Page 8 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 8

I walked over to sit in my father’s chair, the one he’d used when he acted as magistrate to hear the petty complaints of the district. I waved a serving girl over, watched her pour me a glass of wine from the ewer she held ready and, as I did, felt an echo of my father’s presence. What would he have done? I thought. How would he have handled this? I knew that he would’ve heard the various sides of the dispute and then made a ruling to decide the outcome. My eyes slid to the dragon riders, there and away again. For some reason, it was hard to look upon them for long, so I focussed on the co-conspirators.

“Cecily,” I said, gesturing to my stepmother.

“It’s Lady…” Her voice trailed away and some of the iron leached from her spine, her shoulders curling forward. Her eyes danced around the room, as they always had, working out who she could rely on for support and who she couldn’t. Then she opened her mouth to tell the story, her version of the story, that is.

But what she had to say wasn’t important to me.

As soon as her mouth opened, as soon as she started reciting her self-serving little tale, my thoughts sank down into my own memories.

“Still wearing black, Pippa?” Lady Cecily had asked the morning I was banished (though I didn’t know it yet). She looked down the long dining table at me with a sniff, taking in my dress. “Surely it’s time to leave deep mourning behind?”

“It hasn’t even been a year since he…” My voice broke on that and Arabella smirked over her boiled egg and toast. “Since Father passed.”

“Well, Deepacre is hardly the capital. I think we can afford to leave the black dresses in the wardrobe, going forward,” Cecily said with a tight smile.

Probably because she and Arabella had observed mourning attire for only a few months after Father’s death. I’d nodded in response, not trusting myself to speak as I sat down at the other end of the table. One of the maids had bustled forward, pouring me a cup of tea, then bringing me a plate of toast. I thanked her with a small nod.

“Then I’ll need some new dresses made,” I said, forcing my tone to come out evenly, despite the fact my hand shook as I picked up my tea cup.

“Yes, I suppose you will.” Cecily’s lips pursed as they always seemed to do when she looked me over. “You do keep growing so persistently. The prudent point at which to stop would have been a whole foot ago. You’ve no chance of rivalling my Arabella’s petite beauty.”

I’d also have no chance at becoming a vile little beast like my stepsister, so that was a consolation. Cecily liked to go on and on about Arabella’s beauty, but her china doll-like perfection seemed to grow only in step with her viciousness and cruelty.

She’d kicked a lap dog she’d been given by my father, kicking it so hard the poor thing had to be put down. I’d been the one to discuss treatment with Gerald, his gently delivered advice cutting me in two. I’d looked in the limpid brown eyes of Lassie, tears filling my own as she valiantly attempted to wag her little tail. The dog was as soft as butter, just wanting to be picked up and held. But no one could hold her after being kicked, not without her letting out pitiful yelps of pain when I attempted to.

And if that hadn’t been enough, there were the maids who’d come to me. Who’d been pinched as they passed, or were called disgusting names. Who’d been shoved as they tried to go about their business, up and down the stairs. Then there were those who’d been forced to endure one of her famed fits of pique.

I’d come running from the other side of the house at the sound of so much screaming, then burst into the room to find Arabella lashing out with both hands, striking one of the poor maids over and over in a hailstorm of blows until I stepped in and grabbed the little wench’s wrists and forced her to stop. Arabella had growled like a beast then, her face flushed as red as a tomato, her eyes filled with a manic light that frankly scared me, only my superior strength enough to stop her from treating me the same.

When I’d asked the maid much later what had provoked the incident, the resulting confession had sent my blood cold. The maid had been unable to get out a stain Arabella had carelessly got on a favourite dress, despite trying every remedy she and the laundry mistress had ever heard of to try and fix the situation. The poor woman had sobbed out the details of all of her attempts. I’d reached out then, feeling a growing sense of unreality as I patted the girl on the shoulder, wanting to assure her this would never happen again, but…

“We are not made of money, Pippa,” Cecily said in a reproving tone. “We cannot afford to keep buying you new dresses every month.”

