her arms and immediately, the hungry mouth found her breast and greedily fed, draining the precious little energy left in her broken, battered body.
“The seventh daughter of the seventh daughter.”
The woman stared at the babe, unable to rouse herself to answer.
The seventh daughter of the seventh daughter.
Maybe that would be enough. Enough to keep her safe throughout her life. Free from persecution. Free from hostility. Free from danger.
Being different was the most dangerous thing in the world. People feared what they did not understand. And fought against that which they feared.
“Where is her father?”
A flash of memory at the question. A man so far above her own station. A man who had thought nothing of taking what he could get from a widowed gypsy woman then casually tossing her aside. Caring not a damn for her or the babe he’d planted in her belly.
He would never acknowledge his child. The title he would inherit and the wealth of his family were too important to risk acknowledging his bastard child. His gypsy daughter.
“She has none.”
It was hard to breathe. Hard to speak. The blackness was beginning to descend.
“He left you then.” Again, it was a statement.
The old lady had never expected him to stay. And she should have heeded her warnings.
“Give her a name.” The old woman’s voice sounded from the corner, even above the howling of the wind.
The babe had stopped feeding and stared at her mama now, her eyes wide and clear, her soul, ancient and not of this world, clear in their depths.
They were already dark, those eyes. None of her sisters had been born thus.
But she was different. She was special.
The seventh daughter of the seventh daughter.
“Give her a name before you go.”
She was glad that the woman did not try to fill her with false hope. She would not live this night, but her daughter would.
“Selina.”
Her life’s breath left her body for the last time as she exhaled the name.
The woman leaned down and plucked the babe from her mother’s lifeless arm and held her up to study her in the firelight.
“Selina,” she repeated, gazing into dark, bottomless eyes. “Welcome to the world. You will do wonderful things, seventh daughter. But you will be an outsider in this world. That is your gift, and your curse.”
Chapter 1
Philip Everwood, fifth Earl of Breton blinked rapidly against the sting of exhaustion.
He couldn’t sleep. He didn’t want to.
Soon they would arrive at Everwood House, a seldom used property on the coast of County Cork in Ireland.
His son, Timothy, had never been to Ireland. Charlotte, the boy’s mother and Philip’s wife, hadn’t been fond of travelling. Any sort of long journey made her ill for days.
“Tis bad enough that we must travel to the wilds of Yorkshire instead of remaining in Town. Dragging me to Ireland is just too cruel, Philip.”
Her bright blue eyes used to sparkle as she’d teased him.
Philip’s heart clenched as he remembered his sweet, timid wife.
So many things had bothered her. So many things she’d needed protection from.
In the end, he hadn’t been able to protect her from herself.
Philip blinked again, this time against the sting of tears.
He couldn’t give way to the grief, to the guilt. Timothy needed him too much.
Glancing over at his sleeping son, Philip was gripped by a sense of helpless despair. He slept now because he was with Philip, because his nightmares were no match for the rocking of the carriage as it trundled toward their destination.
And because, like always, exhaustion eventually won out.
They’d been travelling for weeks now. First from Philip’s main seat in Yorkshire, then on the boat that he’d hoped might rouse some excitement in Timothy, finally — after having docked in Dublin so Philip could take care of some business, they’d begun their journey to Cork.
And after the best part of a week, they were finally trundling past the woodland that surrounded Everwood House.
Philip was desperately hoping the time spent at Everwood would somehow be able to help Timothy heal from the tragedy no seven-year-old boy should have had to endure.
Perhaps, too, it would help mend Philip’s heart. Perhaps one day he could think of his fragile, delicate wife without the crushing guilt that haunted him.
It helped that this trip would be an escape from the whispers of scandal that had followed him around since the accident. He’d managed to keep things relatively under wrap since the servants were loyal to him and had loved Charlotte. But people talked. And the death of a young countess, even