The Maiden Bride Read Online Free PDF

no preventing the horrors that will surely follow.”
    “Horrors?” Beatrix’s milky white face paled even further. “What do you mean, horrors?”
    “Rape,” the old woman’s harsh voice grated out. “Ever do armies rape. Still, your beauty and innocence may save us. Even Henry, boy king that he styles himself, must know an heiress with your dowry is better—”
    She broke off and her face froze in sick realization. Linnea realized it too. Henry would know that a beautiful virgin with a handsome dowry was more valuable pure than ruined. But Beatrix would no longer possess such a dowry, not if de la Manse took everything—which there was no reason not to expect. She would no longer be a valuable heiress. Linnea moved up beside her sister and laid a comforting arm around her shoulder. “Perhaps we can escape,” she whispered, staring hopefully at her grandmother.
    Lady Harriet’s nostrils flared, as if Linnea’s suggestion were so pitiful as to be beneath contempt. But before she could make some biting rejoinder, the twins’ longtime nurse, Norma, burst into the room.
    “Milord … Milord Edgar bids you come to him in the hall, milady.” Her color was high and her breathing labored. Clearly she’d run up the two flights of stairs, no easy feat for a woman of her age and girth. It frightened Linnea all the more, and Beatrix as well.
    “What of Beatrix?” Lady Harriet asked. “Doth he make mention of her?”
    “He said I am to accompany her to the stillroom and collect whatever she needs. Then we are to see to Maynard. The poor lad is to be put in the barracks.”
    Lady Harriet did not hesitate. It was as if this call to duty had somehow restored her. She unfastened the loop of household keys that hung from her girdle and thrust them into Beatrix’s hands. Then she grabbed Beatrix’s arms and steered her to the door. “I will join you at Maynard’s bedside once my counsel is no longer needed. Agh! The barracks, for he who shouldst be lord here.” She spat. “A curse on the lot of them.” Then she fixed her cold gaze on Linnea.
    “You. Stay out of my sight. You have caused enough misery for one day. Agh, but Edgar should have listened to me—”
    She whirled around and departed, leaving them only with the rhythm of her stick clicking on the hard, cold floor. Once that disappeared, however, Linnea could hear nothing but the roar of blood in her ears, and the silent condemnation she’d lived with all her life—only today it was far, far worse.
    She knew what her grandmother meant. She should have been killed at the moment of her birth, so that the evil intrinsic to her soul would be denied an outlet on this earth, and her family would be spared the certain misery that must befall it. Well, that misery was here now, and it was her fault. She closed her eyes and swayed, so overcome was she with the horror of her own existence.
    Then a steadying hand clasped her elbow, and the black shadow over her dissipated a little.
    “The fault does not lie with you,” Beatrix whispered fervently in her ear.
    Linnea shuddered. Dear, sweet Beatrix. If not for her sister’s deep and abiding faith in her, Linnea would never have survived all these years. While there had been very little Beatrix could do to change others’ harsh views of the second twin, just knowing that Beatrix didn’t believe the worst of her meant everything to Linnea. They shared a bond no one else understood. Beatrix was the only one who loved Linnea, and Linnea loved her back with a ferocity that was sometimes frightening.
    Now, that touch on her arm and the whispered words of reassurance were precisely what Linnea needed to rebuild her confidence. She looked into her sister’s beautiful sea green eyes and stroked her softly rounded cheek. “Thank you, Bea. Thank you. But no matter whose fault this is, we are nevertheless in dire straits indeed.”
    Beatrix nodded, then touched her forehead to Linnea’s, the way they’d always done when