Page 1 of To Snare an Heiress (Gaol Manor #1)
March 1795
Wild girls, so pretty, with little virtue ...
Oh, what shall their poor fathers do?
Grab quill and paper, and scribble a letter,
To nasty Aunt áine, that’s who.
She comes at night and steals them away (boo!)
There’s nothing the wild girls can do.
The old, the ugly, the cruel and the poor ...
One of them, a new husband for you!
- Children’s nursery rhyme, circa 1780
MAB WANDERED ALONG the well-trodden dirt path, making her fingers walk across low-hanging branches, taking great delight in the wind tousling her flame-red hair across her face and watching her breath mist before her. With every drawn-out breath, she pretended she was a great dragon, ready to set fire to the world around her.
Or maybe not.
She rather enjoyed this world, she thought.
She had doting parents (who let her read all sorts of stories about dragons and mythical creatures that, perhaps, weren’t necessarily considered proper for little girls to read), annoying brothers (though she did enjoy the rare occasions when they’d actually listen to her, and she could boss them around) and a very comfortable lifestyle.
Mab glanced around the unfamiliar land. It was a dreadfully dreary day – so dreary it looked as if all the colour had been drained from the fields. Her aunt and uncle’s manor was situated on some of the flattest land Mab had ever seen. It was grey fields as far as the eye could see – which wasn’t very far this afternoon on account of the mist that was rolling in, enveloping the bleating goats in the distance.
It was unusually cold for March. Mab didn’t mind though; she preferred the cold. Her fur coat and fiery breath kept her more than warm. In fact, she was starting to get a little too warm.
She glanced about, wondering if she’d managed to get turned around. Her eyes squinted in the distance and – ah yes! – there it was. The little fairy tree her aunt had told her about. Of course, fairies weren’t real. But Mab could barely contain her excitement when her aunt had told her of a lone blackthorn that stood in the middle of a field near the fishpond. What better place to read her latest book, A Midsummer Night’s Dream , than under a fairy tree?
She ran as fast as she could towards the tree but was soon panting for air. The heavy coat weighed her down, and she felt like an inferno was rising inside her. Taking a glance to her side, she noticed the pond her aunt had mentioned. The grey sky rippled across the dull surface as a lone fish took idle gulps. Gently swaying cattails stood in clusters around the bank, poking their heads through the brambles.
This dragon needs to cool down , Mab thought .
Mab, at a much slower pace, plodded over to the pond. She beat her way through the brambles, snagging her dress as she went. Sprigs of wild garlic had begun their battle to push through the competing brambles. Mab pulled at a leaf and rubbed it between her fingers but was surprised to find the smell bitter and not at all like what she’d expected. She threw the sprig over her shoulder and inspected the brambles, but they hadn’t blossomed yet, let alone produced fruit. She wished she had snuck some food from the kitchens for her adventure.
Finally, she settled herself among a knot of cattails and pulled off her coat. Looking around her, she thought this was a perfect little hiding place. Maybe if she sat really, really still, she could spot a heron ... or maybe even an otter!
But then again, sitting still was something Mab was never good at.
So, she undid the laces of her shoes and dipped her toes into the pond. She wondered if a sea dragon lived in the water. Though it was probably too small to house a creature of that size. Maybe a few kelpies? She pictured their gnarled fingers rising from the murky depths and grabbing hold of her ankles. Mab looked around her, her fingers prodding the dewy grass for a weapon. Finally, they closed around a rotten branch. Maybe not the best weapon for fighting off a kelpie, but at least it would give her enough time to get away. At this point in the stories she’d read, a handsome prince would lumber along and save the damsel from something Mab thought the damsel should have been perfectly capable of sorting out on her own.
Men , thought Mab with distaste. At thirteen years old, she was a long way off having to deal with that burden.
But the time would come soon enough. It was part of the reason why her mother had shipped her off to stay with her aunt and uncle, Lord and Lady Banbridge. Her parents had always let her run wild, read books she ought not to, and play roughly with her brothers instead of dolls. In fact, even though her older brother was almost a head taller than her now, Mab was still faster than him. She could easily have him in a headlock, should the need arise. But because of one measly comment from one nosey neighbour – who had not-so-quietly whispered within her father’s earshot that only Aunt áine (whoever she was) would be fit to find such a wildling a husband – Mab now had to endure a month of having to learn how to sip tea and talk like a lady from her aunt and six female cousins.
