Chapter 3

My mother swept in with her servants behind her.

Peaches was hurt all over, and still she shook her head at me.

I knew what she meant. Don't do anything rash. But she was the only one in this house who had ever been good to me. How could I stand there and watch them hurt her?

My brother, Ulysses Henson, threw me a sneering glance and cupped his hands toward our mother.

"If I hadn't kept an eye on the back gate, this maid would've slipped right out."

"Look at her. Like she was off to beg someone for help."

Our mother laid her hand over Nanny Griggs's, asked nothing, and let one cold word fall.

"Beat her to death."

Ice closed over me. I crawled on my knees to her feet.

"Mother, I was the one who sent her out. It was my fault. Punish me, I beg you, but let Peaches go."

I knocked my forehead against the floor, hard, and only got a few blows in before she stopped me.

Gently, she pressed a handkerchief to the cut on my brow.

Hope rose in my chest.

The next instant it shattered.

"How is she to marry Blake Sparks with a ruined face?"

Hands seized me and held me still.

They dropped Peaches onto a bench and brought the barbed cudgel down across her waist.

"Aah!"

The scream tore straight through the long dead of night.

And even then, she kept begging for my life.

"Mistress, don't send the young miss to the Sparks estate. She'll die there, she'll die!"

I looked to Alma Henson and Ulysses Henson, pleading.

They only watched it all, cold-faced.

Peaches's voice was fading, thinner and thinner.

"Mother!"

I screamed it.

From somewhere I found the strength to wrench free, and I threw myself over Peaches and took the next blow for her.

Just one. And my whole waist stopped feeling like mine.

"You marry Blake Sparks, then. Just let Peaches go!"

Nothing moved in my mother's face. She only had them drag me off.

"You're no child of this house, but the house has fed and kept you all these years. You ought to be good for something."

"Marry the way you're told, and your maid wouldn't die. When you get down to it, you're the one who's killed her."

Alma said, a touch anxious,

"Mother, will the prince really not have anything to say about it?"

She hung a gentle smile on her face and stroked Alma's hair.

"There's nothing to this wretch but a pretty face. And the prince only said he wanted a daughter of this house. Isn't your sister a daughter of this house?"

Ulysses looked Peaches over with real interest.

"Loretta's just one woman, and it's past curfew. Who could she even go to? Not some stray man from outside?"

Peaches held on to her last breath.

"Mistress, Blake Sparks is not the only power in this world. I beg you, think again!"

With that, she brought up a mouthful of blood and stopped breathing.

"Peaches! Peaches! Peaches!"

Tears poured down my face, and under the shock of it I went straight out, into nothing.

Alma's color changed.

"Mother, the prince loves virgins above all. If Loretta's been touched and she angers him, won't he turn on this whole house?"

My mother stared at where I lay senseless and had a bucket of ice water hauled up and thrown over me to wake me.

I looked at her, lost, the tears falling before anything else could.

"Nanny Griggs, inspect her."

My mother led her people out of the shrine.

Peaches had meant to give her something to fear. She had never guessed they cared more about whether I was untouched.

The shrine doors swung shut in front of me.

My mother was gone, but Ulysses did not leave.

Nanny Griggs had four of the coarse-work servants pin my hands and feet, and stripped my underclothes off.

I couldn't break loose.

Ulysses crouched down and watched, avid.

I fought with everything I had.

"Don't touch me! Get away! Get out!"

Despair and revulsion broke me apart completely.

I screamed my throat raw, and the shrine doors never opened.

Only when Nanny Griggs was satisfied did they let me go.

I huddled in the corner, clothes in disarray, shaking.

Nanny Griggs said I was untouched, and only then did my mother let out her breath.

"For Loretta to have ties outside, that low creature Peaches can't be clear of it. Better she's dead. It sets the house right."

"In all the imperial capital, how many can match the prince for power? Even if some stray man does come knocking, we just beat him to death."

Ulysses lifted the handkerchief he'd taken off me to his nose, breathed it in, and smiled a sickening smile.

"Sister, don't worry. A prize like her is sure to please the prince."

"Only a shame. We're one beautiful concubine short."

I stared at my mother, unable to believe it.

She looked at Ulysses, all tenderness.

"I'd meant, in a while, to give Loretta to you as a concubine. I've trained her up well. She'd have put you first in everything."

"But now, with this trouble, we have to save Alma first. Once the matter of Blake Sparks is settled, I'll pick out a good one for you."