Page 1 of His Haunted Duchess
CHAPTER 1
“Quick! The wheels! It’s falling!”
Screams and water pushed on her from all sides. The liquid surged into her eyes, her throat, her ears, roaring like a lion desperate for the kill. Caroline screamed, but water filled her mouth, stifling the noise and fueling her terror. She thrashed with her arms, slicing her hands on the shattered carriage windowpane. The door burst open, swirling more dark water into the void. A woman’s voice cried out in despair.
“Help! God save us!”
She had to get out. She had to get free. The urge to breathe pierced her chest. The dark water swept her forward—swirling, swirling like a dark, deathtrap top. Her head broke the surface. A dark figure came down the bank toward her, reaching out its hand.
Caroline gasped awake. Shafts of daylight peeped through the heavy curtains draped across her window. She squinted at them, relieved to be conscious but not ready yet to embrace their brightness.
Oscar yawned, flashing his long, white teeth. Caroline rubbed her temples.
“It was the nightmare again, Oscar.” She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose, steadying her heartbeat. Her hands still shook a little, but she felt better. “I should be used to it by now, I suppose.”
She tucked the dark dream further back in her mind and sat up, stretching her arms like daffodils to the sun. Nightmares had no place in such brilliant sunshine. Today was a new day. Today was—her arms fell again. The ball. Today was the first ball of the Season.
Caroline groaned and flopped back onto her pillow. Oscar, curled next to her, raised his head questioningly, the right side of his whiskers squished like a breakfast muffin.
Caroline’s stomach grumbled. It was time for breakfast.
She stared at herself in the mirror. Her dark hair waved delicately around her clear, open face like shiny hawthorn branches against the morning sky. A long, lurid scar stretched from just above her right eye down to her defined jaw. She traced its line pensively.
“Maybe I really am cursed,” she muttered. “Or at least I certainly look like it.”
She tossed the old chemise into a convenient basket. Oscar, unperturbed, yawned. Caroline smiled.
“You see,” she said, moving to pat him on the head, “this is why I tell you instead of Aunt Olivia. I’d much rather have a yawn than a frown.”
A cheery knock rang on her door.
“My lady—are you awake?”
She pulled her fresh chemise into place.
“Yes, Winifred, please come in.”
Winifred did, shutting the door behind her. Oscar raised his head and meowed.
“I know, I know, dear—” Winifred said, bustling to the wardrobe. “You want her all day, but we need a share of her, too.”
Oscar stretched, splaying his legs as far onto the bedspread as he could reach.
“He’s not impressed,” Caroline smiled. “But then, I don’t think he often is.”
Winifred brushed a few blowsy curls out of her face, running her hands over several of Caroline’s more extravagant gowns. Caroline sighed.
“Surely I don’t need to dress in full ball regalia even before breakfast?” Winifred tactfully ignored her. “Is Aunt Olivia still set on going?”
“Set as the hounds on a fox,” Winifred said. “In fact, more so—the hounds can lose the fox, if it’s lucky, but your aunt won’t lose sight of this ball for anything.”
She held up a long, trailing, blue silk dress.
“It complements your eyes, dear,” she said.
And takes attention away from my scar,Caroline thought but said nothing. She’d learned long ago to avoid talking to her lady’s maid about her deformities and associated beliefs about them. When she mentioned the scars in Winifred’s presence, her eyes flashed like a bulrush in August. Caroline took the dress.
“It is lovely fabric,” she admitted. “It feels almost like wearing a moonbeam.”
