The Dark Kingdom Anthology

by Krissy V

  I stand, shoving back my chair with the back of my knees, and grab my plate. As I come closer to Pippa, I fill it with food. Her gaze remains fixed on my face, her cheeks growing more pale the nearer I draw.

  “What you did last night? That was inexcusable. You had no right—”

  “She would have starved if I hadn’t—”

  My fist thumps onto the table again.

  I’d often wondered if that was another reason for the manor’s staunch furniture. My father was renowned for his temper, and that’s something I inherited along with his eyes. Perhaps anything flimsier than thick oak and broad mahogany never lasted long enough at Dunnwood.

  “You have until the end of the week,” I say, resuming my journey along the heavily laden breakfast table. “By then, if my child hasn’t taken to the bottle, I’ll send you back to town.” My eyes flash up, catching her scowl as it begins to fade and deep concern replaces it. “Without compensation.” In an instant, her face scrunches up again.

  “You can’t—”

  “I am well aware of what I can, and cannot do, Mrs. Goodwin.”

  She makes an angry sound, but now I keep my attention fixed on piling my plate.

  Last night I slept like a dead man. For the first time since Alaine’s death, I wasn’t awoken by Rose’s pitiful cries. I’m dimly aware that I’ve been drinking more than eating lately, but as if my entire body reset itself last night, I feel like a new man.

  I’m close enough to catch Pippa’s scent now, and through some trickery in the air currents surrounding us, I’m entranced by vanilla and cherries instead of breakfast meat and freshly toasted bread. I lick my lips, and then again, trying to convince myself that it’s for my plate, and not for that lush, feminine scent.

  Not even Rose smells like that. Mrs. Potter is the only person I allow close to the babe, and she takes care of cleaning and bathing the infant. Now, all that Rose smells of is soap, or fouled cloth — depending on how busy Mrs. Potter is with the manor’s upkeep that day.

  I pause for a moment beside Pippa’s seat, and tap the back of her laddered seat.

  “One week, Mrs. Goodwin. One week, or you’re straight back to where you came from.”

  She stares ahead, her spine as straight as the chair’s back, hands gripping each other in her lap. “It’s Miss. And I prefer Pippa.”

  I can’t quite remember what she’d been wearing yesterday, but today her clothes are a soft pink and darker tan, hints of white at wrist and neck. A full bodice, its tiny pearl buttons closed to her throat.

  An intense urge to reach over and pop one of them open, to bare her creamy skin, nearly overcomes me before I stride back to my seat.

  A few moments later, Pippa receives her cup of weak tea, and we’re left to our rather solemn meal alone.

  “Do correct me if I’m wrong, but since you are producing milk, I assume you have a child of nursing age?”

  Pippa flinches as if I’ve struck her. She sets down the piece of toast that had been halfway to her mouth and her throat moves as she swallows. “No. At least, not anymore.”

  My muscles tighten, but I force them to relax. I take a moment to sip at my coffee, and Pippa does the same with her tea, but from the grimace on her mouth she most assuredly isn’t enjoying the warm beverage. “What happened?”

  She scowls at me for a moment, and then seems to realize what she’s doing and smooths her face. “There was an accident. He…” She looks away, shrugs a little, but when she speaks again her voice is tight. “I’d rather not discuss it, if it’s all the same.”

  I’m eager to push her for information, but at the same time I understand her reservations. I wouldn’t want to discuss my history either, black as it is.

  “Your husband must be missing you, though? Why is it you didn’t remain in the city—“

  “He’s passed.” Her voice catches, and she pushes away her plate. Keeping her gaze averted, she says, “May I go feed Rose now?”

  I watch her for the longest time, wanting her to look up at me again. I’m not sure why, but her eyes are mesmerizing, especially when filled with pain. They turn hard, like steel, instead of filling with tears as I would expect from a woman who’s suffered such tragedy, as if she’s determined not to let the past affect her, and keep moving forward.

  It’s a sickening thought that someone as young and fragile-looking as Pippa finds it so fucking simple to move on. “Yes, of course. Do you know the way?”

  She nods, still not making eye contact, and stands. When she passes me, her fragrance lingers behind for a moment before fading.

