Authors: Nicky Peacock
Traitors' Gate
Evernight Teen ®
Copyright© 2016 Nicky
Peacock
ISBN: 978-1-77233-747-1
Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs
Editor: JS Cook
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this
copyrighted work is illegal.
No part of
this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written
permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are
fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
For
everyone who fights to be who they want to be...whether they win or lose in the
end.
TRAITORS’ GATE
Battle of the Undead: prequel
Nicky Peacock
Copyright © 2016
Chapter One
England 1483
“Zut!”
I yell, grabbing my head as it bounces off
the carriage ceiling.
My new governess, Mistress Black,
raises an eyebrow at me. “Lucinda, it is unladylike to swear.”
“Not even in French?”
“Especially not in French!” She has
a wild look in her eyes that I don’t trust, although to be fair her eyes are
the least of my worries. I am back in my home country after spending three
years in France, and despite still not being completely fluent in the language,
I have picked up an impressive array of curse words. Ms. Black had met me at
the docks. I fear she had taken one look at my curvy figure and unruly blond
hair and thought me totally unworthy of her time, let alone her words. We’d
spent the last three hours bobbing along in my father’s carriage in prolonged
periods of worrisome silence. Every conversation I had begun she had abruptly
ended with a sly comment or a wave of her gloved hand. I should be happy that
I’m back home—Lord knows I didn’t want to go to school overseas—but I’d grown
to love the place and the people, oh and the food. The flavors and smells of
sweet breads, buttery pastries and fondant filled fanciful cakes, all of them
just as delicious in appearance as in taste… I’d really like to indulge with
some of my raisin pastries right now, the ones I’d secreted in my purse but I
dare not incur the wrath of Mistress. Black, who is still failing to hide her
disappointment that I’m not some well-mannered debutant
waif.
“I smell cakes,” she says, sniffing
the air.
I casually wrap my pastries up
tighter, resigning myself that I’ll have to wait until we are at Father’s house
before I can safely undress them and let my senses melt into their sweet,
buttery loveliness…no, I’m having one now. I point to a random tree out of the
carriage window. Mistress Black’s intense gaze follows my finger. Quickly I
bend and eat part of the pastry. It crumbles into my mouth and I hide my
chewing by lifting my purse slightly, to shield me from Mistress Black’s withering
stare. Oh, I hope the kitchen staff remember me and let me bake some more when
I get home.
The carriage stumbles over a rocky
part of road and my purse leaps out of my hand. Mistress Black sees everything.
“Lucinda Delacourt! Your father is
going to be bitterly disappointed in you.”
I don’t even bother finishing my
mouthful of food. “That’s nothing new to me.”
Mistress Black’s face turns from
indignant self-righteousness to absolute horror. She bends down and picks up my
purse and thrusts it back into my hand. I drop it to my side to fully expose my
now open-mouthed chewing. With each movement, I stretch my jaw wide, making
sure she can smell the sugared raisins while I finish the rest of my delicious
pastry.
Another hour crawls by and I begin
to recognize the scenery slipping past the window. The smells of the
countryside are now all around us, a pungent mix of animals and flowers. I take
in a deep breath and smile. I’m home.
“My, my, what a horrible smell!” Mistress
Black pulls out a handkerchief and a small bottle of oil. She drips the oil
onto the material. It’s lavender; she plunges her long thin nose into it, like
a pig at a trough, and breathes deeply. I smile. I love the smell of lavender
and it only adds to my scent sensation of coming home.
As we near the house, my eyes are
drawn to our nearest neighbor, Ravenglass Manor. The once majestic gothic
building is now partly marred by black soot and half of its walls are spilling
their bricks across its burnt landscape.
“What happened at Ravenglass?” I
ask.
“Ladies do not gossip.”
“Of course we do, it’s all we do.”
Mistress Black stares at me. “This is my home, I need to know. I used to spend
time with Christian Ravenglass when I was a little girl, please.”
“Well, only because it is something
you should never mention again.”
“What do you mean? The Ravenglass
family are our friends, Christian fights for the White Rose just like my
family…”
“Not any more. Christian is a
traitor. Ravenglass was burned for it.”
“Burned by whom?”
“Your father.”
Chapter Two
Thomas Delacourt is a terrible man;
he is cold and devious and I do not trust him, but he is the only parent I have
left.
He’s not waiting at the front of
the house for my arrival, but there are five footman and several maids ready to
greet me.
I climb out of the carriage
and brush off the pastry crumbs from my dress. Mistress Black thrusts her bag
at the nearest servant and strides off into the house.
I look at the welcome party. I
remember Mistress Leighton the cook. I’m so happy to see she’s still here that
I lurch forward and embrace her. The tight lacing on my cotehardie
digs
into me, but I don’t care. She looks around us for a moment, then hugs me back.
“Welcome home, poppet,” she
whispers.
Gordons, whom I also remember, grins at me. He
was just a footman when I left, but he now wears the livery of head butler. I’m
not silly enough to hug him, but I do shake his hand vigorously, which makes
the maids laugh
“Jolly good to see you, Lady
Lucinda. You look beautiful, and you smell like,” he leans forward and sniffs
me, “pastry.”
I blush and reach into my purse to
retrieve what are left of my pastries. I hand them to Mistress Leighton.
“I baked them before I left.”
Mistress Leighton quickly hides the
cakes in her apron, “We have a lot of catching up to do,” she says with a wink.
I rush into my childhood home, but
instead of the resurrection of warm memories, I find it familiar yet cold. The
fire in the great hall isn’t lit and it’s much darker than I remember.
