Chapter 11 #2
"The maids are all aflutter. Even Cook commented about those pretty eyes, and the only thing I've ever heard Cook refer to men as is 'trouble,' or 'not worth it.
' My companion seemed to prefer your thighs, though I'm not going to repeat any of that," she said firmly.
"Mrs. Pendlebury should be ashamed of herself.
She probably would be, if she'd known I was listening.
There has never been a man like you at Tremayne Manor before, apparently, and considering the wealth of visitors streaming through the door inquiring after their futures, that is something to be said indeed.
" She tilted her head. "You're quiet again. "
"I am actually wondering if there is some hole somewhere that I can crawl into and hide," he drawled. "You are... not at all what I was expecting."
"Were you anticipating a poor little blind girl, sitting in her attic, hoping nobody would pity her?
" Cleo couldn't stop the tart hint to her tongue.
Gravel stopped crunching beneath her feet, and she turned automatically, finding the path again.
Another thirty or so steps to the lake and the folly.
"No, I—"
"And why would you be expecting anything at all?
" she continued, hunting for truths. "I thought you were here to see my father.
Why would you have even cast a thought my way?
Most people generally don't. I think my father prefers it that way.
" Her voice roughened. "Then I can be his little secret, locked away in my secret garden. "
All she could hear were the ducks, the buzzing of insects, and someone, perhaps one of the gardeners, yelling something in the orchard a mile away.
"Well, considering we're to marry, I did give you some thought."
Cleo dropped the basket. "What?" She couldn't have heard that correctly. Could she? And why on earth could her Divination not warn her that there was a handsome, taciturn stranger in her future, one who felt like danger?
Gravel shifted. He was picking up her basket and the items within it, kneeling at her feet she suspected.
She couldn't move. She wasn't entirely certain what she was even thinking, or felt at this moment.
She should have been angry. How dare her father do this to her?
Not even a mention of it! Not even a by and by. .. Or at least an introduction.
She didn't know this stranger, this Sebastian. And now he was going to own her and make her decisions for her, and oh, my goodness, she hadn't thought it before, but he was probably going to expect heirs from her.
Mrs. Pendlebury's mutter about those thighs sprang to mind. She hadn't quite understood it at the time, though she had some idea, and now she was going to find out exactly what Mrs. Pendlebury had meant.
Knock me over with a feather...
"I'm sorry. My mother said a special license had been prepared, so I thought your father had told you that you were to marry, but you had no idea, did you?" Sebastian knelt at her feet, and she could feel his gaze on her face.
It was doing its best to rival a sunset, judging from the heat in her cheeks.
"I'm–I'm..."
"Speechless," he said. "Well, there's a first."
Cleo shut her mouth. Premonition had fallen willfully silent. There was not a single itch along her skin at all.
"I wanted to see what you were like," he murmured. "Might I enquire how old you are?"
That made the floodgates open. "What, you didn't ask? What kind of marriage is this?"
"This... wasn't entirely my choice. I discovered the fact only hours ago, when my mother sent me to deliver the letter agreeing to it. I forgot to ask about you. I was too furious, considering the wedding is set for tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? But— When... I don't—" She was speechless again. And livid with her father. Did he intend to simply inform her on the day and expect her to happily don her wedding gown before marrying a stranger?
There was nothing to say to that. Absolutely nothing.
But her father was going to hear about it, oh yes.
Taking a deep breath, she rubbed her temples.
It wasn't Sebastian's fault. Nor hers. And he had asked her a question, hadn't he?
"I am one-and-twenty. I've been here at Tremayne Manor all my life, so it may seem I'm more sheltered than most. No doubt I am.
" In some ways. In other ways, she had Seen quite enough of the world—of disaster and blood and torn bodies, of changing weather patterns, sorcery, maliciousness.
.. visions that woke her up at night and left her with no rest.
The worst one was the one that seemed to recur, over and over again.
London's Doom, she liked to think it. An enormous hovering cloud of roiling darkness that crept over the horizon of London, with flickers of lightning dancing within it.
Only, she wasn't certain it was lightning, after all.
