Romance, nothing but romance! Destiny and circumstances are calling for an unlikely couple of passionate lust, troubled pasts and bittersweet present while a carefully woven web of interest threatens their happiness. Will they be able to find love amidst it all? This is a story consisting of 10 chapters. I will submit one every week and hope that you will enjoy reading as much as I loved writing it.
Prologue
Noise had woken him at night. Shouts, angry, demanding and desperate crying echoing through the corridors of his home. Alarmed and frightened by the strange sounds he climbed off the bed and tiptoed quietly to the door. His Nanny was nowhere to be seen, yet the shouting only grew louder as he carefully felt his way around in the darkness of the night. He sensed that something was wrong and wanted his momma.
He saw her before he could have reached her chambers, located just at the other end of the corridor.
"No! Please .... please don't do this, please don't!" she had pleaded helplessly while struggling against the men trying to lift her unwilling body from the cold marble floor.
It took a moment until he realized that the tormented woman in the single white nightgown with her long blond hair flowing around her frame like liquid gold was the same mother who had kissed him goodnight with a radiant smile that very night.
"Momma! Momma!" He rushed to her side desperately, his tiny fists banging against the thighs of the men trying to take her away.
"My baby!" she had cried out with her heart breaking at the sight.
He closed his eyes and pounded the men with all his might until a firm grip around his waist lifted him from the floor and took him away. Away from the cries and the struggle, away from his mother. When he opened his eyes again his father was looking at him with an angry face.
"Momma! They are hurting her!" he exclaimed, tugging at his father's arm, wanting to pull him along.
His eyes remained hard and untouched by emotion.
"No, my son. Your mother is ill, very ill. Those men are not hurting her, they are taking her away. It is best this way."
He had cried himself to sleep that night. Praying the way she had taught him for his mother to become healthy again and come home to them. He couldn't have been more than four, yet many years later, in his dreams, he still struggled against the dark clad men.
The mother he had known, with her radiant smile and beautiful golden crown, he never saw again.
***
Sunset bathed the snow-covered hilltops in a golden glow as the last warm rays withdrew their caress from the valley below. Even the chilly wind that had started to rise form the North couldn't spoil Emmeline's mood. It was her favorite part of the day. Most afternoon guests had already left and the patrons of the night were still enjoying their dinner at the tavern.
She had been tending to the small vegetable garden behind the kitchen for many years now, her slender fingers digging into the earth with great care. Back in the days when Emmeline was but a toddler, her mother had planted the garden in hopes of providing more variety for her cooking. Years later her daughter still cared for the vegetables with the same tenderness as for her late mother's grave.
The melody she hummed while pulling the stubbornly anchored weeds from the soil brought back pleasant memories of days long gone, pushing aside the worries of the present. The Golden Mane was the only home Emmeline had ever known and while not the most ideal place for a child to grow up at, her mother always did her utmost to make her feel safe and cared for. She used to hold her at night, when the thin wooden walls didn't keep away the guttural sounds from upstairs. Her mother would sing quietly, ancient melodies that soothed away her little girl's fears, rocking her gently to sleep. Valentine also had a sweet laughter, a warm, special smile she only gave to her daughter and no one else.
She often worried about Emmeline's future as the child started to blossom into a young woman men would take notice of without doubt. Emmeline had inherited much of the exotic beauty that had sealed her mother's fate a long time ago.
Her delicate features and the humble meals the owner provided gave her youthful charms a fragile, almost vulnerable look, despite the hard physical work she had been accustomed to since her early childhood days. Her chocolate brown eyes matched her mother's perfectly and sparkled when she smiled in ways that made the widow Carmichael accuse her of being a witch more than once. Her most striking feature was probably still her smile. A mirror image of the pure love and warmth of a child's trusting heart who had never known deceit nor the cruelty that could dwell in other human hearts.
"Unnatural things lie in that child, Valentine. I tell ye, evil has touched her hair and eyes," the widow Carmichael would vow whenever she saw the cook brush her daughter's hair. Emmeline's dark ebony tresses flowed like liquid silk between her mother's fingers, the light of the fireplace casting mysterious shadows around them.
Valentine would tell her daughter not to mind the old widow's foolish beliefs and taunting words.
"Envy is gnawing at her heart. Because you are so pretty and young and she is but bitter and spiteful. Nothing makes more ugly than an ugly heart."
Valentine had done her best to keep her daughter always by her side, working in the garden, helping her in the kitchen but while completing her chores, Emmeline would still occasionally bump into a patron. When her mother realized that the tightly braided hair and the ragged clothed were still not enough to make a young woman in bloom invisible to the hungry eyes of the leering patrons she started to make arrangements for Emmeline to become a laundry maid.
