PROLOGUE
September 23rd, 1804
“Iwill not have it!” the deep voice boomed through the jib door, the furious words ricocheting off the walls.
Arabella Hayward clutched her sisters’ hands, the three of them huddled together inside the narrow closet of the music room. They’d escaped into the tight space the moment they’d heard their father and brother, Alexander, arguing in the hall, their raised voices coming ever closer.
The air was thick with the musty scent of old wood and dust, mingling with the faint, lingering scent of her eldest sister Hanna’s perfume. It was a cramped space, barely large enough to fit the three of them, and the walls seemed to close in on them with every passing second.
Outside the closet door, their father’s furious exclamations echoed through the manor, each word sharp and cutting. LordWorcester’s voice, usually measured and dignified when in polite company, was now a torrent of rage and bitterness.
Sadly, Arabella and her sisters were more used to this tone than the aforementioned dignified one. For when it came to their father, he changed the moment he stepped into Hayward Manor.
Gone was the civility, replaced by a cold distance at best, and outright tyranny at worst. His wrath was generally directed at their older brother, Alexander, who now bore the brunt of their father’s outbursts.
Arabella had known today would be a bad day, for it was the third anniversary of their mother’s death. Annalena Hayward passed away from a lung disease when Arabella was five years old. There were days she hardly remembered her mother, although Hanna’s perfume always reminded her of their mother’s warmth. No wonder, the orange-vanilla scent her sister preferred had been their mother’s.
Now that Hanna was eleven, she’d decided she was old enough to wear perfume—something their father hadn’t objected to. In fact, Arabella thought that having their mother’s scent waft through the halls somehow calmed him.
Their mother had been the one to tame what their grandmother used to call ‘the beast’ in their father. Her love for their father had somehow managed to keep his anger in check, but when she’d gone, she’d taken all his self-restraint with her. Without his beloved wife to remind him to swallow his spleen, GrahamHayward was out of control. Fueled by alcohol, his outbursts seemed to grow worse and worse over time but never as bad as tonight.
“You are a disgrace!” Alexander shouted now. “Look at yourself.”
“Look at myself? Look atyou, you ridiculous excuse for a son. Heir to the county! Pathetic! If only your older brother hadn’t died, he’d have made me proud, I am sure,” their father shouted.
Hanna gasped. This was the worst kind of insult their father had for Alexander. Their oldest brother, Charles, had died in infancy, as was common even among the nobility, and their father never let Alexander forget that he wasn’t the firstborn son.
“Do you think I want to be connected to you? To be seen as your heir? I’d rather be the steward’s son,” Alexander fired back.
Arabella inhaled sharply, while Emma quietly cried beside her. Glass shattered against the walls, punctuating the momentary quiet, followed by a guttural scream.
“The steward. Why not the groom’s son? Or some pauper? You’d disavow me? Do it, then. Do you even understand what it’s like?” their father bellowed. “To be widowed and burdened with not one but four useless children who want nothing but to live in luxury!”
Alexander’s voice, filled with defiance and anger, rose in response. “You’re a drunkard and a terrible excuse for a father!You should be grateful to have children at all. Many widowed men have nothing!”
The tension in the air was palpable, a thick, choking haze that made it difficult to breathe. Arabella could feel her heart pounding in her chest, each beat echoing in her ears like a drum.
“I’d rather have my wife than any of you!” their father bellowed. His words were a dagger, piercing the fragile sense of security the closet provided.
Arabella’s eyes welled with tears, the hot, salty drops spilling down her cheeks. She buried her face in Emma’s shoulder, muffling her sobs. “Why is he saying such awful things?” she whispered.
Emma, a year older than Arabella and usually the one who always had something witty to say, stroked Arabella’s hair soothingly. “Hush, Bella. That is not our father speaking. It is the spirits, the drink. They make him a different man.”
Hanna shook her head. “He has been like this for years now. I can’t even remember what he was like when he wasn’t a drunkard.”
The sounds of the argument continued outside, but Arabella tried to focus on her sisters’ reassuring presence. The closet was stifling, the air hot and stale. She could feel the wooden floorboards’ rough texture beneath her, and the scratchy material of her dress pressed against her skin.
The minutes dragged on, each one feeling like an eternity. Outside, the argument seemed to be reaching a fever pitch, the words growing more heated and vicious. Arabella’s cries had slowed, but she still felt a deep, aching sadness in her chest. She missed her mother desperately, even though she could hardly remember her. She knew other girls who did not have their mothers anymore, but they had caring governesses. She didn’t even have that.
Every governess they ever had left after a few weeks, chased away by their father’s flareups. Their grandparents were all dead now, aside from their maternal grandmother, who’d suffered apoplexy two years prior and never visited anymore.
The sound of retreating footsteps finally brought a glimmer of hope. Arabella held her breath, waiting for the next outburst. But instead, there was shuffling, and then the sound of the manor’s heavy front door opening and closing.
They waited a few more moments, the silence stretching out like a taut string ready to snap. When it became clear that the storm had passed, at least temporarily, Emma carefully opened the closet door. The light from the music room spilled into their cramped hiding place, making Arabella blink against the sudden brightness.
The room was a mess. Broken glass littered the floor, and several pieces of furniture were overturned. Sheet music lay scattered across the carpet, some of it torn, and one of the chairs had a large, ugly dent in it. Arabella took a shaky breath, the reality of the destruction sinking in.
“Alexander?” Hanna called, but their brother was nowhere to be seen.