  I suppose we’re not that different, Pippa and I. We’ve both lost loved ones to tragedies. We’re both trying to look forward instead of behind. Except…her tragedy was due to a twist of fate, no doubt. Mine? Mine was deliberate, and for that very fact, I doubt I will ever be able to stop looking over my shoulder.

  Chapter Five

  Pippa

  Mrs. Potter is in the baron’s bedroom, dusting the mantel above the fireplace that consumes the wall opposite the master bed. Rose is in her crib nearby, making unhappy sounds as if she’s about to start crying. Honestly, I’m surprised she’s so quiet. I fed my baby eight times a day, and — if you’d have to ask Howie — it wasn’t nearly enough. I try to ignore Mrs. Potter, especially when she turns to face me with her flinty eyes.

  Rose’s bright red little face plumps up when she sees me. She lets out a hiccup and reaches for me with balled fists, practically shivering with anticipation. I can’t help my smile, nor the wordless crooning that starts up the moment I reach in for her.

  Mrs. Potter sniffs loud enough for me to hear, and then swarms past me. I expect her to leave, but as I turn around and settle into the rocking chair, she pauses, and then starts dusting the baron’s chest of drawers.

  Rose is already moving her mouth as if she’s suckling, and her lips close over my teat so firmly, I’m suddenly glad she doesn’t have teeth yet. I push aside a fold of the blanket when one of her hands becomes stuck, and see a flash of more bright red skin.

  “Does the birthmark cover her whole body?” I ask, and then glance up when Mrs. Potter doesn’t answer.

  “Not entirely.” Mrs. Potter peeks at me over her shoulder and then does a show about looking away, as if my antics sicken her. “And that certainly is no birthmark.”

  “It isn’t?” I stroke my knuckle down Rose’s cheek, but the babe’s eyes are shut and she doesn’t even seem to notice. With the gray sky outside, and no lights on in the room, it’s just as dark and gloomy inside here as if twilight had descended hours early. “What is it, then?”

  “There was a fire,” Mrs. Potter admits grudgingly. “The doctor gave her a salve.”

  Shock jolts through me. “These are burn marks? How on earth—?”

  “You’re being paid to feed Rose, not stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, girl,” Mrs. Potter snaps, facing me with her hands on her hips. “And I don’t make a habit of gossiping with the help.”

  I’m still staring wide-mouthed after her when she leaves the room, headed for the stairs at the far end of the study. When I look down at Rose, she could have been fast asleep had it not been for her pink lips suckling at me.

  “What happened to you, sweet child?” I murmur, stroking my knuckle down her bright red cheek. But enough of that — I have to figure out how I’m going to convince this babe to start bottle feeding. A hard thump makes me start, and my gaze flies to the window. The manor must have been built a very long time ago, because the windowpane isn’t smooth and clear. The thick, uneven surface turns the gray world outside into a surreal painting created by an artist long tormented by demons. Perhaps both internal, and external.

  I desperately want to go over to the window, but I also don’t wish to disturb Rose. From what the baron mentioned yesterday, it seems all this poor child has been doing is crying.

  Whatever happened with the Lady of the house? The agency merely said that she had passed. I suppose it�
��s not far fetched to assume that she perhaps died in childbirth. Which is what makes me suspect that Mrs. Potter was fibbing when she said Rose’s skin wasn’t pigmented at birth. A troubled birthing could indeed have marked the child…and for something so common, why all the secrecy? It isn’t as if—

  There’s another thump, this time right behind me. I jump to my feet with a cry, spinning around as I cradle Rose to my bosom.

  A young man, perhaps only a few years older than me, is staring at me. Or, more accurately, as my breasts.

  “Get out!” I yell, using Rose’s blanket to try and cover myself. The babe starts crying, unhappy at being jarred with such a full belly. When the young man does nothing, I scream.

  His lank brown hair bobs for a second as his shoulders stoop even further. He lifts both hands as if trying to soothe me. Long, slender hands, like the hands of a pianist, but scarred and calloused. His mouth moves furiously, but nothing comes out. Behind me, the door bursts open. Boots thump across flagstone before quietening on the thick bedroom carpet.

