Free Traitors' Gate by Nicky Peacock Page B

it’s not until I rush down the stairs and bump into her that I discover
that my old room is not my current room at all. I was sleeping in a completely
different bedroom, how embarrassing.
    I rush into the dining room like
the wind on a stormy night, gaining a withering look from Mistress. Black who
is seated at the table along with my father and a strange man.
    “And this is Lucinda,” my father
says pointing at me. The man next to him gets up and smiles at me. He bows
slightly and takes my hand in a sweaty grip. He drags his moist lips over my
palm in what I assume is a romantic gesture. I look over at father, who doesn’t
seem to care.
    “This is Lord Appleby. He has a
large estate in Dorset.”
    “Dorset? My, that’s quite some way
away.” I try to smile at him, but fail miserably.
    “Yes, you’ll love it there.” Lord
Appleby sits back down to the right of my father and Ms. Black physically moves
me to the seat across from him.
    Lord Appleby is painfully thin with
almost black eyes and a complexion liked a cooked frog. I imagine him putting
his arms around me, and I shiver; it would be like being enclosed by a sallow
fleshy girdle. The dinner slowly marches through seven courses, every one of my
favorites from Mistress. Leighton’s repertoire, but each plate is tainted by
the obvious conclusion to my homecoming: my father has sold me and didn’t even
have the decency to tell me beforehand. I’m to become Lady Lucinda Appleby, the
sixteen year old wife to a forty year old man who eats with his mouth open and,
as he’d gotten drunker through the evening, and has become more and more leery,
regardless of Mistress Black or my father’s presence.
    The moment I finish chewing the
last piece of the cheese and bread I stand up.
    “I’m tired from my journey, so I
will bid you goodnight, father, Lord Appleby, Ms. Black.” I nod to each of them
and turn to leave.
    “Wait,” my father says, “Lord
Appleby would like a turn around the garden with you.”
    I glance toward the window. It must
be at least ten o’clock and is pitch black outside.
    “Now?” I ask.
    My father narrows his eyes at me.
    “Oh please, yes. I so love a garden
at night.” Lord Appleby jumps to his feet and moves to my side. He’s protecting
me. Have I misjudged him? I take his arm and we head into the garden.
    Outside, the chill of the night air
pinches at my bare arms. I look at Lord Appleby in his lovely warm cloak, but
he makes no move to offer it to me in any kind of gentlemanly gesture.   
    “And these are the white roses,” I
say. “My father planted them for my mother.” I linger at the small patch of
buds that I remembered as being much bigger, fuller, and more fragrant.
    “Ah yes, we are all white roses
here,” he says with an exaggerated wink. He’s referring to the House of York. A
war has been raging for quite some time between the white rose of York and the
red rose of Lancaster, each backing a different king for the throne of England.
    We make strained small talk for a
while longer as we walk farther away from the lights of the house. Suddenly he
stops and grabs my elbow, spinning me round so my body is flush against his.
    “I do hope you are amenable to this
arrangement, Lucinda,” he says.
    I try to pull back, but he’s
stronger than he looks and holds me firm. “Please let me go.”
    I look up into his eyes and see a
slight madness there, a malevolence that I hadn’t noticed before.
    “Let me go!” I say again.
    “Just a kiss,” he whispers and
lowers his lips to mine.
    I pull my head back so that he
lands his kiss on my chest. I’m unsure as to whether that is worse than his
mouth on mine. His grip on me tightens and he begins to slobber rough kisses
over my collarbone, while his hand frantically pulls up my petticoats ripping
into them as he does. I scream, but no one comes. I struggle and pull back as
far as I can from him, falling halfway out his grasp. A wild look crosses his
face and he raises