future husbandly behavior may be found in how the gentleman treats his horse.”
From The Knowledgeable Ladies’ Guide
to Eligible Gentlemen
Chapter Four
The sobbing never ended. Alexander stopped his ears, but he could still hear it. Whoever the woman was, she was beyond desperately unhappy. She keened like the biblical Rachael who would not be comforted because her children were no more.
He rose from his pallet and padded toward the sound, his bare feet cold. When he looked down at them, he saw that they were impossibly small, the feet of a child.
The woman sobbed louder.
If he could only find her, maybe he could make her stop. He climbed a curved set of stone stairs, the circular motion turning round and round in his head, all tangled up with the rhythm of the sobs. The steps led to a corridor that stretched into the distance, dimly lit by a knife-thin blaze of light stabbing the stone floor under the closed door at the end.
He trudged toward the arched door. The ceilings were so tall, disappearing into the shadows over his head. He’d have had to reach up to grasp the heavy iron latches on the closed doors he passed. He was a dwarf in a land of giants.
A man’s voice growled from behind the last door, urging the woman to be quiet. Alexander stopped. He couldn’t make out all the words, but the tone was one of undeniable authority. If the man couldn’t make her stop weeping, what could Alex do?
He stood still, paralyzed with indecision. The weeping grew louder, echoing inside his own chest now. She was in such agony, he ached for her. No one should have to carry such grief.
Then suddenly the sobbing stopped. The door at the end of the hall swung wide and a bright light blinded him. But just before the world went startlingly white, the after-image of a man carrying a body slung over his shoulder was burned on the backs of Alexander’s eyes.
Alex sucked in a hissed breath and was instantly awake. He sat up quickly and realized he wasn’t in the strange hall near the weeping woman. He was in Hester MacGibbon’s kitchen. The old lady had insisted he stay on with them in the interests of thrift, but she didn’t truly have a bed for him. He’d stretched out on the pallet where her footman usually slept.
Could this strange dream be “the weeping woman” Sir Darren MacMartin warned him about?
The nightmare had been disturbing enough. Waking from it was almost worse. He felt helpless, frozen with anxiety. He couldn’t do anything for the woman. Worse, he recognized the fear that had made him gasp when he woke.
Alex had felt that before. He hoped the fear was dream-induced too, but his memories of the distant time when his mother had left him were a jumbled mess. He wasn’t sure what was a true memory and what was a dream.
It could be classified as a nightmare either way.
The sky outside the small window in the kitchen was lightening to a dirty gray. Alex lay back down and waited for his heart rate to return to normal.
He tried, without much success, to conjure his mother’s face. He’d been four years old when she died, but she’d left him when he was much younger than that.
She’d had long dark hair. He remembered that clearly. He remembered the feel of it between his baby-fat fingers, the long strands curling around his childish fist. And the way she smelled, soft and powdery, sweetly infused with attar of roses and honeysuckle.
But he couldn’t see her face in his mind’s eye. Oh, he knew what she looked like. When Alexander was twelve he’d discovered the only portrait of her his father hadn’t destroyed up in the attic. It was a small painting, no bigger than his hand. The miniature had probably been sent to his family when the match between Wentworth Mallory, Alex’s father and the future Marquis of Maldren, and Finella MacGregor, was being arranged. Alexander’s older brother told him the families had joined forces so each of them would have a claim on land on either side of
From The Knowledgeable Ladies’ Guide
to Eligible Gentlemen
Chapter Four
The sobbing never ended. Alexander stopped his ears, but he could still hear it. Whoever the woman was, she was beyond desperately unhappy. She keened like the biblical Rachael who would not be comforted because her children were no more.
He rose from his pallet and padded toward the sound, his bare feet cold. When he looked down at them, he saw that they were impossibly small, the feet of a child.
The woman sobbed louder.
If he could only find her, maybe he could make her stop. He climbed a curved set of stone stairs, the circular motion turning round and round in his head, all tangled up with the rhythm of the sobs. The steps led to a corridor that stretched into the distance, dimly lit by a knife-thin blaze of light stabbing the stone floor under the closed door at the end.
He trudged toward the arched door. The ceilings were so tall, disappearing into the shadows over his head. He’d have had to reach up to grasp the heavy iron latches on the closed doors he passed. He was a dwarf in a land of giants.
A man’s voice growled from behind the last door, urging the woman to be quiet. Alexander stopped. He couldn’t make out all the words, but the tone was one of undeniable authority. If the man couldn’t make her stop weeping, what could Alex do?
He stood still, paralyzed with indecision. The weeping grew louder, echoing inside his own chest now. She was in such agony, he ached for her. No one should have to carry such grief.
Then suddenly the sobbing stopped. The door at the end of the hall swung wide and a bright light blinded him. But just before the world went startlingly white, the after-image of a man carrying a body slung over his shoulder was burned on the backs of Alexander’s eyes.
Alex sucked in a hissed breath and was instantly awake. He sat up quickly and realized he wasn’t in the strange hall near the weeping woman. He was in Hester MacGibbon’s kitchen. The old lady had insisted he stay on with them in the interests of thrift, but she didn’t truly have a bed for him. He’d stretched out on the pallet where her footman usually slept.
Could this strange dream be “the weeping woman” Sir Darren MacMartin warned him about?
The nightmare had been disturbing enough. Waking from it was almost worse. He felt helpless, frozen with anxiety. He couldn’t do anything for the woman. Worse, he recognized the fear that had made him gasp when he woke.
Alex had felt that before. He hoped the fear was dream-induced too, but his memories of the distant time when his mother had left him were a jumbled mess. He wasn’t sure what was a true memory and what was a dream.
It could be classified as a nightmare either way.
The sky outside the small window in the kitchen was lightening to a dirty gray. Alex lay back down and waited for his heart rate to return to normal.
He tried, without much success, to conjure his mother’s face. He’d been four years old when she died, but she’d left him when he was much younger than that.
She’d had long dark hair. He remembered that clearly. He remembered the feel of it between his baby-fat fingers, the long strands curling around his childish fist. And the way she smelled, soft and powdery, sweetly infused with attar of roses and honeysuckle.
But he couldn’t see her face in his mind’s eye. Oh, he knew what she looked like. When Alexander was twelve he’d discovered the only portrait of her his father hadn’t destroyed up in the attic. It was a small painting, no bigger than his hand. The miniature had probably been sent to his family when the match between Wentworth Mallory, Alex’s father and the future Marquis of Maldren, and Finella MacGregor, was being arranged. Alexander’s older brother told him the families had joined forces so each of them would have a claim on land on either side of
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