Perplexed, her father stuck his tongue out in thought before sitting with a brooding expression. "And what did he say to you? I imagine he made quite a ruckus at the ball?"
Understatement of the Season. "You could say that, yes. However, I do have some good news. He has released me of the betrothal contract. However, I am not—"
Her speech stopped the minute her dad's face went pale with worry. His eyes closed, and he muttered a curse. "Tell me he did not break the contract. Tell me you are lying or jesting as you were with the swooning. Please tell me that, m'dear, tell me!" He launched himself from the chair and grabbed her shoulders, sweat poured from his brow. "Tell me, tell me!"
Frightened, Rosalind's voice shook. "Father, I thought you would be relieved, happy even! You owe that family nothing. Why, it's utter nonsense that we should hold true to that stupid rule about our families. There is no curse!"
Her father's head hung in defeat; his hands relaxed their hold on her shoulders. "What have you done?"
Those were the last words her father uttered before he died.
CHAPTER ONE
Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality, And dreams in their development have breath, And tears and tortures, and the touch of joy.
~ Lord Byron ~
Six cursed months later
"I refuse to believe it," Stefan muttered, keeping the tears from his eyes, though it was difficult considering the circumstances. But he needed to be strong for his family. At least what was left of it.
"It matters not what you choose to believe, it is a simple fact. Family members will continue to die unless you do something!" his mother yelled.
Frantically, he looked to his two brothers. The second oldest, James, utterly ruined for his stupidity, and the youngest Fitz, looking like he already had a foot in the grave. And all because of him.
His mother, the Dowager Duchess of Montmouth had tear-stained cheeks. "Stefan, you are watching your entire family burn to the ground. Everything generations have built! Are you such a selfish ill-bred boy that you enjoy seeing the pain, my dear? For it will get worse. First your father, now Fitz. It is the curse, I tell you! And we won't be rid of it until you fix this!"
His mother spoke of the curse as if it was real. Which it wasn't. They didn't live in some fairy tale book where broken betrothal contracts made it so that people started dropping dead within the family until the contract was mended. His ancestors had been positively unhinged when they set about telling the family that they must always marry into the Hartwell line. Truthfully, he blamed his father's side of the family. Somewhere along the way, one of his ancestors had slept with a gypsy and then abandoned her, alone and pregnant, she did what any desperate woman would do.
She cursed his great, great grandfather as well as the woman he married, saying if he was so happy with another woman, his family would never break ties with hers. And so it was believed that if it happened, if either sides deterred from the chosen path, a curse so painful, so awful, would befall the family and take out all family lines and heirs.
It was ridiculous. But that didn't mean his father hadn't believed every word, nor his father before him. His family had promised he would look into the so called curse before Stefan left for India. Obviously he had come to the conclusion that things should stay as they were, for when he returned, it was to see himself betrothed. And the second he broke the betrothal, well, things had gone to Hades. His frustration mounting, all he could really do was explode with anger at his mother's refusal to listen.
"I do not believe in curses!" he yelled right back. If circumstances hadn't recently lent themselves in support of the family curse in the days since his broken betrothal, he wouldn't be having this conversation. But the evidence was undeniable.
First, Rosalind's father had dropped dead for no reason other than his heart stopped, yet he had been perfectly healthy until then. His own father, the late Duke of Montmouth, died two months later of pneumonia. And now Fitz, his brother, had contracted a disease that would not allow him to eat lest he throw up his countenance every time.
His mother said it was a curse.
He wanted to explain it away. For there had to be a more plausible reason why his once solid family was now crumbling around him, but it seemed too connected. Why hadn't he listened when his father spoke of such things? Instead he had thought them the ramblings of an old man, and even worse, he had laughed in his father's face when he warned Stefan to hold true to his promise to wed the girl, saying it was a life or death choice.
Apparently, he was spot on; Stefan just wasn't aware it was his own father's death that was held in the balance.
"What will you have me do?" He looked into his mother's tear-stained eyes. Willing her to stop crying — to stop yelling — he needed a stiff drink and some blasted answers, but knew he would only hear the mad ramblings of a crazy woman.
"Marry her."
A cynical laugh escaped before he could stop it. Taking a seat across from Fitz, he let slip an oath. "Just like that? You expect me to jump on my horse, tear after the girl in Sussex and convince her to marry me, all because of a run of bad luck which may or may not be the result of a curse?"
Straightening her back, his mother turned cold eyes on him. "How easily you forget. For wasn't she part of this whole debacle in the first place? Although, the rumor mill has been rampant that it isn't necessarily another family member who's struggling with life or death, but the girl herself."
"Rose is dying?" Stefan asked. His chest began to hurt. It felt that his mother had finally been able to reach him, for it seemed all the air in the once large room was sucked out and he now sat suffocating. His breath came in short gasps as he tried to regain some semblance of control over his physical reaction to the news.
"Very much so," his mother said. "And I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but from the sound of it, the girl doesn't have much time left."
"You swear it?" He had to ask it, for his mother was not above stretching the truth in order to get her way.
"Not that it matters, but yes. I swear it. Stefan, it was your father's last wish. His only wish, for us to continue aligning the families."
Suddenly exhausted, he allowed his body to fall back into the confines of the chair. "There has to be another explanation."
"But there isn't!" his mother snapped.
"She's right, Stefan." Fitz spoke up, his voice sounded weak with fever, it was strained, absolutely void of any luster. "You must do something."