My homecoming is less than spectacular and
part of me wants nothing more than to climb into that carriage and trundle off back
to France. But I know that I can’t.
Gordons coughs. I hadn’t even heard
him approach.
“Your father wishes to see you now,
Lady Lucinda.”
I quickly check my reflection in
the hall mirror: my hair is sticking out at unfavorable angles, and there’s a
spot of jam still clinging to my bottom lip; has that been there since the
coach? I lick it off, then smooth down my hair as best I can.
There are only thirty steps between
the hall and my father’s study. I count them off in my head, just like I used
to do when I was little. When I reach the door I knock. There is no answer. I
knock again. No answer. I know father is inside. His study is his lair; he only
ever ventures between it, his bedroom, and the dining room. I open the door and
walk in.
Father is sitting behind his desk.
He’s thinner in the face than what I remember, not as broad. There is also a
speckle of grey dusting his dark hair. He must feel my eyes on him, as he looks
up at me.
“You just barge in here, not even a
knock?” he yells.
“I knocked twice, father.”
“Talking back. God’s bones what did
I pay those fancy French tutors for?”
There is no way for me to win this
argument. I’m not sure what I had expected, that three years of absence would
have mellowed him? That he would have charged over to me and given me a hug,
promising me that I’d never leave his side again? I’m a fool.
The silence between us has now
stretched so far it’s about to snap. So I curtsy.
His nose twitches. “Go to your
room. We’ll speak at dinner.”
I keep my eyes to the floor as I
back out of his study. When the door shuts behind me I release a breath I was
holding. I run up the stairs to my old room, slam the door behind me and fall
onto my bed. I scratch at my overgown till I loosen its grip on my torso. I
hadn’t realized how tired I was till I drop into a deep sleep.
I wake up late for dinner and have
to quickly change dresses in a bid to appear organized. My maid hasn’t come up
and it’s not until I rush down the stairs and bump into her that I discover
that my old room is not my current room at all. I was sleeping in a completely
different bedroom, how embarrassing.
I rush into the dining room like
the wind on a stormy night, gaining a withering look from Mistress. Black who
is seated at the table along with my father and a strange man.
“And this is Lucinda,” my father
says pointing at me. The man next to him gets up and smiles at me. He bows
slightly and takes my hand in a sweaty grip. He drags his moist lips over my
palm in what I assume is a romantic gesture. I look over at father, who doesn’t
seem to care.
“This is Lord Appleby. He has a
large estate in Dorset.”
“Dorset? My, that’s quite some way
away.” I try to smile at him, but fail miserably.
“Yes, you’ll love it there.” Lord
Appleby sits back down to the right of my father and Ms. Black physically moves
me to the seat across from him.
Lord Appleby is painfully thin with
almost black eyes and a complexion liked a cooked frog. I imagine him putting
his arms around me, and I shiver; it would be like being enclosed by a sallow
fleshy girdle. The dinner slowly marches through seven courses, every one of my
favorites from Mistress. Leighton’s repertoire, but each plate is tainted by
the obvious conclusion to my homecoming: my father has sold me and didn’t even
have the decency to tell me beforehand. I’m to become Lady Lucinda Appleby, the
sixteen year old wife to a forty year old man who eats with his mouth open and,
as he’d gotten drunker through the evening, and has become more and more leery,
regardless of Mistress Black or my father’s presence.
The moment I finish chewing the
last piece of the cheese and bread I stand up.
“I’m tired from my journey, so I
will bid you goodnight, father, Lord Appleby, Ms. Black.” I nod to each of them
and turn to leave.
“Wait,” my father says, “Lord
Appleby would like a turn around the garden with you.”
I glance toward the window. It must
be at least ten o’clock and is pitch black outside.
“Now?” I ask.
My father narrows his eyes at me.
“Oh please, yes. I so love a garden
at night.” Lord Appleby jumps to his feet and moves to my side. He’s protecting
me. Have I misjudged him? I take his arm and we head into the garden.
Outside, the chill of the night air
pinches at my bare arms. I look at Lord Appleby in his lovely warm cloak, but
he makes no move to offer it to me in any kind of gentlemanly gesture.
“And these are the white roses,” I
say. “My father planted them for my mother.” I linger at the small patch of
buds that I remembered as being much bigger, fuller, and more fragrant.
“Ah yes, we are all white roses
here,” he says with an exaggerated wink. He’s referring to the House of York. A
war has been raging for quite some time between the white rose of York and the
red rose of Lancaster, each backing a different king for the throne of England.
We make strained small talk for a
while longer as we walk farther away from the lights of the house. Suddenly he
stops and grabs my elbow, spinning me round so my body is flush against his.
“I do hope you are amenable to this
arrangement, Lucinda,” he says.
I try to pull back, but he’s
stronger than he looks and holds me firm. “Please let me go.”
I look up into his eyes and see a
slight madness there, a malevolence that I hadn’t noticed before.
“Let me go!” I say again.
“Just a kiss,” he whispers and
lowers his lips to mine.
I pull my head back so that he
lands his kiss on my chest. I’m unsure as to whether that is worse than his
mouth on mine. His grip on me tightens and he begins to slobber rough kisses
over my collarbone, while his hand frantically pulls up my petticoats ripping
into them as he does. I scream, but no one comes. I struggle and pull back as
far as I can from him, falling halfway out his grasp. A wild look crosses his
face and he raises up a hand and slaps my cheek. The blow makes me stagger
backward, out of his clutches. He stares at me for a moment. I kick him in the
crotch. He doubles over with a strained groan. I run.