She'd seen so many horrible things, and this was but a cloud, and yet it was the most frightening thing she'd ever predicted.
There was... so much emptiness to it. So much pain.
It made her heart bleed, even as she wanted to run screaming.
Cleo shook the thought away. If she dwelled on such things, she'd spend most of her life crying. Bad things happened. If she let them, they would make her life nothing but a nightmare, and she refused to live like that.
"Well, that is some relief," Sebastian said, standing and delivering her basket back into her hands.
"That I'm sheltered?"
"That you're not a child."
He was, no doubt, referring to her figure.
With her blindfold obscuring most of her face, her age could be difficult to predict, and her form was somewhat insignificant.
Plus, her father liked to dress her in white lace that drowned her.
No doubt Tremayne liked the idea of some pure, virginal foreteller, and thought it played up to the image some people had.
If unicorns existed, he'd have probably chained one to the lawn.
"So... You didn't ask what age I was," Cleo said slowly. "You evidently didn't ask much about me at all. Did you ask if I were pretty?"
"No."
That could be interpreted in two ways. Either he didn't care, or it didn't matter to the situation at all, for there was no changing it. Perhaps both.
"I told you, I was angry. I was thinking that I clearly didn't have very much choice in this and that I was going to be married to someone I didn't even know." He let out a slow breath. "And I knew your father. I wasn't... hopeful of much."
"You thought I was going to be an overbearing troll with a big nose and thick dark brows and piercing eyes that squint a little, didn't you?"
"Are you certain you cannot see a thing? That sounds very much like your father."
"I know his face," she admitted. "It's the only one I remember."
"I was thinking," he said slowly, as if chewing over the words, "that your father is not a very nice man at times. I couldn't imagine his daughter being... well, being you."
"What does that mean?"
"You are not at all like your father."
Cleo resumed her walk, taking slower steps. Sebastian, her fiancé, fell into step, which was possibly the strangest thought she'd ever had to encounter. My fiancé. What strange words. They didn't feel real. None of this felt real.
"Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked, tilting her head up at him.
This was a secretive silence, full of a sudden tension between them. She was beginning to like his silences. They told her so much.
"You are not... without your charms."
Cleo burst into laughter. "Do you know, I quite think you've never courted a young lady before, have you?"
"No." The word was bleak and a little cold. "What was required of me was never courtship. I could tell you that you were the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen, but none of it would matter. I have seen beautiful women before and thought them the ugliest monsters I've ever encountered."
What a strange way to refer to it—it was never courtship... She felt something akin to a chill run over her skin. "I'm sorry."
"For?" The shadows in his voice fell away.
"You sounded sad," she said. "I hate it when people are sad. There is too much of it in the world."
"It's not sadness, Miss Sinclair. I'm angry." This was a whisper. "I'm very, very angry, and it terrifies me. Sometimes I think it's going to eat me alive."
Cleo's skirts swished in the grass. "You shouldn't be afraid of yourself, Bastian."
"Bastian?"
Cleo hid a small smile. "I like the sound of it. We may as well be familiar. I know it's very fast, considering I only just met you, but then my father did barter me away in marriage to you. And you sound nice. I can trust you."
"Miss Sinclair—"
"Trust me." She deliberately bumped against his arm, swinging her basket happily. "I know these things."
"But you know me not at all. I have done... a great many things that I am not proud of. Indeed, I begin to wonder if there is anything to be proud of."
That stalled her. He felt so right to her, that it had to be her seer abilities. She'd never been wrong about a person before. "Did you mean to do any of these things?"
"No."
"Then why did you do them?"
"Miss Sinclair, it's not—"
"I won't tell anyone. I am very good at keeping secrets."
They walked along for a few moments.
"My mother, Morgana, is a sorceress. A long time ago, she felt she was wronged, and she has vowed to bring her vengeance upon those who wronged her. I–I—"
"She makes you do bad things, doesn't she?" Cleo whispered. "Why do you not tell her no?"
"I cannot. It's not as easy as making a choice." His voice hardened. "When she wants something, there is very little one can do to stop her. She finds ways to force your hand."
Of that, Cleo could understand a little. "She threatens those who surround you?"