Deepacre was a sleepy little village out in the country, but it also had some of the most productive land in the realm. I’d seen my father’s books often, because he had me help record our income right up until he died. Then, mysteriously, once I’d recovered from the worst of my grieving, they’d disappeared.

“Of course, Stepmother,” I replied, because that’s all I could say, faced with the fact that although she had instructed me not to wear black anymore, to follow her direction I would need new dresses as I no longer had anything other than black mourning clothes that fitted me. Yet to go cap in hand and beg for new gowns only seemed to irritate her. This was just one of the conundrums of living with my stepmother. I couldn’t make her happy, not since Father died and so I had stopped trying.

“Your ladyship.” We both turned in our seats to see one of the maids had appeared. She dropped a quick curtsey, then held out a silver platter with a card upon it. “You have two callers wishing to see you.”

“And who might that be?” Cecily looked at the card on the platter and smiled, a slow, cruel, deliberate expression, I realised later. “Ahh… Kensington.”

At the time I’d been excited, thinking George had come to visit and the two of us might go off on another glorious ramble. We loved to walk across the hills beyond the estate, our noses filled with the scent of wildflowers, as we talked of the world beyond. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

“And who is the other caller?” Cecily asked.

“Old Bay, milady. He doesn’t have a card as such?—”

“No, I don’t suppose a swineherd does,” Cecily said with a fastidious twist of her lips. “Send in Kensington and have that old man wait in the kitchen garden. Surely he can’t leave a mess out there and it will spare you from having to air out the room afterwards.”

“Of course, milady.”

I was eating my toast when Kensington senior breezed in, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright.

“You look like the bearer of good news, Harry,” Cecily said, setting aside her tea cup.

Now that I was remembering that day, I could see it, the cruel edge to my stepmother’s smile, the vicious gleam in Arabella’s eyes. They knew already what my father’s solicitor had to say, because they’d concocted the whole thing together. That came out in their confessions to the dragon riders, but I hadn’t noticed it back then. I was cocooned in a soft mantle of grief and habit, assuming the way my life had proceeded thus far would be the way that it would continue.

I was about to find out how wrong that assumption was.

“So, you know that we’ve been searching high and low for the late lord’s will and testament,” Kensington said. My head jerked up at that, a small frown forming. Father had been meticulous in his paperwork. Although he had been still a relatively young man, there was no way he would have neglected to write such an important document. “Well, we’ve finally found it. It was tucked away on my junior clerk’s desk. I’ve since let the man go in response to that negligence.”

“You fired Bartholomew?” I asked.

“And what does the document say, Harry?” Cecily asked expectantly, ignoring my query.

Arabella shifted in her seat, unable to stay still, because she knew the knife was about to be raised. I didn’t. I was so damn blind back then.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Harry Kensington said, producing a sheaf of documents and laying them out on the table before my stepmother. “The estate and all it entails goes to you, Lady Cecily.”

My heart beat loudly in my ears, almost but not quite drowning out the solicitor’s words.

“Everything, Mama?” Arabella asked, clapping her hands and then turning to me.

“But what’ve…?” I started to blurt out the question, good breeding stopping me from being so self-serving, but no matter what I’d been taught, it had to be asked. “But what did Father leave me?”

Harry Kensington had been a fixture in my life since I was born. He and his wife and my father and mother had been firm friends, resulting in George and his sister, Mira, being regular visitors to the estate. I trusted him implicitly; I remembered that, so when he answered, I believed everything he said.

“It appears you haven’t been mentioned in the will, Pippa,” Harry said. “I’m sure that was an oversight on your father’s part but…”

The day I was told my father had died in a riding accident, it felt as if someone had shoved their hand into my chest and ripped out my heart. I couldn’t cry, couldn’t scream, not until later, because the pain was so absolute. I was my father’s only child, Mother having died in childbirth while trying to give him a son, but he’d never let that make him bitter. He’d devoted all of his time, his energy, his enthusiasm, to me.