The goal was to prepare her to snare a gentleman when she was finally old enough. Mab thought she’d rather snare a bout of measles than a gentleman. While her family was very well off, their money was earned, not inherited. Mab saw the way the Lords and Ladies looked down on her family, who probably had more money than those snotty-nosed, silk-clad trolls. Not her uncle, of course. He was one of the few good ones that was a proper gentleman. He had a title and had married Mab’s maternal aunt because of love. Mab had heard that they had run off together to marry in Gretna Green, and it was ever so romantic – if you were into that kind of nonsense.
Which Mab most certainly was not.
A series of shouts tore Mab from her thoughts. The fog had settled in, and she squinted up the bank to a trio of hazy figures. The one closest to her seemed to be marching along determinedly, while the two behind skipped merrily. When the first figure was finally close enough to make out, Mab felt the oddest little flitter in her stomach.
He was tall and lanky, with curls of raven-black hair that stuck out at odd angles. His clothes had once been of fine quality, but even at this distance she could see that they were faded and tattered. He must be a servant for a family. Mab had often seen her mother and father dividing out their old clothes between the servants. She reckoned this servant must be only a handful of years older than her.
The jovial pair that followed were clearly not servants. The strawberry-haired boy looked to only have a few more years than the black-haired boy. He wore garish pastel clothes, shiny shoes, and a sneer. His hair was slicked back on his scalp, and Mab felt revulsion skitter over her skin.
Aside from her aunt and uncle, there was only one other family in the area who were of the gentry. Her cousins, just before she had slipped out for her adventure, had discussed at length the lacking qualities of Lucius Blackwater, eldest son of the Viscount Blackwater. If her cousins were to be believed, Lucius Blackwater had inherited his father’s cruel streak as well as an inclination towards heavy gambling, coupled with a proclivity for cheating. Indeed, the last time he’d visited Mab’s cousins, they claimed to have each lost their pin money in its entirety at a game of Commerce before realising that Lucius Blackwater had cards up his sleeves.
The girl, who was fair-haired, well-dressed and repulsive, giggled at something Lucius said to her. She nodded her head, tittered again, and watched with glee as Lucius ran towards the dark-haired boy.
The dark-haired one paused by the edge of the pond and turned to face Lucius, looking as if he were about to say something. He didn’t get the chance. Lucius barrelled into him, knocking him with such force that he lifted into the air and landed in the pond with a shattering splash.
Lucius broke into a peal of laughter, and Mab felt her blood boil.
The girl, still giggling, finally made her way to the pond’s edge. “Ah! There you are!” she said between titters. “Taking an afternoon swim?”
“Took a little tumble, did you?” Lucius mused. “For the best. You could do with a bathe. I could smell the straw and horse shit from you for miles.”
The girl erupted into a cackle.
The boy in the pond hadn’t tried to move yet. He sat defiantly, the water up to his chest, as he glared at the pair.
“Oh, come on now, Bill,” the girl said with a pout. “We were only having a laugh. There’s no need to be such a sourpuss. It’s your birthday, after all! Your father really was kind to let you out of your rooms.”
The dark-haired boy remained motionless in the pond, the water now still around him.
“His father?” Lucius said, a note of warning in his voice. “ His father is some immigrant pauper who probably boarded the first ship back to whatever back country he hailed from without even knowing he’d left a bastard behind.”
The girl burst into a fit of laughter. “Oh, Lucius! You really are a lark! I do so adore your witty observations. Now, we really ought to get back lest someone realise we’re missing.”
Lucius grunted, presumably in annoyance that his torments were to be cut short. “I suppose we ought to,” he said to the girl. The pair turned to leave. “Don’t stay too long, or you’ll catch your death. Oh” – Lucius turned back to glare at the dark-haired boy – “maybe, on second thought, do.”
The girl’s cackle continued long after the fog had engulfed the pair. Only then did the dark-haired boy stir. By now, he was shivering violently, and his golden olive face had drained of colour.
He dragged himself to his feet, the water lapping at his waist. He pulled his heavy wool jacket off and threw it over his shoulder. His white shirt clung to his form, and Mab could make out the ripple of muscles under the cloth.