The respectable women of the village, however, seemed anything but eager to employ a girl with her background. Thus Valentine wandered into a nearby village, half a days march away on foot, seeking employment for her daughter in a respectable household. She returned two days later with high fever and a promise of consideration from a kind hearted widow of humble means, who had taken pity on her. The storm that had caught Valentine on her way left her feverish for many days. With Emmeline reluctant to leave her sick mother's side, young Mr. Tucker, the owner of the house, started to complain how neither of them was paying for their keep. The widow Carmichael overtook the kitchen but her cooking didn't seem to appeal to the guests. Again Mr. Tucker cursed and complained about the money he was loosing because of Valentine's foolishness. When Valentine requested to speak to him in private, Emmeline didn't like the idea at all.
"You are still so weak, mother. Here have some soup." But Valentine insisted on sending for the fuming man.
Mr. Tucker's uncle had been a kind hearted man albeit with little sense for business, as his nephew would often claim. When almost two decades earlier a young woman of stunning beauty showed up in his tavern with a baby on her arm he made sure they were well taken care of, lacking nothing. When Valentine started to ask around about employment possibilities old Mr. Tucker was helpful and didn't ask questions aside from her skills and the arrangement she had in mind. Valentine explained that she had worked as a kitchen hand and later as a maid to a noble family but was made to leave once her circumstances started to show. Mr. Tucker only nodded understandingly, her story was one and a dozen among the young maidens in the country. In most cases, some sort of compensation for their "circumstances" and silence was arranged by the household they were leaving, even though this didn't seem to be the case with Valentine. Mr. Tucker thought it a pity for such a delightful beauty to go to waste and offered the young woman and her daughter room, food and a humble payment for kitchen service. Valentine was grateful for the opportunity and with her experience as a kitchen hand soon became an excellent cook.
Emmeline had been working alongside her mother by the time old Mr. Tucker passed away and his nephew and only heir overtook the business. Young Mr. Tucker was eager to make as much profit as possible and cut down on any expenses he considered unnecessary. Within a years time the quiet little tavern at the end of the village had turned into a loud brothel, despised by the people around and still blooming because of the many travelers and visitors that frequented it even from the neighboring villages.
Not wanting her only child to become a victim of men's unbridled lust, Valentine tried to convince Mr. Tucker even in her illness to send her daughter away. The greedy man was unmovable, only complaining about the financial loss Valentine's condition was already causing to his establishment. How could he afford losing another employee now? The desperate woman vowed to pay him back everything if only he would let Emmeline go to serve the widow Blacksmith, even signing a contract of her intentions. Mr. Tucker had finally agreed and wished her well before leaving.
Valentine Dawson passed away during that night, content and hopeful that she had spared her daughter the fate that had become her undoing. If nothing else, Emmeline was something she had done right in this world and she left with hope in her heart that she would grow up to lead a happier and better life.
Three years later Emmeline still worked the small vegetable garden behind the kitchen, her dark hair covered by a faded head scarf, her soiled face and dirty hands hardly igniting desire in anyone who passed her. The grief she felt over the loss of her mother bore down on her lively spirit and extincted the spark of laughter from her eyes. What remained was the sorrowful expression of a young woman. Valentine made her promise that she would never sell herself short, never yield to tempting offers of an easy life or flattery rather lead the virtuous life of a hardworking woman.
"Devil's child, ye come hither or I shall make ye!" The old crow's shouting tore Emmeline from her reminiscence at once.
Since her mother's death the widow Carmichael seemed to find fault in whatever she did. There was no chore too heavy for the devil's child, neither a task completed to the old woman's contentment. She seemed to draw her only delight from talking down on Emmeline and punishing the little beast to her heart's delight, for the girl's own good, as she would claim.
"The Sir wishes to have a word with ye. Hurry for he won't be kept waiting!" The old lady barked.
When Emmeline wiped her hands in her dirty apron the widow took her by the arm roughly, yanking her to the basin.
"There is no way in heaven or hell that I let ye walk around in the house like that. What do I have ye scrub the floors for? Filthy brood of devil, wash up!"
Emmeline stumbled and her shoulder crushed against the hard wood of the basin when the widow tossed her aside, cursing under her breath as she wiped her hand in her apron with obvious disgust.
With a deep breath the young woman washed her hands and face, taking her time. Talking to Mr. Tucker couldn't mean anything good in her experience. There was just something about his smile, the way he looked at her, that unsettled Emmeline, no matter how charming his words might have been. The eerie feeling wouldn't leave her around the man so she did her best to get out of his way whenever possible.
On the rare occasion when they spoke, Mr. Tucker seemed eager to taunt her, tease her in ways most inappropriate and delight in the embarrassment that showed so readily in her pale complexion. He made it no secret that he had plans for Emmeline to entertain the guests once she has come of age, yet apart from the embarrassing compliments never seemed to pressure the matter.
"You wished to see me, Mr. Tucker Sir." Emmeline courtesied somewhat awkwardly.