  “What is it?” Sir Brandon barks out. He moves past me, and then glares first at me, then at the strange man standing a little ways off. For the first time, I notice a pile of logs at the man’s feet. Was that what had made that horrible racket?

  I gulp at the air. “I…uh…”

  “Norm, I thought Mrs. Potter made it clear you’re not to—“

  “Christ!” comes Mrs. Potter’s voice behind me. I turn, tracking her as she hurries across to the young boy. He falls to his knees, hands going over his head as if expecting a blow. My heart — still thundering from my earlier fright — starts galloping like a runaway horse. I’m gripping Rose so tight, I’m losing feeling in my fingers. “What I gone and tol’ you then? Shame on you, Norm. Shame!” Mrs. Potter lifts a hand, but then stops as if suddenly aware of the eyes on her. She grabs hold of the young man’s ear and drags him to his feet. “Ya dumb ingrate,” she mutters. Then she glares around at me as if I’m somehow at fault for all of this, and they disappear through a narrow, partially obscured doorway in the far back corner of the baron’s bedroom.

  So that’s how he entered without me noticing. A shiver pulses through me. How long had he been there, watching?

  The baron clears his throat. I look over at him, still mortified at the thought of a stranger watching me breastfeed, and then realize the man has his back averted. I realize why when I look down, and hurriedly button my bodice with a shaking hand. Sir Brandon turns a little as if to make sure I’m decent again, and then faces me. “Don’t pay him any mind,” he says, although his eyes are on Rose, not me. “That’s Mrs. Potter’s boy. He keeps the boiler stoked and the fireplaces lit.”

  I nod a few times, and then lift Rose to burp her, my eyes darting away from the baron’s as soon as they touch. “It’s fine, I just caught a fright.” I look at the back of the room, where the partially hidden doorway is. “I didn’t know there were two entrances.”

  “The manor is old,” he says, and there’s a faint, perhaps sentimental curve to his mouth. “It was built in an age when servants weren’t to be heard or seen.” He gestures with a gloved hand, turning a little as if he can see through the manor’s thick, stone walls. “The whole place is riddled with passages. Ghastly places — narrow and dank. Surprised no one’s broken a leg in the centuries we’ve been here.” The baron’s eyes narrow. “What is it?”

  I blink, blush, look away. Lost in his reverie, for once the frustration and anger had left his face. A snarling beast had become a handsome gentleman. “I didn’t know the estate was so old.”

  He bellows out a laugh and then tampers it down with a hand as if he can’t bear the sound. “We have no electricity, no telephone, and the roads are impassable when it snows. This isn’t exactly a townhouse in the city.”

  I shake my head, my cheeks growing hotter. What is the matter with me? Yes, I should be ashamed for squealing like a little girl, but I’d honestly not heard the young man — Norm? — until he’d dropped those logs. “He could have said something, you know.” I shift my shoulders, and bob Rose about a little harder, hoping she’ll burp and get it over with so I can be out of this room and away from the baron’s intense blue-eyed stare.

  The baron laughs again, and this time he doesn’t cut the sound short. I smile, and then press my lips into a line. “What’s so funny?” I demand, scowling even though my face wants to crinkle up with mirth. Sir Brandon has the most infectious laugh I’ve ever heard — perhaps because he uses it so seldom. Even Rose gives a surprised hiccup, and I turn her around to face her father so she can see who it is making the sound.

  Father and daughter stare at each other, and then the baron closes his mouth. “The lad’s a mute,” he grumbles. Gone is the handsome gentleman. “He couldn’t have said anything if he’d tried.”

  The glow in my cheeks is back. I hurry over with Rose, moving wide of the baron as I head for her crib. “Well, I do hope that won’t happen again. I’ve had about enough of strange men staring at my—” I cut off, rolling my eyes and then squeezing them shut as I hear the words falling from my mouth.

  Honestly, Pippa, you’re supposed to be a lady, not a crass old whore. Watch what you say.

  “Mrs. Potter will make sure of it,” the baron says.

  I almost regret my comment then. The last thing I want is Mrs. Potter beating that poor man.

