DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS

16

“And he’s not bad to look at either.” Cat winked at Kianna, who groaned. “What? It’s true!” She gestured to the window. “Look at him. He’s handsome and strong, and he has been helping your family like no one ever did.” Again, Cat was right. “If I were you, I would forget all about an arranged marriage and marry him.”

Kianna gasped. “Cat!”

The girl shrugged. “What?”

“That’s … not even an idea.” Kianna lowered her gaze, focusing on the produce in the wash basin.

If it wasn’t an idea to consider, then why had her stomach tightened at the thought? It was silly, really. Just because he was handsome, and helped care for her family and treated her with respect? She didn’t know where he came from, his family. What if he was already married? Or had a debt bigger than her family’s?

Marrying him, or even thinking about it, was impossible.

“Your mother told me he’s staying.”

Kianna nodded. She had had her first big argument with her mother when she told her the news last night. “My mother said he doesn’t remember anything from his past and he has nowhere to go. So, she offered to let him stay here. He'll work the farm for housing and food and little compensation.” She gestured one wet hand at the view outside. “He accepted the offer.”

Though, she didn’t consider sleeping on a cot in the barn alongside the tools as housing, but he didn’t seem to mind. Not that she wanted him sleeping inside the house. If her mother even tried to move him into the spare room, Kianna would put her foot down.

“Who wouldn’t?” Cat asked.

Kianna stared at her. “What?”

“I mean, it’s just like he said. He doesn’t remember anything and has nowhere to go. He’s all alone, but he found your family, who has been kind and welcoming to him.” Kianna narrowed her eyes and Cat chuckled. “All right, most of you have welcomed him with open arms. Why would he want to leave?”

Kianna’s gaze returned to the young man in the field. When Cat put it that way, when Kianna allowed her prejudice and fear of the stranger and his intentions fade, then she could understand it too. If it were her, lost and alone, she would cling to any offered help with all she had.

And that was exactly what Devon was doing.

Then why, even after knowing this, did Kianna feel like she had to guard her family and herself from him?

Devon straightened, lowering the plow he had in his hands, and glanced to the bottom of the hill. Two seconds later, Kianna’s mother walked past the window, going to the front of the house. Selina and Calvin ran after her.

“What’s going on?” Kianna dropped the vegetables and dried her hands on the apron tied around her waist.

Cat furrowed. “I don’t know.”

The two rushed through the house. Kianna paused at the heavy, double wooden doors in the foyer as a strident, loud voice carried.

“Oh no,” she muttered.

She flung the doors open and immediately regretted it.

A large carriage with a red velvet top and golden embroidery rested in front of the stone steps leading to the manor, and a plump woman, with bright red lips and wheat-colored hair pulled into an updo atop her big head, waved from the open window over the door. “Ophelia! It's been ages!”

A coachman hopped down from the front of the carriage and opened the door. The woman took his hand and climbed down the steps, until she was standing a couple of feet from Kianna's mother, her fancy dark blue gown spilling around her.

“Hello, Jocelyn,” her mother said, her voice edged with concealed anger. “What brings you here?”

Kianna’s stomach tightened as she stared at the woman’s fake smile. “Oh, I was just on my way to the village and remembered I used to stop for tea every now and then.” Her eyes scanned the manor looming over her. Kianna wished she could put a veil over the woman’s face, or cover her eyes with her hands. The manor hadn’t been properly cared for the last several years, and it was starting to show. Certainly, that would be the newest topic added to her gossip list. Her dull gaze returned to Ophelia. “I just wanted to make sure everything was all right.”

Her mother’s hands balled into fists, and Kianna could see how she was fighting to control herself in front of their neighbor, fighting not to straighten her plain, dirty dress, or pat her messy hair or fix her brown waves, or hide her wrinkling, makeup-less face.

Anger coursed through Kianna, and it was all she could do not send the woman on her away.

“We’re fine,” her mother said, her voice tight.

“Oh, I’m sure you are, dear.” Her fake smile boiled Kianna’s blood. “Didn’t I see you a couple of days ago at the new school assembly? I did, didn’t I? Oh, my kids have been accepted into the school. They start next week. I bet yours were too, weren’t they?”

Kianna would bet the few gold coins she had saved with much effort that the woman knew they hadn’t been accepted, not yet, and was asking to rub it in their faces.

Finally, the woman’s gaze landed on Kianna. “Oh, my dear, you’re looking as lovely as ever.” Another lie. Kianna knew that with her ragged dress, dirty apron, scuffed shoes, and her loose, wild blond hair falling in terrible tangles down her back, she did not look lovely. “Have you called on your friends lately? Hattie and Olive? Oh, I heard their engagements are moving well along. Soon, we’ll be receiving wedding invitations.”

Kianna’s stomach dropped. Hattie and Olive were engaged? They were getting married? She knew it would eventually happen, but thinking about it was one thing. Knowing about it was another.

What did she care? It wasn’t like Hattie and Olive had ever been her real friends. Once her father died and their situation had changed, Hattie and Olive never spoke to Kianna again. There was that time, not long ago, when Kianna went to the village to visit the apothecary. She saw Hattie and Olive, but when she went to greet them, the girls pretended they hadn’t seen her and left.

“That will be lovely,” Kianna said, forcing a smile at the woman.

“Yes, I was just saying that—”

Devon traipsed down the hill and stopped right in front of Jocelyn, his back to her.

They all stared at him in shock, Jocelyn most of anyone.