like a hissing fire she could not escape, suffocating and destroying her hope.
Finally Marianne jerked her hand away and stepped back, only to realize the servants were still watching.
Lord Gray acted as if naught was amiss and continued to smile at her, though despite the glow it emitted she could never believe it to be genuine with his inflamed eyes.
He rested his palm on the small of her back and drew her forward, she did not put her heels into the ground this time, and Marianne realized that she still had to go through the horrors of being introduced to the servants.
She nodded and smiled to them and they bobbed and bowed in return. Their smiles were as nervous as hers, and just as false as her husband’s. Marianne knew why. A new mistress could change the way the entire household was run. They thought she could make their lives miserable, but Marianne knew she would never be able to utter a word to them.
William would never allow it after what she had done.
William hesitated, one side of his lip upturned. He was enjoying her torment. After a long moment he clapped his hands and called for attention. “Return to your work, we have much to do before tomorrow night! More guests will be arriving any minute now!”
“Yes, yes! The party!” Sir Holton said with much enthusiasm. “We must celebrate the wedding of the earl and his new countess!”
Despite the commanding tone in William’s voice and Holton’s excitement, Marianne took curious note of how the servants hesitated, looked at each other, and slowly made their way back to their respective chores.
Marianne opened her mouth to question the behavior, but thought better of it. Her precarious situation stilled her tongue.
Her father grinned gleefully with the circumstances now, but before he had been livid with her, roam-around-the-room, screaming-furious. At least the only good to come from forcing marriage onto the wrong man was that she had married someone above her station who had already inherited his title. That alone had been enough to prevent Holton from throwing her from his manor.
It was a double-edged sword, however. On the one hand she brought a title to her name, but on the other she might possibly have brought the wrath of an earl on her house.
Guy Holton had been convinced William Gray would demand blood for her foolishness. Only time would tell what kind of price he expected to be paid for her actions.
William separated himself from her and addressed her father loudly enough so that she might hear as well, though the air of brotherly acquaintance was gone from his voice. “Sir Holton, before I have you settled into your room, would it be possible to speak a word with you and your daughter, alone?”
A bead of sweat rolled down Marianne’s forehead, and the accompanying swallow felt as painful as a fist-sized rock traveling down the inside of her neck.
Her father seemed to be swallowing rocks of similar size as he adjusted his cuffs and grinned with beads of his own sweat accumulating on his face.
“Of course, milord.”
It seemed they would be discovering the price of her stupidity sooner rather than later.
***
Marianne and Sir Holton were made to stand while William sat behind his writing table. The room was made warm, nearly welcoming with rushes under their feet and a fireplace with a roaring fire on their right.
The castle may have looked chilly from the outside but on the inside the decorative tapestries that hung over the stone walls, in the solar especially, made it seem more like a home than a fortress. Marianne had never seen anything like it, and she fought the lump in her throat with the thought that she would have to get used to it quickly. This was her home now.
Archer stood off in the corner with his hands clasped in front of him and his head bent while her father spoke on his behalf.
“Fiendish and absolutely corrupt he is, and I am sincerely apologetic that he is from my own home and humiliated that I had not noticed the horrendous nature of his character, though I give you my word, my honorable word, that he has been severely punished.”
Archer shifted uncomfortably, and Holton continued with his hands clasped together and his face pleading for any understanding that William’s predicament was no fault of his. “I have taken into account that you may wish to have him punished further, which was why I was so merciful when I