My father turned to face me. We had both heard the rumors. Like all the Greengallows, Petre was deeply entangled in the Praquean Mafia. One of its leaders, just like his father. Their family controlled all but the smallest backroom gambling tables and when you borrowed money from the house, the Greengallows were the house.
As my eighteenth birthday loomed, they called in his debt with no other option for an extension. With no way to repay, it became clear what they really wanted and more than likely why they allowed my father to borrow from the house for so long. They did not want the money, they wanted what they did not have.
Title.
But there were darker rumors too—that Petre was petty, cruel, and quick to violence. Especially with women.
My father patted the back of my hand.
“If you watch your tongue and show him respect,” my father said, “I’m sure you’ll be just fine. I’m sorry, my child. Marriage is about connections. Creating allies and fulfilling larger causes.”
I huffed, swallowing hard, and ran my thumb over the engraving on my cigarette case. I didn’t need to say it, he already knew what I was thinking. Why was it that he was allowed to marry for love, against his family’s wishes, but the same wasn’t true for me? Perhaps women weren’t supposed to have such thoughts, but I did.
Though I’d had few luxuries growing up, my time at boarding school had made me strong and confident. I was an experienced fencer and an accurate archer. They even taught us to fight alongside the more traditional studies of embroidery, literature and poetry.
The unique teachings of my school made me understand my own power, and I could spot the weaknesses of my opponent. And yet, I’d never planned on having to defend myself from my own husband.
The word husband made me nauseous.
“I hate you for this,” I growled. The setting aside of our differences short lived. “I never minded being a paper princess. But if you had listened to mother, to me, and stayed away from the gambling dens,” I said, staring at the approaching estate, “none of this would have happened. None of this would be my future. None of this…”
“Watch your tongue. I’ve put up with enough of your disrespect,” my father snarled and grabbed my wrist, sending my cigarette case flying. I was stunned—never had my father gone so far as to touch me.
But his grip was terrifyingly strong.
He raised his other hand to slap me. I stared it down.
“Go ahead. Do it. Hit me. It’s the sort of marriage you’re sending me to anyway, isn’t it?” My voice was thick and hoarse with emotion. The low oil lamp in the carriage blurred with my tears. “Shouldn’t I get used to it?”
He released my hand with a glare, and I reached over to pick up the silver case on the seat beside me. Behind his anger and cowardice, I saw a glimmer of what was driving all this.
Fear and shame. And terror at what would happen to him if I somehow escaped this situation. They’d string him up in double-quick time, I had no doubt about it.
He wouldn’t be the first. Everyone in out part of the kingdom knew what happened to men who failed to square their debts with the Greengallows.
My father got control of himself, at least a little, and said, “Endear yourself to all of them, Valeria. You are a woman after all, and God has given you womanly gifts. Show the father, Francis, the utmost reverence and respect. Get in the brother’s good graces. They call him Vasile. The prodigal son not part of their messy businesses. He’s got his father’s ear, and his own sort of power, they say. If you ever need protecting from your husband, you may find an ally in Vasile.”
Chapter 2
Valeria
My potential ally, according to my father, was a no-show for our big dinner.
But Petre, much to my surprise, was not at all what I expected and my anxiety about needing an ally began to wane. I had heard so many rumors about my betrothed that I was expecting a monster.
What I was met with instead was a well-spoken, elegant man, who seemed interested and respectful toward me. If I could fault him for one thing, it was that he was very clearly and very aggressively undressing me with his eyes. And a great deal more than that, too. I had once heard the term “eye fucking,” and I knew now exactly what that meant.
Every time I met his gaze, my cheeks flushed, my skin prickling with heat, and I nearly had to bite my lip. Such hunger and desire, it hardly seemed polite.
But even that seemed, oddly enough, somewhat acceptable. He was attractive, much more so than I had expected. He had dark hair and dark eyes and even his notorious limp, the source of so much gossip, was hardly noticeable.
His dress for the evening was clearly expensive and in truth, somewhat ostentatious. A man who liked attention, I surmised. He wore extravagant rings and a sapphire and diamond neckpiece that looked a century out of place.
Seated at the long, polished mahogany dining table, were Petre and his father, Francis Greengallow. Though the old man had all the trappings and behaviors of a mafia king—the pinkie ring, the raw calm, the sense of power, the slightly off-color jokes—I found that I liked him very much. He was warm and curious, and seemed genuinely happy at the prospect of having me as a daughter-in-law.
“Having a lady to help run the house will be a damned good thing,” he said. “And my wife will be so grateful to have you here as well. I do apologize for her absence; she was simply too weak today.”
“I am so sorry. I do hope she will recover.”
He nodded, a half-smile showing gold-capped molars.
“Thank you, my dear, but at this stage recovery would be a miracle. What we can hope for, and what I pray for every morning and night, is that her condition doesn’t deteriorate any further. It was unfortunate that today was one of her worse days, she so wished to meet you.”
“I’m sure we will get along quite well.” I gave a polite bow of my head.
My father had filled me in on the family enough to know that Mrs. Greengallow, Petre’s mother, was unwell.
A weak heart, the result of a fever that had spread through the region the year I was born. I glanced up at the ornately plastered ceiling, past the glimmering crystal chandelier, and wondered if she was right there above me somewhere, for all purposes confined to her own sort of prison. There was an unoccupied place set to the right of the older Mr. Greengallow, the place of honor which I guessed was for his other son, Vasile.
I saw a look pass between Petre and his father as we sat awaiting our first course that seemed tense. But then, could I blame a man for resenting his newly returned brother’s place of preference at a dinner meant to honor his own engagement? And then, he didn’t even bother to show?
As well, from what I’d heard it was Petre who worked with his father running the family business, not this Vasile who’d recently returned from somewhere to the east.
The house itself, and the meal, were unlike anything I’d experienced in my life—such luxury and finery and good taste. As our dinner went on, I began to think that perhaps all the rumors had been just that. Rumors.
Though I had only just met him and though I knew that things are never precisely what they seem, it was so difficult for me to believe that this man was capable of such aggression and violence.