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H er eyes slowly fluttered open.

She lay on her side on the wood floor, something sharp, unyielding pressed against her backbone.

She daren’t move.

It took a moment for her vision to fully clear, and at first she thought she must be dreaming.

She breathed in ... out ... slowly.

Her gaze traveled the dark room, lit only by the faint fire burning in the hearth.

The flames set eerie shapes to dancing across the richly paneled walls.

She saw that she was in her father's study, his domain, where he spent most every waking hour of most every day pouring over the piles of documents he brought home from Westminster.

A chair lay on its side nearby, one of its spiral-turned legs broken and splintered.

Tiny bits of shattered glass littered the floor.

She skimmed her view past the wall lined floor-to-ceiling with bookcases that were filled with hundreds of volumes dating as far back as the previous century.

His cluttered desk, made of burr-walnut decorated with pear drop handles that he'd had specially made, stood there.

The chair behind, she noted, was blessedly empty.

She swallowed, blinked.

And then she saw him.

He lay sprawled on his back across the room, arms splayed at his sides. He was nearly hidden behind the massive iron-banded chest he used for storing his correspondence and she mightn't have seen him at all if not for the carved silver-and-bone knife handle that jutted from the side of his neck.

The knife was the thing she noticed first, and the sight of it, sticking at such an odd angle set her heart tripping inside her chest. She did not move.

She lay there for some moments, her cheek at rest on the pile of the Turkish carpet.

She stared at the knife, mesmerized by it.

She watched the play of the fire upon it, silver glimmering.

Her thoughts slowly drifted back to earlier that evening.

He had brought her there shortly after they'd returned from the Manton's ball, dragging her by her arm along the upper corridor as he had many times before.

She remembered telling herself to remain calm, that it would be far worse if she struggled against him. It was always worse when she struggled.

She remembered thinking to herself as he had shoved her into that room, slamming the door and locking it behind them, that perhaps he would just yell at her this time, rail at how ungrateful she was, and be done with it.

But she had been mistaken.

She licked now at the corner of her mouth where his faceted ring had sliced into her lower lip.

She was surprised he'd struck her in the face this time, for he normally chose places that would be readily concealed from curious eyes, so no one would see, no one would question, no one would ever know the truth.

But this time had been different. The beating came worse than any other before.

She could still see his face in her mind’s eye when he’d raised up his walking stick, polished ebony with the ivory knobbed top, readying to strike her.

A look of madness had contorted his features as he’d brought the stick across her, striking her on her side.

She hadn't recognized him. She had felt so helpless as she'd cowered there, buckled over, gasping for breath.

She could but watch, frozen, as he had then drawn back his fist, preparing to strike her again.

He'd caught her on the side of her head that time and the force of that blow had sent her reeling.

She lay now in the same spot where she had fallen after that last telling blow, before the welcome unconsciousness had come to claim her.

She wasn't certain what she'd struck her head against—perhaps the tall case clock with its golden pointed finials, the one that her mother had brought back with them from France.

Whatever it was, she had hit against it hard, the afterward lost to her when her consciousness had succumbed to the blackness of oblivion.

Sweet oblivion.

She could only remember one other occasion when her father had beaten her so badly she'd lost consciousness. She remembered it well, almost as if it had been only yesterday, for it wasn't the sort of thing one was likely to forget.

That had been the first time he had brought her into his study, in the darkest hours of the night all those many months earlier, not long after her mother had died. He had come to her bedchamber then, the same as always, smelling of the brandy bottle and ranting at her like a lunatic from Bedlam.

That had been her first true inkling of what her mother's life had been like, and she remembered actually being grateful that her mother was dead. She'd even wished she could join her.

How furious her father had been with her that night.

Strangely, now, she couldn't recall the reason why.

She could only remember him standing there, cataloging her shortcomings, calling her by her mother's name in error, and then, later, calling her by other names, vulgar names, the sort of names that had been whispered about her mother behind the decorated fans of the court gossips when she'd still been alive.

After her father had beaten her that first time, he had left her there just lying on the floor in his study, or so her maid, Winifred, had told her later.

He'd then locked himself away in his bedchamber and had passed the remainder of the night drinking himself into a similarly unconscious state as if to somehow make himself forget what he'd done—to her, his only daughter.

She had awakened the following morning, to find herself in her own bedchamber, lying on her own bed, not knowing how she'd gotten there or even who had brought her.

The coverlet had been tucked snugly around her and soft goose-down pillows had cradled her head as if to say—except for the telltale bruises that colored her ribs and upper arms—that none of it had ever happened.

But not so this time.

This time there was no bed, no soft pillows to cradle her head. There was only the hard floor beneath her and her father's body lying motionless beside her.

What had happened after she'd fallen? Who had taken the ancient quillon dagger that usually hung among his other trophies on the wall, just beneath the stuffed and mounted stag's head with its glassy black eyes staring pitifully down?

Who had plunged that knife into his neck, leaving him lying there while his lifeblood had gushed in an ever-increasing blot across the patterned carpet?

Had she?

Had she somehow awoken after falling, snatching the knife from its place on the wall to sink it into that vulnerable, oh so fleshy part of his neck?

Surely she would know if she had.

Surely some memory of it would remain. Shouldn't she at least recall the rage, the madness she must have felt to commit such a violence? Shouldn't she remember the look of horror on his face as she came at him, ready to slay him, her own father?

She suddenly wondered at how much time had passed, how long she had been lying there on the floor beside his body. Had it been hours, or merely minutes? Would there be some chance of saving his life?

She hesitated. Did she really want to?

She tried to lift her head, sucking in her breath at the immediate stab of pain that cut through her skull.

She worked her jaw to test if it was broken, wincing against the soreness that came with the slightest movement.

Remarkably, her bones still seemed intact.

After a short while, she finally managed to turn her head, leaden as it felt.

The case clock, which it was now obvious had been the object she'd fallen against, stood brokenly behind her.

Its hands were frozen at ten minutes after ten, the precise moment she'd slammed into it, shattering the curved Venetian glass that covered its face.

She struggled to lever herself up from the floor but every muscle in her body seemed to tighten in protest. Painstakingly, she made to crawl on her forearms, over to where her father's body still lay—so silent, so motionless.

His eyes were staring blankly at the carved fretwork ceiling, frozen, it seemed, on the pattern cut there.

Strange, she thought, how they looked so like the eyes of the stag hanging on the wall above him.

She felt the moist warmth of her father's blood beneath her hands, the wet stickiness of it soaking the rug.

She thought to herself that she should be screaming like a madwoman, quaking with shock at the grisly scene that lay before her.

Instead, she simply stared.

She wondered at how just the sight of him, lying there with that knife sticking out from his neck, his blood covering her hands and soaking through her gown at her knees, did not seem to affect her, not really, at least not as it should.

She closed her eyes. Drew a breath.

Perhaps there was something truly wrong inside her, something that rendered her incapable of feeling anything except cold, stark indifference for others.

But, there had been a time, so long ago, when she knew she had indeed felt.

She had felt, she had laughed, she had even danced beneath the blossoming branches of the cherry trees in springtime, weaving chains of fragrant fuchsia flowers through her hair with her dearest childhood friend, Cordelia.

How long ago that had been, back when they'd been away in France among the laughter and gaiety of the Sun King's court, gone from England and all the fighting, gone from her father, the Right Honourable Halifax Montefort, third Marquess of Seagrave.

As a child, she had never known her father. In fact, she had only heard of him through her mother who had taken her daughter, bag and baggage, leaving England and her husband on the eve of the Civil War. That had been nearly two decades ago, when she hadn't yet seen five summers.