The Daughters Grimm

by Minda Webber

  The shorter man sputtered and shook his head no.

  The prince turned his attention back to Greta. “Just be careful what you seek. You might just find something you don’t want.”

  “Whatever doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger,” she replied, unmoved.

  Shaking his head in disgust, Rolpe stomped away from the table. Herr Nietzsche jumped up from his chair, eyes bright with enthusiasm. Excusing himself from Greta, he bowed once. “I’m going to find a pen and parchment. By gads! I’m going to quote the prince. In spite of his ill temper, he does have a way with words. And you as well!”

  Amused by the little man, Greta tried to put some order to the questions tumbling around her head. Von Hanzen had warned her quite thoroughly away from her quest, which only made her more determined. His warnings were too stern to not be grounded in something interesting.

  Taking a bite of wedding cake, she turned her attention back to the unhappy couple. Her sister sat silently beside her new husband. To Rae’s right, Herr Mozart was busy scribbling something on the tablecloth.

  “My, who would have thought this wedding would inspire artistic creativity?” Greta remarked. Too bad it didn’t inspire joy.

  Taking aside the new Baroness Schortz, Greta cheerfully reminded her, “At least you’re now nobility.”

  “I must have been cursed by a witch unawares,” Rae blabbed, not finding any comfort in her new social standing.

  At her wits’ end, Greta stumbled around for something else positive to say. “Now that you are a married woman, with a home of your own, you no longer have to listen to Aunt Vivian’s lectures! Nor will you have to put up with Mother’s constant harping on your lack of matrimony. And just think how the gold Fen sent will help Papa. It was a far, far, better thing you did today for your family than you’d ever done before. Our family is quite proud of you, Rae. I know it. I most certainly am.”

  Rae finally managed a smile. “Yes, there is that.” Perhaps her marriage wasn’t a fairy tale, or her husband a prince, but at least there was some small comfort in knowing her family’s financial woes had been lightened. Her heart was lightened as well.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Yours, Mine and Outrageous

  Well, she was certainly a fair maid all forlorn after her dismal wedding and even more dismal wedding breakfast. Rae frowned as her imposing and non-fawning husband helped her into the carriage. Rather dazed, she tried to compose herself as she sat down and arranged her lovely wedding gown with a twist of her gloved hands, then tucked a slender curl up under her lacy white bonnet. She looked the picture of a beautiful bride, except for the slight downturn of her lips.

  Her grimacing groom looked less the perfect picture of a gentlemanly bridegroom. He stretched out his long legs and settled back against the cushions, looking very much more comfortable than she was in all her wedding finery. Somehow she found herself resenting him all the more. He certainly didn’t appear put out by this farce of a ceremony.

  Patiently, she waited for her brand-new husband to make some comment, but after seven miles or so she began to suspect that he wasn’t going to break the silence. Well, if the big lout decided to be boring and petty, she would show him that she was made of sterner stuff. “Is your home of Durloc very large?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it very far?”

  “Another eight miles.”

  “Will the children be there?” Rae asked, hoping that they might have been sent elsewhere for the duration of the honeymoon. The children were just another unpalatable fact of being forced to wed an ox, even if this was an ox with some Norwegian royal blood.

  “It’s their home,” he replied without much inflection.

  Drat, the children were at home. Still, she could plead a bride’s nerves and probably avoid them for at least a month. She remembered her mother talking of nerves, and of how she had run home to the vicarage for a week after her wedding night.

  “I believe you said you had three children. All girls?” she asked.

  It was strange, Fen thought. The night he met Rae, he had considered her a perfect angel come to earth, so beautiful that it hurt the eyes, and he had mistakenly bestowed upon her all the radiant qualities of kindness, compassion, wisdom and wit that his beloved Fiona had possessed. It seemed he had been a bit overhasty. “I do have three girls. But I distinctly told you the other night that I have four boys as well.”

  “Seven? Seven!” Rae actually screeched like a fishwife. Something was fishy, even though she had only been a wife for a few short hours. “Stop this carriage immediately and turn around. We must annul this marriage at once!”

