Free With This Curse: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense by Amanda DeWees Page B

time that I would never consider marriage. And if once in a while in later years my certainty relaxed into curiosity, I was always driven back into the resolution of solitude by what I observed—and experienced—in the company of the theater and its followers. Actors, I determined, were an unreliable lot, charming and full of blandishments but slipping easily out of any suggestion of marriage. And my standards were all the higher after having known a true gentleman. Held up against my memories of Richard, even the kindest and most sincere of the men in the troupe might have come up wanting.
    And Atlas? Was he kind and sincere? I had seen enough to realize that the man with whom I was linking my life bore little resemblance to the boy I remembered. I should have felt little surprise there; with Richard the shining sun in my eyes, his less fortunate brother was always eclipsed. It spoke well of Atlas that he cared so much that his father’s last days be comfortable, but the mysterious other motive to which he had referred so obliquely would trouble me until I knew what it was.
    No one else, I observed, harbored any such doubts. My landlady was delighted with my luck, especially (she did not quite say) considering my advanced age. She suggested that her youngest niece, a girl of fourteen, accompany me as my maid, but I had noted the girl’s shy, uncertain demeanor and knew she would be too easily influenced by her superiors into giving up my secrets. I needed an experienced, unshakeable veteran of below-stairs politics, not a well-meaning innocent. I thanked my landlady but assured her that I could not yet part her sister from her youngest chick.
    My thoughts then turned to Martha. It grieved me to see her in such a life as she was now living, but I knew that her pride would not permit her to accept employment with me even if she had been suited to such a position. When I asked Sybil Ingram if she could recommend anyone, her response astonished me.
    “My dear, as happy as I am that you are marrying, I cannot in good conscience send anyone to that house.”
    “Whyever not?” I exclaimed, and then light dawned. “The curse.”
    “Indeed yes. I’d be far happier were you and Mr. Blackwood to settle elsewhere.” She gave a little shudder that might not have been affected; like many in her profession, I knew, she was distinctly superstitious. “I’m astonished that you aren’t doing your utmost to persuade him to make some other home. The baron has plenty of money, I’ve heard; if he doesn’t already own properties elsewhere, it would be of little difficulty to him to have a new home built for his only son and daughter-in-law.”
    “Setting aside the trouble and expense,” I said, “my betrothed does not wish to be separated from his father during what will surely be his final illness. In any case, he does not fear the curse, and I have nothing to fear from it.”
    Putting her head on one side, she narrowed her eyes in a long, searching look at me. “No, it is something else you fear, is it not?”
    “I never said that.” To avoid that close scrutiny I turned away and resumed packing up my sewing things. Atlas—Atticus—was having my few belongings sent ahead to Gravesend, my sewing machine among them, and I was clearing out the little sewing room in the theater. Sybil Ingram settled on the sewing chair, arranging her skirts so that they would fall becomingly, and watched me.
    “You do not have to say it. Your shoulders are drawn almost up to your ears, and you won’t meet my eyes. It isn’t fear of the marriage bed, surely, with so handsome and amiable a gentleman as Mr. Blackwood. And he is hardly the sort to beat you, I should think. What is it you’re afraid of?”
    The bluntness was, in a way, a relief. I stopped plucking at a mess of spools that had become entangled and turned to face her. “I used to be a servant at Gravesend,” I said frankly. “My betrothed knows this, but no one else must. It