Welton begat a daughter on his new wife and then promptly left them. Maria went to school, and he went to Town where he drank, whored, and gambled her father’s money to his heart’s content. Her mother grew paler, thinner; her hair began to fall out. The il ness was hidden from Maria until the last possible moment.
She was sent for only when the end was near and assured. Returning to her stepfather’s home, she found the Viscountess Welton a ghost of the woman she had been only months before, her vibrancy depleting along with their coffers.
“Maria, my darling,” her mother whispered on her deathbed, her dark eyes pleading. “Forgive me. Welton was so kind after your father passed. I-I did not see beyond the façade.”
“Al will be Well, Mama,” she had lied. “Your health will improve and we can leave him.”
“No. You must—”
“Please do not say any more. You need rest.”
Her mother’s grip was surprisingly strong for a woman so wan, a physical manifestation of her urgency. “You must protect your sister from him. He cares not at all that she is his own blood. He will use her, as he has used me. As he intends to use you. Amelia is not strong like you. She has none of the strength of your father’s blood.”
She had stared at her mother in dismay. In the decade of the Welton marriage, Maria had learned many things, but most of all she had learned that beneath Lord Welton’s incomparably handsome face, Mephistopheles dwel ed.
“I am not old enough,” she breathed, the tears fall ing. She spent most of her time at school, training to become a woman Welton could exploit. But on her occasional visits, she watched the way the viscount belittled her mother with razor-sharp barbs. The servants told her of raucous voices and pained screams. Bruises. Blood. Bed rest for weeks after he left.
Seven-year-old Amelia remained in her rooms when her father was in residence, frightened and alone. No governess would stay long with them.
“Yes, you are,” Cecil e whispered, her lips white, her eyes red. “When I go, I will give what strength I have to you. You will feel me, my sweet Maria, and your father. We will support you.”
Those words were her only anchor in the years that fol owed.
“Is she dead?” Welton had asked flatly when Maria emerged from the room. His bright green eyes held no emotion at all.
“Yes.” She waited with bated breath and shaking hands.
“Make whatever arrangements you desire.”
Nodding, she turned away, the swishing of her heavy silk skirts loud in the deathly silence of the house.
“Maria.” The soft drawl floated ominously after her.
She paused and faced him again, studying her stepfather with new appreciation of his evil, absently noting the broad shoulders, trim hips, and long legs that so many women found appealing. Despite the coldness within him, his green eyes, dark hair, and rakish smile made him the handsomest man she had ever seen. The devil’s gift for his black-as-sin soul.
“Tel Amelia about Cecil e’s passing, will you? I am running late and do not have the time.”
Amelia.
Maria was devastated at the thought of the task ahead. Added to the near-crippling pain of her mother’s loss, she almost sank to the floor, crushed beneath her stepfather’s heel. But the strength her mother promised her stiffened her spine and lifted her chin.
Welton laughed at her bravado. “I knew you would be perfect. Worth the trouble your mother gave me.” She watched him turn on his heel and take the stairs to the main floor, disregarding his wife completely.
What could she say to her sister to ease the blow? Amelia had none of the happy memories that sustained Maria. Now the child was orphaned, for her father might as well have been dead for all the attention he paid to her.
“Hel o, poppet,” Maria greeted softly as she entered her sibling’s room, bracing herself to absorb the impact of the small body hurtling toward her.
“Maria!”
Clutching her sister close, Maria moved them toward the bed draped in dark blue silk that contrasted gently with the pale blue of the damask-covered wal s. She rocked the sobbing child in her arms and cried silent tears. They had only each other now.
“What will we do?” Amelia asked in her precious voice.
“Survive,” Maria said quietly. “And stay together. I will protect you. Never doubt that.”
They fel asleep and when she woke, she found Amelia gone.
And her life had changed forever.