  He stared as if she had gone crazy. “What the devil are you talking about? Your reputation would be in tatters if I annulled this marriage, and I won’t be made a laughingstock in front of all of Prussia. Imagine, annulling a marriage of only a few hours.”

  “But seven children,” she wailed. “I’m too young to have seven children. I know nothing about being a stepmother,” she pleaded, her eyes filling with tears. “Well, I mean I do know a little about stepmothering, since Greta is always reading some fairy tale or another. But I don’t think I should use those tales as inspiration, since all those stepmothers did was make the children clean chimneys and wear sackcloth. Although, I do rather like the idea of glass slippers. Do you think the cobbler in town can make some? I’d like half a dozen in colored glass. I must admit to having a slight weakness for sartorial splendor.”

  Fen stared at his wife as if she had two heads. He had the strongest urge to lock her in a castle tower. On second thought, he would let his children do it for him.

  “No, I don’t imagine the Cinderella stepmother approach would work,” he agreed. She wasn’t going to make his life a hell and his children’s life a misery. Glass slippers be damned. What did the fool woman think: that he was made of gold?

  His golden brows lowered over his eyes. However had he managed to get into this predicament, to become married to a shallow, shrewish spendthrift? But as he studied her golden loveliness, his expression lightened somewhat. Fortuitously, as her husband it was his duty to see that Rae changed. Her days of her excess and vanity were over. She would toe the line, and if he didn’t make her, his children certainly would.

  Rae was nodding her head up and down like a broken jack-in-the-box. “Good, then we are in agreement. This is a horrid mistake of a wedding. At first I thought you too pig-headed to understand, but now I know you can be reasonable. I know you don’t want this marriage any more than I. And I feel perfectly correct in saying that your children wouldn’t want me for a mother. Well, perhaps that’s a bit too harsh. They would love to have a mother as lovely as I, but I’m much too young, and they would most likely see me as an older sister…which wouldn’t work. I have been a sister to boys and it is a most difficult and distressing undertaking. My brothers made my life a misery. Frogs in my bed, tadpoles in my tea, moss in my bonnets, snails on my mirror and ink in my perfume bottle. The perfume was from Paris, too! So our wedlock will never work. It must be annulled at once.”

  Her words caused his mood to sour further. She was only managing to rub salt into a wound that was already raw. “Our wedding won’t be annulled. I take my vows seriously; for richer, for poorer, for sickness and in health. Till death us part, which if you don’t stop your whining, might be very soon.” She had insulted him and his children with her words; he wanted to throw her out of the carriage and annul her. But he couldn’t, and that was the rub. He was stuck with this vain, selfish female until he shucked his mortal coil, and he didn’t know if he had the patience to teach her a thing, even if it was his husbandly duty. He sighed, a low sound. With his luck lately, he would probably live to a hundred and seventy.

  Rae did not notice his reaction, since she was so busy justifying all the reasons this wedding wouldn’t suit, including her fears regarding her wifely duty. “But nowhere does it say that I pledge thee my troth and seven children. I really must protest
. I was led astray!”

  “No more than I. Why didn’t you listen to me the other night when I explained about my wife Fiona’s death and my children? Obviously, you weren’t listening.”

  “Of course I wasn’t listening! I was planning my wedding gown, since we rushed to get married. A lady only gets married once … unless, of course, she becomes widowed and remarries.”

  Closing his eyes in dismay, he wondered if he could just ride away into the daylight, pretending he had never known her. He could send for his children, and they could travel the country without his whiny bride.

  “Seven. That is most definitely six too many. Have you never heard of moderation? My sensibilities will be taxed beyond bearing. No wonder you were still unconnected when I arrived. No sane woman would wed you, not with a parcel of children not her own!”

  “And no sane man would wed you, except if he were compromised, because your vanity and selfishness are monumental.”

  “You’re comparing my vanity to seven children? Oh, no sirrah! I am the loser here, not you. My vanity you can walk away from, but how do you escape seven children?”

  Fen leaned over and set his arms on either side of his bride’s legs, his dark gray eyes stormy. “I am going to tell you this once. I love my kinder.”

