated, but Anne was having none of it and grabbed her hand, towing her to the alcove of the Tullys’ salon where the fortune teller they’d hired for their dinner party sat at an ornate, velvet covered table.
“Everyone else has had their fortunes read already,” Anne stated, pushing Selena into the chair. “Don’t you wish to know if you’ll marry?”
Selena softly snorted, forcing a nonchalance she was far from feeling.
She did, in fact, wish to know if she’d marry.
And who she’d marry. And if they’d be madly in love and live happily ever after like the princesses in the book of fanciful tales her grandfather had given her.
But the last thing she wanted to do was ask the fortune teller, who even now looked at her with a raised brow and narrowed eyes.
What if the woman said no?
“Very well,” she finally muttered with every ounce of confidence her twelve-year-old self could muster. “Tell me then.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed further, but she began shuffling the cards in her gnarled, papery hands, her piercing gaze never leaving Selena.
Selena gripped her skirts in her fists to hide the shaking of her hands as the fortune teller turned the cards over one by one.
Queen of Hearts…that one was good, she thought. Though…it was reversed. What did that mean?
Queen of Spades. The fortune teller frowned.
That boded ill, did it not? Selena swallowed hard as more cards were turned.
The Knight of Spades, reversed. Ace of Clubs, also reversed.
She didn’t know what they all meant, but she did know reversed usually meant the opposite of whatever the original meaning was.
And that, along with the increasingly pinched look on the fortune teller’s face, made the gnawing pit in her stomach intensify.
“Well?” Anne asked when the silence had stretched too long. “Will she wed?”
Instead of answering, the woman’s hand darted out and snatched Selena’s. She flipped Selena’s hand over and flattened it out, running a dry finger over the lines of Selena’s hand while she muttered under her breath.
Selena let the woman look for as long as she could stand the suspense, and then pulled her hand back, letting all the questions clouding her mind fill her eyes.
The woman tilted her head and gazed at her a moment longer and then gave her a sharp nod. “Aye, ye’ll wed.”
She sat back, her lips pressed into a thin line.
Anne and Selena waited. Surely there was more. She’d spun wonderful fortunes for all the other girls, full of details of the brilliant matches they’d make. Surely there was more for Selena than three short words.
“Is that all?” Anne asked.
The woman hesitated, her eyes darting between the girls, then around the room, as if she wished to ensure no one else would overhear.
“Ye’ll wed. I see laughter. And happiness. But it’ll require a leap of faith.” Her eyes narrowed into tiny slits as she stared at Selena, and she suddenly sat forward, grabbing Selena’s hand to yank her closer. “Trust your gut, girl. And choose wisely. Or you may find a few…bumps along the road.”
Then she released her and started muttering under her breath again.
Selena stood there, thoroughly discombobulated. What…did that mean? Trust and wise choices? Leaps of faith? And what bumps along the road?
Selena wasn’t sure what to make of it all. But as she walked away, the fortune teller’s quiet mutterings turned into a chilling cackle, and she couldn’t help but feel as if her ‘fortune’ had been more of a curse.