I’d spent hours curled up in his lap, reading about the world in the many books in our library, or walked by his side as he explained to me all there was to know about the Wentworth estate. And I’d soaked in every word, every glance, every moment. I’d lost some of that when he decided to remarry, but I’d understood. I was moving into adulthood and couldn’t be my father’s little girl anymore, he’d explained. Lady Cecily and her connections would help me navigate the marriage market and in doing so we could help poor, fatherless Arabella do the same. It was a business arrangement of sorts, he’d said, but one that would give him some companionship when I was off living my own life with my husband…

As Kensington’s words had sunk in, I hadn’t cared about the money or the estate, that this land had been picked up and dumped in Lady Cecily’s lap without so much as a by your leave. No, it was the… carelessness of it. My fingers clutched at the black silk of my gown, my nails clawing at the shining fabric, leaving small rents. I gripped this badge of mourning so tightly no laundry woman would be able to iron out the creases, I was sure. And as my teeth locked together, as I choked back a strangled cry of most unladylike proportions, what did Arabella do? She laughed, a high, bright, sound that should’ve been an expression of pure joy and was instead of sadistic glee.

“Don’t s’pose you’ll be getting those dresses now,” she said, arching a perfectly shaped brow.

“Well, that is good that the estate is finally settled, but you’ll have to excuse us, Harry,” Cecily said, getting to her feet. “The swineherd has come to call, requesting an apprentice.”

“But we’ll meet up later?” Harry’s tone was furtive, desperate, like he couldn’t hold in the need that throbbed there. “To discuss further the… terms of the will.”

“Of course, dear Harry,” Cecily said and that’s when I saw where Arabella got her manner from. My stepmother lifted an elegant hand, placing it on the solicitor’s cheek, and his eyes fell closed for just a second, treasuring her touch. But before I could further interrogate that exchange, she turned to me and Arabella. “Come along, girls. I’ll need you with me at this meeting.”

Why? I wondered as I scurried along behind Cecily. Why would Father do this, leave me not a cent to call my own? I’d had no thoughts of marriage since Father had died, but it was a fate awaiting me, I had known that. But who would marry the penniless daughter of a lord? And why did Cecily want us in attendance when she spoke to Old Bay? The swineherd was only ostensibly attached to the estate. We gave him a plot of land to raise the pork we enjoyed at our table, making sure the pens were positioned far from the house, so as to not be assaulted by the stench.

Old Bay was somewhat of a recluse, people shying away from the man when they saw him on the street, as if his isolation, his objectionable smell, was contagious. There seemed to be an awareness in him when he turned to face us, his old cap being wrung in his hands, his shoulders stooped as he bobbed a short bow.

“I’ve come about the apprentice,” the man said as my stepmother regarded him. “I’ve asked all the local lads, as you suggested, and none are willing.” His hat was mangled harder, tighter. “I’m not long for this world. I can barely make the walk to the estate now and taking the pigs amongst the oak trees?—”

“Do not fear, swineherd,” Cecily said, a slow smile spreading. “I have just the person to become your apprentice.” I hadn’t put two and two together, not when she turned to face me, not even when she looked me over with a possessive eye. “Pippa has just been given some very hard news and is looking for a new position.”

“Lady Pippa?” Old Bay couldn’t have looked more surprised if she’d walked over and slapped him. “But I… She couldn’t…”

“You need an apprentice and Pippa needs a means to support herself now that I won’t be.” She’d looked behind her to where two of the larger kitchen lads had drawn near, nodding her head in my direction. They approached me slowly, with a kind of menace I’d never experienced before. “Pippa is our new apprentice swineherd,” she told them. “Escort her from the estate. If she tries to return, I’ll have her horsewhipped in front of the entire staff.”

One of the lads passed her a paper-wrapped parcel.

“Here are some of your father’s clothes,” Cecily said, shoving them into my numb hands. “You wondered what your father left you? He left you these. What else would he give a too tall, too boyish daughter?”