This was to be Bartholomew’s punishment—the death of his youngest sister. Come springtime, a farmer tending his sheep would discover her decaying body.
No.
It would be frozen.
The cold winter temperatures would have preserved her flesh. She would be a lifeless but frozen beauty.
The local prince would insist she be laid out in his castle for all the locals to come and admire. Her family would hear of the frozen princess, and when they viewed her lifeless loveliness, they would break down weeping at the tragedy that had stolen her life.
Bartholomew would forever grieve for having given into his weakness for gambling. He would turn away from his vices and live out the remainder of his life…
In service to the church.
Yes.
Delia would have smiled at such a thought if her lips weren’t numb from the cold.
A garbled sob echoed, and Delia startled to realize it had come from her.
She was going to die. She was going to succumb to nature’s fury, and no one would care.
Not even her handsome prince.
Two
Lord Jack Thorne, Viscount Oswald watched out the window of his carriage at the inconvenient storm raging outside. Whereas others might be warmed that it would snow around the holidays, Jack, most certainly, was not.
Nothing about the holidays warmed him—not the singing, not the decorations, and most definitely not having to spend two weeks with family and friends.
Not that he didn’t love his grandparents and his sister and her family—he did. But he abhorred the contrived notions of joy and peace and all the other expectations Christmas promised.
It was a time for memories to mock people—a time to remind them that life isn’t the fairy-tale one imagines it will be as children.
Jack was reasonably content and knew better than to expect anything more. His sister would mock him for failing to have “Christmas spirit,”—as though that was something any sane person wanted or needed.
The coach shuttered and Jack cursed at the snow outside.
Rather than sleep in his own bed, he was going to have to take his room at the Black Sheep, Old St. Vincentshire’s only inn.
And even more annoying, Lizzie, the barmaid who’d warmed his bed in the past, no longer worked at the inn. She’d been the one consolation he’d turned to on these occasions when he had no choice but to journey home. Unfortunately, when he’d visited in September, she’d informed him she was going to marry one of her father’s cousins’ sons.
What sort of fellow married a prostitute? Likely, the bloke didn’t know. As far as her family knew, she served ale and assisted in the kitchen.
Her groom was a lucky man though. Lizzie couldn’t cook worth a damn, but she possessed alternate talents to keep a man satisfied.
Mr. Chapman, the innkeeper at the Black Sheep, would have replaced her by now. But there wasn’t much consolation in that. Jack wasn’t interested in bedding just anyone. He’d known Lizzie for a few years before entering their arrangement, and was doubtful he’d find her replacement as suitable or enticing as Lizzie had been.
Nor as clean and… safe. In exchange for the regular stipend he’d provided her, he’d paid Lizzie enough that she could refuse other customers.
Which protected both of them from the pox as well as other maladies.
The best lay in the world wasn’t worth sacrificing one’s health, after all.
Damned inconsiderate of her father’s cousin’s son to come along and want to marry her, ruining a perfectly satisfying arrangement.
Jack dismissed a hollow ache that had plagued him recently. It didn’t really have anything to do with Lizzie, or the holidays, or anything of substance. And it would pass. It always did.
The world simply wasn’t the colorful place it had once been. It was… muted.