Once Upon a Marquess (The Worth Saga 1)

She had never said those words to her sister.

She hadn’t held anything back—she had told her sister the truth the day she learned it. Christian had her brother’s whereabouts investigated; Anthony was nowhere to be found. Theresa knew that the prisoners on that ship had been decimated by disease and poor feeding by the time they arrived. The surgeon on board the ship had listed Anthony as ill. There were records of twenty-three men who had perished, and twelve more who were simply gone. During the worst of the storm, record-keeping had not been a priority on board. Anthony was one of those who had disappeared, and it was all too obvious what had happened to him. One of these days, Theresa would accept that her brother had been one of the dead, too.

But before Judith had known for sure, after they’d depleted the false tales from the journals, she’d invented stories about what might have happened on that ship. Anthony among the pirates. Anthony on a desert island. Anthony and the friendly dolphins. They’d been comforting tales of adventure, told to assuage the ache in her heart. They’d been comforting then.

They were soul-destroying now.

Anthony was dead. Their father was dead. Camilla was… Well, Camilla was not speaking to any of them. It was just the three of them, she and Theresa and Benedict, and it was Judith’s responsibility to make sure that they were well. The earth hadn’t spun correctly since she’d been placed so precariously in charge, but she’d kept it upright.

So she swallowed the lump in her throat and smiled at her sister. “You’ll know,” Judith said. “If you ever see him again, you’ll know it’s him because the world will right itself. If you don’t want to lose your memories now, you might consider taking a moment every evening to go over the ones you have. Think of them every day, and you’ll never forget.”

Theresa nodded solemnly. “And one day,” she said, “I’ll be able to ask Anthony for the ones I’ve lost.”

Tonight was not the night she would be able to make Theresa face the truth. That day would come, Judith was sure—but it wouldn’t be tonight.

She fled before she broke down.

Up in her workroom, she surveyed the carnage. Bits and pieces of wire, coiled springs, and molded gears greeted her on the bench to the side. A sheaf of papers—her notes—sat on the table.

She was close, so close, to victory. Everyone had told her that her sisters would never have any real money of their own. That Benedict would never attend school. She should have run out of funds four years ago.

She’d managed it. It was the thing she told herself night after night when things got difficult, when all the worries she’d squelched during the day came back to revisit her. She’d managed.

By all the birds that had ever flown, she’d won.

Victory felt rather hollow tonight.

Her elder brother was dead. Her younger brother was being tormented. Theresa refused to face reality. And Camilla hadn’t spoken to her in almost eight years. Judith had been proud, so proud of every evening she’d spent with her head bent over clockwork designs, every minute she’d wrangled through contracts with the man she worked with in Scotland. She’d planned it all so that Camilla would get a little money a few months before she came out.

It wasn’t the sort of inheritance they’d been raised to expect, but four hundred pounds was freedom. The freedom to marry for love—or to not marry at all.

Maybe she’d hoped that her next-youngest sister would know that it was from her. That it was her way of apologizing for that long-ago argument. I’m sorry, Camilla. I love you. I want you back.

She put her head in her hands, but she didn’t let herself weep. Weeping was what one did when one ran out of options, and Judith wasn’t finished. She was a Worth. She wasn’t going to give up. Not now. Not ever.

When she was done not weeping, she raised her head and went back to fitting gears together in her mind. Dancing couples or gliding swans weren’t going to be enough this time around. She needed a clockwork design that was simple, something that everyone would see and want.

She’d won before. She would just have to win again.

And if she had to bear Christian’s presence to make sure that Camilla received that money before she debuted?

Well. She would do it. She would do anything to keep her family safe.

In his dream, Christian was on a ship—not a steamship with smokestacks burning coal, but one of the older ships with big, billowing canvas sails. It was the kind of ship that a boy might receive as a toy on his birthday.

The ship felt a little like a toy, as if he were both standing on deck and holding it in his hand all at once. A storm raged around him. Dark clouds loomed overhead, and spikes of lightning stabbed out over him. Around him, waves rose like dark canyons and then crashed into valleys.

The deck of the ship had no rail. It was a dream so familiar that even in his sleep, he knew everything to be false. Nobody was on board except Christian—Christian, and the man he glimpsed across the deck, a dark figure obscured by sheeting rain. The man stood near the edge, near those dangerous waves.

Christian couldn’t see the man’s face, but he knew who it was. He’d had this dream before.

“Anthony,” he called.

There was no answer.

“Anthony!” he shouted, but the wind whipped the words from his mouth, drowning them in the shrieks of the storm.

He made his way across the unsteady deck, groping, nearly losing his balance.

“Anthony,” he said as he drew closer. “Anthony, get the hell inside. You’re going to—”

As he spoke, a great wave of salt water crashed into Christian, rolling him, catching him up, filling his mouth so he couldn’t scream. He grabbed wildly as he slid across rough wood. His hands found a rope; he held fast, choking, until the water passed over his head.

When he opened his eyes, Anthony was gone.

Christian scrambled to the edge of the careening ship. He was cold; his fingers seemed numb. There, he saw that familiar figure again, shrouded in the shifting shadows off the edge of the ship. Anthony was scarcely holding onto the side. His fingers slipped, grasping for purchase.

“Anthony.”

The man’s head tilted up.

Christian leaned down. “Take my hand.” He reached down, stretching.

Christian had never managed to reach Anthony in any of his dreams yet, but still he kept trying. He had to.

The other man adjusted his precarious grip and reached up. His hand met Christian’s with a solid shock. Their fingers slipped wetly, but Christian made himself keep hold of his friend’s wrist. He held fast, even though the tossing of the boat threatened to yank his friend away.

“I have you,” he said. “I have you. Hold on, damn you.”

He braced himself to pull. This time, he’d save him. This time…

The man looked up. It wasn’t Anthony. Christian had one shocked moment to look into his own eyes—light brown

instead of blue. He had one moment to feel his own hand holding himself up in a weird, doubled dreaming way. Then he gave a great shout and let go in surprise.

The last thing he experienced was his stomach dropping as he fell into a great valley of water. He simultaneously watched himself slip from his own grasp.

“Shh,” said a voice. A hand pressed against his forehead. A familiar taste, herbs and honey, bloomed on his tongue.

He woke gasping. Someone was holding his head up, tilting his chin so he could swallow.

Christian reacted without thinking, knocking the mug away, spitting the disgusting mess in his mouth out before he could think better of it.

“There, there,” said a gentle voice. “You’re only dreaming. I have more if you want it.”

His mother. His gods-be-damned ever-loving mother. Christian inhaled, catching his breath. Waiting for his heart to stop racing.

“You were dreaming,” she repeated. “It was just another night terror, Christian. I made you a little posset.”

He could taste milk and spices and honey on his tongue. He could taste the laudanum, too. Bitter, ugly, and yet after all these years, it still curled around him, whispering that he could have peace. It would be the peace of utter surrender.

“No,” he said hoarsely. “No possets.”

“I heard you shouting three rooms over. You’re not sleeping well, Christian. You’re my son. I only want to take care of you, and I’m worried.” She brushed her hand across his forehead.

His mother loved him. Christian had always known it. He owed her far more than he could say.

He had always had vivid dreams. They had been particularly bad when he was a child, and she hadn’t fobbed him off on any nurses. She’d woken with him, soothing him, telling him it was all right. She’d saved him and damned him, all at the same time.

Just once wouldn’t hurt. Just this once.

Laudanum lied. In the darkness, he could not see the bowl on the table to the side of his bed. He sat up and found it in the dark. There were a handful of beads in it, round little balls of all sizes jumbled together. His fingertips rolled over them in the dark.