  “It was an honest mistake,” I say, turning back to the baron. “Please don’t have him punished on my behalf.” And then, because I felt as if my plea needed a little extra convincing, I add, “Sir.”

  The baron watches me for a moment with unreadable eyes, hands tucked behind his back. We’re more than a yard apart, still he towers over me. I’m shocked something as tiny as Rose can be his child, but perhaps she takes after her mother.

  “Please.” I take a step closer. “Promise me he won’t be punished.”

  The baron frowns, and then stiffness leaves his shoulders. He lifts his brows, shaking his head as he says, “It’s Brandon.”

  “I thought you said his name was Norm?”

  A brief smile, instantly diffused. “My name is Brandon. It is only right that you call me by my name if you insist I call you by yours.”

  I open my mouth, and then close it again. Again, I feel the need to curtsey or kiss his ring. Yet another thing my body has been trained to do since I was young — submit. But the fact that he wants me to call him by his given name, that means he acknowledges me as more than just the help…doesn’t it?

  “I will see you at lunch,” he says, and then sweeps out an arm to the study. “But for now, I have work to do.”

  My eyes slide past that hidden doorway at the back of his room. I push back my shoulders, nod to him, and move casually into the study. There’s a definite sway in my step, and I don’t bother to suppress it, despite the voice in the back of my head.

  You’ve made it this far, Pippa. Don’t fuck it up now.

  Screw you, Howard. If he thought I was a servant like the others, he’d have made me go down those horrible, narrow stairs.

  At this, my dead husband grows silent.

  * * *

  With nothing to occupy my attention until noon, I choose to wander around the manor and drink in the sight of its ancient walls and weathered furniture. The first room I find myself in is a music room, replete with a piano, a violin on a stand, and a harp. The room is circular, with plush seating arranged just so as if, at any moment, a performance might begin.

  I pluck at a harp string, and nearly jump out of my skin as the note fills the room. There are stained glass windows on the outside curve of the room, windows I can’t remember seeing when the coach delivered me at the front of the manor yesterday morning. Then again, all I could see through the fog had been the top tower of the manor, a few of the buttresses, and the double doors so resolutely shut, a green-specked lion’s head for a door knocker.

  The piano’s sleek black drawer is closed, and I risk opening it a l
ittle to peek inside. The ivory keys gleam faintly when the light touches them.

  Mrs. Potter’s kept this place fairly clean. But I suppose she’s merely the general of the army of servants this manor employs. There’s no chance someone as frail and elderly as that woman can dust and clean every room.

  The next room looks to be an art studio of some kind. The air in here smells stale, but there’s not a speck of dust in sight either. Here, the stained glass windows stretch from floor to ceiling, and describe fanciful creatures merging and twirling with each other. A ladder-back chair is placed just so near a wide, empty table. Something pink dangles down one end of the chair back.

  A robe — long sleeved, and covered with stains. The original fabric must have been red or a dark pink, but it has faded over time and many washes. Perhaps the kind of coverlet a woman would wear as she paints, so as not to stain her clothes.

  The hair on my arms stands up in a flurry. I hurriedly drop the coverlet back onto the chair and turn around, scanning the room. I can’t see a hidden doorway in this one, but that’s not to say it’s not there. But the eyes I felt on me as I was studying that fabric have disappeared now.

  Was it that same man, watching me?

  I shiver, and leave the art room. I was going to wait until after lunch to try feeding Rose with the bottle again, but I have an unnerving feeling that I’m already running out of time.

  * * *

  Although Mrs. Potter hadn’t gone into detail about where the kitchens were, I manage to find my way to them easily enough. It wouldn’t have taken me quite so long, if I hadn’t stopped to stare at the portraits hanging on the landing. The older paintings are all of stern men and women rarely featured in the same portrait, and all wearing the stiff, form-fitting clothes of late eighteenth-century aristocrats.

  The one that catches my attention most is a colorful portrait of a man and a woman. I recognize Brandon in the painting, but not the woman beside him. She barely reaches his chest, and has a long, sleek mane of blond hair. Her eyes are blue, just like Brandon’s, but from the way they are standing, I’m certain they aren’t brother and sister. The inscription reads: