Free Almost a Princess by Elizabeth Thornton

dead Brothers that cried out for blood.
    After five minutes of listening to Joseph’s rambling, Piers suddenly got up. “I’m going out,” he said.
    Piers never went anywhere without Joseph, so he got up as well. “Where are we going?” he asked.
    “To Twickenham.”
    Joseph groaned. Twickenham, always Twickenham. “It’s late,” he said, “and it’s miles away.”
    “The trouble with you is you’ve grown soft. Go to bed, Joseph. I’ll go myself.”
    Joseph knew better than to accept that offer. He followed his master out.
    It was a grim-faced, three-story building with windows in the attics. Originally, it had been a barracks, and the acreage on which it stood was the parade ground, but that was before living memory. Sometime during the last century, it had been turned into a poorhouse, but the name Barracks had stuck. It had stood empty and neglected for a long, long time, but had been recently acquired by Mr. Arthur Ward from Bristol.
    He would raze it to the ground, thought Piers, and build a house to rival other grand houses in the area, especially the house just across the river. Twickenham House. The name, the memories, were burned into his brain.
    He left Joseph to explain their presence to the watchmen he’d hired to keep trespassers away, and he walked along the riverbank till he came to a gap in the trees. Across the river, the Deveres’ stately home was quite visible, though on his side of the river it was as dark as pitch. The Deveres, the high-and-mighty Deveres, had money enough to keep the darkness at bay. Outside lanterns were still lit, and though the duke and Lady Sophy must have gone to their beds long since, lights shone from the upstairs windows. God forbid that a Devere should waken and find himself in darkness.
    He couldn’t count the number of times he’d stood in this spot, as a boy, and watched the comings and goings of the Deveres when he was supposed to be tending the poorhouse’s vegetable patch, or collecting fallen branches for kindling for the fires. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d been soundly thrashed and sent to bed without his supper because he’d neglected his work. No punishment was severe enough, though, to keep him away from the gap in the trees and his fascination with the Deveres.
    Lord Caspar was obviously the apple of his father’s eye. In the school holidays, there would be boating parties with his friends—all the sons of wealthy men—and picnics with pigs roasting on spits, and horse riding and drives with his father in his curricle. There were two younger children, a girl and a boy, but Piers was not interested in them. Lord Caspar was the favored one, his father’s pride and joy, and that’s what counted.
    The Thames was more than a river. It was an insurmountable barrier dividing two worlds, the blessed world of the privileged, and the unspeakable world of the poorhouse.
    In the poorhouse, the older children were separated from their parents and rarely saw them. His mother had died there, and before she was cold, she’d been taken away for a pauper’s burial. His world was cold, dark, and dirty, with brutal punishments meted out for minor infractions of the rules. In his world, there were no tantalizing smells of roasted pigs turning on spits. There was black bread and soup, and porridge to fill their empty bellies.
    Envy was too mild a word to describe what he felt. He hated the Deveres more than he hated anything.
    He would curl up at night in his cold bed and pretend he had changed places with Lord Caspar. The Duke of Romsey was his father and he, Gideon, was the favorite son. He would have an army of servants at his beck and call and do whatever he pleased. But that wasn’t his favorite part of the fantasy. He saw Lord Caspar reduced to rags, as he was, and going to bed cold and hungry. He saw the bigger boys coming for him, as they always did with a new boy, and showing him how powerless he really was. There were no real friends