Moonless Read Online Free Page B

Dreams
                   
    Dinner.
    No mention had yet been made of the caller.
    Alexia cleared her throat. “I heard we had a visitor.”
    Father’s frown hardened. “No.” He wiped his mouth and set the napkin aside. “We had an intruder.”
    “The stranger from Baron Galedrew’s banquet?”
    Mother set her spoon down.
    Father’s face reddened and he speared a carrot. “We do not associate with such filth.”
    “Is he? Tell me, Father.”
    He set his fork coolly aside. “No more, Alexia.” His lowered brow warned her against the subject, and he watched her a long moment before returning to his meal.
    She bit her lip. How much more could she squeeze out of him without sparking his wrath? “Baron Galedrew seemed positively frightened of him.”
    “Alexia!”
    “But Father—”
    “Silence!” He leapt up, chair smashing to the floor. “If you learn nothing else from me, you will learn your place in this world!” He shook wildly.
    Mother quietly stood and exited the room. Alexia bowed her head.
    What brought on the impassioned episode? Who was this man? Why did Father rage and Mother quake at the mere suggestion of him? More importantly, how did they know him?
    At the meal’s conclusion, she stepped into the drawing room and found Mother staring out the window. Her skin was like ivory, drawn of its usual warmth, her hands tucked and still in her lap.
    “Mother?” Cold gray eyes fell on Alexia. “I hoped you might tell me—”
    “Do not!” the noble woman hissed. “How dare you disobey your father, beastly child. Go. I will not see your proud face more tonight.”
    Stung, Alexia withdrew to her chambers.
    ***
    A candle burned as she chewed her lip.
    Her parents knew him. She couldn’t help melting into the memory of his magnetic stare, the yearning to abandon all and throw herself at him. Even knowing it was wrong to crave the presence of a murderer, every cell pulsed with the need to find him again and prove he was not the monster her conscience screamed he was.
    Alexia piled the shredded parchment onto her bureau and spent an hour under the torture of candlelight, pasting the scraps back together. At length it read:
    House of Stark, Northbend, Wilhamshire.
    An address.
    She blinked.
    An address?
    He’d come to kill her, or worse, and he’d given Father his home address?
    She tucked the card under her nose and inhaled, imagining she found herself on Northbend, perhaps even bumping into him. He’d ask her name, and she’d willingly give it. He’d show her his modest home, invite her to dinner and proceed to dismantle the amassing curiosities—
    Then he’d kill her and feed her to the delectable little Bellezza!
    An address?
    She put the card down. Perhaps the residence belonged to an undertaker, one he had suggested Father use after he found her ladled through the heart.
    She climbed into bed, reviewing her exceptionally dull existence—the unpopular extremes of this sheltered life. Why should he come to her?
    Her parents never flaunted her about like other children, and although fashion dictated women not be educated, Father had no sons. He gave her every advantage this life publicly allowed, and some not. Tutors—of both genders and multiple disciplines. She’d studied with so many through the years. Of course Father didn’t think she’d marry, even with the prospect of an inheritance. He wanted her prepared for the worst eventualities—becoming an old maid and a governess to her aunt’s future children, or a companion for a wealthy widow.
    She groaned. Why couldn’t she stay a child? The summer she had turned ten, that had been a good year. Beautiful blossoms, horseback lessons, picnics in the yard with Aunt Sarah . . .
    It was also the year her parents became pious about a church some hour away. She hadn’t understood their zeal, but they had attended and were determined that she should get some wholesome scathing out of the sermons.
    She remembered that last Sunday,