  Kindling? The man was upset about firewood at a time like this? She could only gape at him.

  “My kinder—my children—are everything to me. I expect you to be good and kind to them. All of them. All seven, or else you will regret the day you stepped foot into my country and let a bug crawl up your drawers!”

  Rae sniffed, letting one tear slip down her cheek, but her dratted lout of a husband didn’t even notice. What a brute! Making her cry on her wedding day and making her a mother to seven little oafs. “I shall probably die young, mothering your brood. And I hope my sacrifice on the altar of motherhood smites your conscience.”

  Fen leaned back. “I shall endeavor to erect a lovely marble monument to your ability. Just think, when Greta visits the cemetery in the dead of a night, she really will have a relative to visit.”

  “Oh, you beast! You have no care for my sensibilities. I am doomed, and it isn’t even the second day of marriage.”

  He laughed.

  Rae pouted. She wheedled. She beseeched. She even tried her limpid gaze. All to no avail, for they arrived at the castle and her arguments were forgotten.

  Her first glimpse of the castle had her changing her opinion slightly. The Castle Durloc was magnificent, with four large towers, two of which were guarding the arched entrance to a large courtyard covered with snow. A dozen or so fir trees lined the entryway. Long tendrils of ivy and other foliage climbed the pale gray stone of the castle walls.

  With bated breath, Rae noted that many of the windows were stained glass. It was a fairyland, she thought, dazed. She might be locked in wedlock to a big churl, but he did have a wonderful home, and she was now mistress of this lovely place. “Is this your principal estate?”

  The carriage stopped and Fen opened his door before the footman could, and quickly descended. “Yes,” he replied, helping her outside. His body blocked her line of sight until he had deposited her upon the terraced steps to the front entrance.

  Rae’s smile of pleasure faded. “Oh, no!” she muttered as she stared at the frankly grotesque scene. Her breathing actually hitched, and her skin felt all clammy. It was hideous, worse than one of Greta’s fairy tales. It was monstrous, an abomination. It was…her stepchildren: seven of the grubby little blighters, with their dirt-encrusted nails, muddy and torn clothing—and the littlest two were dripping snot as they touched her, leaving slimy and muddy handprints on her wedding gown.

  At that moment, Rae did what any female of delicate sensibilities would do: She fainted. It was with graceful dignity, and she fell at the feet of her husband and his grubby little urchins, who surrounded her. The children all stared with wide-eyed interest at their new mother’s spectacular greeting. And instead of picking her up, Fen shook his head and called for his butler to bring the smelling salts.

  The oldest of the baron’s children, Nap, nodded his head approvingly. “She’s going to be easy to scare,” he remarked with pleasure.

  Nods of satisfaction came from the rest of the group, with the next oldest son, one of the twins, saying enthusiastically as he peered at this new mother, “Ja, she will. What grand fun I expect!”

  Cheers arose as Fen brought smelling salts back to his downed bride. Ignoring the noise, and the happy faces of his brood, he felt particularly morose at the despicable turn his life had taken. Still, at least his children seemed happy with their new stepmother.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Behind Enemy Lines at the Schortzes

  If every painting tells a story, then this particular picture was straight from hell. As the swirling waves of blackness left her, Rae heard a voice calling to her. She knew that voice, and at the moment hated it. What a fine way to start a marriage, scared of one’s husband and his brood! She shuddered, recalling the faces of the children before she’d fainted. What she had seen in their eyes chilled her blood. Her new stepchildren were utterly lacking in mercy.

  Cautiously, Rae opened her eyes and stared up at a large wooden plaque. Beware of Stepmothers was prominently displayed across the fireplace mantel. She closed her eyes tightly.

  “She’ll make us dig potatoes in the snow,” one of the twins predicted.

  Fen shook his head at Ernst. “It’s too cold for potatoes.”

  “Stones, then,” Ernst insisted.

  “You’re not giving her a chance. And get rid of that foolish sign,” Fen ordered as he stared down at his bride.

