Rebellious Desire
By Julie Garwood
Prologue
England, 1788
Angry voices awakened the child.
She sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "Nanny?" she
whispered into the sudden silence. She looked across the room to the
rocking chair adjacent to the hearth and saw that it was empty. The
child quickly squirmed back down under the feathered quilt, trembling
with cold and fear. Nanny wasn't where she was supposed to be.
The dying embers in the fireplace glowed a brilliant orange in the
darkness and resembled the eyes of demons and witches to the little
four-year-old's imagination. She wouldn't look at them, she determined.
She turned her gaze to the twin windows, but the eyes followed her,
terrifying her by casting eerie shadows of giants and monsters against
the windows, giving life to bare branches that scraped against the
glass. "Nanny?" the little girl repeated, tears in her whisper.
She heard her papa's voice then. He was yelling, and though his tone
sounded harsh and unyielding, the fear immediately left the child. She
wasn't alone. Her father was near, and she was safe.
Soothed, the child became curious. She had lived in the new house for
over a month now and in all that time had never seen a visitor. Her papa
was yelling at someone, and she wanted to see and hear what was
happening.
The little girl scooted to the edge of the bed and then turned onto her
stomach so that she could slide to the floor. There were pillows placed
there, along each side of the bed on the hardwood floor, and she pushed
one out of her way as she landed. Barefoot, she padded soundlessly
across the room, her toes hidden by the long white nightgown she wore.
She brushed the curly black hair out of her eyes and carefully turned
the doorknob. When she reached the landing, she paused. Another man's
voice reached her. The stranger had started to yell, spewing hateful
words with great belching sounds that caused the child's blue eyes to
widen with surprise and fear. She peeked around the corner of the
banister and saw her father facing the stranger. From her position at
the top of the steps, she could see another figure, partially hidden by
the shadows of the entry hall.
"You've had your warnings, Braxton!" the stranger yelled with a guttural
clip to his voice. "We've been well paid to see you don't cause no more
trouble."
The stranger held a pistol much like the one her father often carried
for his own protection, and the child saw that he was pointing it at her
papa. She started down the curved stairway, her intent to run to her
father so that he could soothe her and tell her everything would be all
right. When she reached the bottom step, she stopped. She watched as her
father hit the stranger and knocked the pistol out of his grasp. The
weapon landed with a thud at the little girl's feet.
From the shadows the other man appeared. "Perkins sends his respects,"
he said in a raspy voice. "He also sends the message that you're not to
worry about the girl. He'll be getting a good price for her."
The girl began to tremble. She couldn't look at the man talking. She
knew that if she did, she would see the eyes of the demon, orange and
glowing. Terror assaulted the child's senses. She could feel evil
surrounding her, smell it and taste it, and if she dared to look, she
knew she would be blinded by it.
The man the child believed to be the devil himself returned to the
shadows just as the other man lunged at her father and gave him a hard
shove. "With your throat slit, you'll not be making speeches," he said
with a harsh laugh. Her papa fell to his knees and was struggling to
stand when a knife appeared in the attacker's hands. An ugly, mean laugh
permeated the foyer, echoing around the walls like a hundred sightless
ghosts screeching at one another.
The man flipped the knife from one hand to the other and then back again as he slowly circled her father.
"Papa, I will help you," the girl whimpered as she reached for the
pistol. It was heavy and as cold as if it had been lifted from the snow,
and she heard a clicking sound when one of her chubby fingers slid
through the circle underneath.
Her arms were outstretched and stiff and her hands trembled with fear
when she pointed the weapon in the general vicinity of the two men
struggling. She slowly started to walk toward her father, to give the
weapon to him, but stopped abruptly when she saw the stranger plunge the
long, curved knife into her papa's shoulder.
The child screamed in agony. "Papa! I will help you, Papa!" The little
girl's sob, full of terror and despair, penetrated the harsh grunts of
the two combatants. The stranger lurking in the shadows rushed forward
to join the tableau. The struggle ceased and all three men stared in
stunned disbelief at the little four-year-old pointing the gun at them.
"No!" the devil screeched. He wasn't laughing anymore.
"Run, Caroline. Run, baby, run."
The warning came too late. The child tripped over the hem of her gown as she rushed toward her father.
She instinctively grasped the trigger of the pistol when she fell and
then closed her eyes against the explosion that reverberated as
obscenely as the demon's laughter throughout the foyer.
The little girl opened her eyes and saw what she had done. And then she saw nothing more.
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