She felt the flitter again in her stomach and knew she really ought to look away, but she remained fixed to the spot.
The boy’s chattering teeth broke the silence, and Mab let out a little squeak. The boy’s head snapped towards her. “Who are you?” he said through clacking teeth.
“That is none of your business,” she said defiantly, then immediately regretted it. It wouldn’t have been too bad for this boy to know a bit more about her.
“You look like a fairy with that fiery hair,” he said, taking a step towards her, the water lapping at his thighs in a way that was unfamiliarly mesmerising .
Fairy? There were worse things to be called by a boy, she guessed. And, only moments ago, she had been a dragon. But fairy would do.
She nodded her head.
The boy looked at her quizzically.
“Why did that boy push you in?” she asked.
He took another step towards her, and her heart pounded loudly.
“For the sin of being sired by someone from a lower station than he.”
“You can tell a lot about a person based on how they treat those worse off than themselves,” Mab said.
The boy, finally free of the pond, didn’t respond until he had crossed the bank and stood only a few feet in front of her. He was close enough that Mab could make out the colour of his eyes (a peaty brown with an odd iridescence to them), the gold hue that was slowly returning to his skin, and just how full his lips were, despite being tinged with blue.
She decided that she’d never seen someone who looked so remarkable before. In fact, she would go as far as to say that how she was feeling was quite foreign to her, so much so that she couldn’t yet assign an emotion to it, but it did intensify when he rolled his sodden sleeves up, revealing more golden skin taut over surprisingly thick forearms.
“Thank you.”
Now Mab looked at him quizzically. “Thank you for what?”
“I was beginning to think all young ladies turned a blind eye to the behaviours of gentlemen.”
Mab shrugged. “I think that if you have to call yourself by an adjective, then you are probably the opposite.”
The boy’s eyes narrowed on her for a second. Then his head tipped back, and his peal of laughter resonated across the foggy meadow. It was singularly the loveliest laugh that Mab had ever heard, causing a homely heat to spread through her body .
“No, I guess you’re right,” he said after catching his breath. “I have yet to meet a gentle gentleman.”
“Mab!” her aunt’s panicked voice called from somewhere in the fog.
Mab let out a sigh as she picked up her boots and brushed down her mint-green skirts. “I suppose I ought to go.”
She decided that she would return to her aunt and see what all the fuss was about, then come up with a plan to stumble across this boy again. She supposed it wouldn’t be hard. Mab had always been keen to make cognitive leaps – though rarely was she correct as she did have a tendency for fantastical dramatics – and guessed from his attire, bastard status and Lucius’s mention of horse shit (though she could not herself smell it) that he must be a stable boy for the Viscount. She would simply ask one of her cousins to escort her to the Viscount’s estate and ask to see the horses. She immediately saw the flaw in her plan; all of her cousins had an intense dislike for Lucius, so they most likely wouldn’t agree.
Perhaps she could just sneak onto the estate and find the stables herself?
Yes. That was a perfect plan. And a very fitting adventure.
“Mab!” her aunt called again.
“Mab,” the boy said as she slipped her boots on, not bothering to tie the laces and instead shoving them haphazardly behind the leather tongue. “That’s an apt name for a fairy.”
“Mab!” her aunt screamed, the panic in her voice now a crescendo.
Mab allowed herself to look the boy up and down once more. “You should dry yourself off, otherwise you really might catch your death.”
“May I see you again sometime?” the boy asked.
Mab smiled. Perhaps she wouldn’t need to sneak onto the Viscount’s estate after all!
“Of course you may. I live by the fairy tree just over there,” she joked, pointing in what she hoped was the direction of the blackthorn tree. The fog had come in thick and fast; Mab hadn’t noticed when the tree had disappeared. She felt a slight tinge of panic settle in her stomach and hoped she could find her way back.
What a perfect time for a tall, dark, handsome prince to swoop in and save her.
No , she thought. She didn’t need a prince to help her with the kelpies, and she most certainly wouldn’t need one to tackle a bit of fog, even if her prince did make her heart skip enough beats to be worrisome.
“Well, until next time we meet, Mab.” The boy dipped into a deep bow.
Mab, eager to make haste, began walking before he drew back up. “Until next time!” she called over her shoulder, unable to see the boy anymore.