  Rae sighed dejectedly, and sneaked a peak. It was bad. Worse than bad. It was absolutely horrible. Here she was, laid out on a hard settee like a slab of roast beef for their perusal. Well, she could certainly say that stepmothering was not the least bit dignified.

  “Come on, Rae, I know you’re awake.”

  She moved her lips soundlessly in a prayer for deliverance, but God seemed to have abandoned her. A triumphant growl assaulted her ears, and the voice came back with forceful persistence.

  “I never took you for a coward, Rae,” Fen continued, a tiny bit amused. He stood from the position where he’d been kneeling. The scent of lilacs which wafted from his new bride had his imagination running wild. Briefly he wondered what it would be like to bury his face in her pale golden locks. On the heels of this betraying thought came regret. He should not regard this unwanted bride as anything but a duty, a bitter pill to swallow.

  “Are they still here?” she asked out of the corner of her mouth.

  “What do you think?” he answered.

  That I’m cursed. But wisely she kept this thought to herself. Reluctantly she managed to open her eyes to “them”— the children. Fen helped her sit up slowly, then stepped back, and Rae managed to paste a smile on her face. She faced her stepchildren, all seven of them. How could seven small children fill the room with so much menace? She didn’t know, but the children hated her upon sight. Yes, here were the seven little Schortzes, staring at her with a mixture of resentful curiosity and devious intent. This was not good; she knew from her own childhood years.

  Watching Rae, Fen couldn’t help but admit that she did look ravishingly beautiful, seated on his sofa with slightly mussed hair and wary eyes. If only she were a different sort of woman. Of course, being a red-blooded creature with a healthy appetite, he did appreciate her looks, but he would have settled for someone less spectacular who could be a good mother to his brood.

  A prodding at knee level caused him to look down upon his second youngest child. “Yes, Poppy?” Thank goodness it was Poppy, and not his youngest, Alden, who was still teething and had the unfortunate habit of biting ankles. If Alden wasn’t biting ankles, he was rubbing his “magic” lamp. Every boy has a treasure. The lamp was Alden’s, given to him by his beloved mother. Not so pretty now, the lamp had a few dents and was
in need of a good polishing. But to Alden it was solid gold.

  “Who’s that strange woman?” his little darling asked.

  “Why, Poppy, I told you. She’s your new stepmother.” With a rather sick smile plastered on his face, Fen faced his fearless children. “Isn’t it marvelous? Isn’t she pretty?”

  “Yes, she’s pretty,” his second eldest daughter remarked. “But my hair is curlier. So mine is prettier.”

  Hearing the baron’s child’s audacious claim, Rae started to argue; then she realized how foolish it was. The little curly-locked girl was only a child. And she was pretty, Rae decided as she briefly studied the brat. She clearly took after the mother’s side of the family.

  “Nein. Don’t want a new stepmother,” Poppy remarked. A chorus of equally negative responses followed from the other children, filling the air.

  “We don’t need a new mother.” This from Fen’s oldest, a clever lad with an impish bent. “She looks really mean,” he remarked. “I can tell.” Ernst was always trying to be important.

  “I bet she hates pirates…and baboon tarts.” Quinn, who loved playing pirates, added his thoughts to the conversation. “She’ll hate dogs and cats and squirrels and horses and…”

  “We get the picture, Quinn,” Fen said flatly.

  “She’ll make us eat all her cabbage—and I hate cabbage.” This came from Merri, the contrary one.

  “She may be pretty, but I think she’s a witch in disguise.” Shyla did love pretty things. Maybe that would eventually be a stroke of good fortune in so far as her new mother was concerned, Fen thought hopefully. He stared at the child who looked most like his late wife.

  Merri interrupted. “I’m hungry.” She was always hungry when she wasn’t grumbling about something.

  Embarrassed by his brood’s lack of good breeding, Fen told them to hush immediately. Turning his attention back to Rae, he recognized her look. She was clearly bewildered, staring at his passel of children, and she wore the glazed stare of a woman who was thinking of running. He reassured her firmly, “They don’t really mean what they are saying. They’re just a little upset over our marriage being as quick as it was. They’re just a little ver worren— confused.”