Shut up, shut up,shutup, her distant brain was hollering, but it was far too late, and her husband snarled a mocking, satisfied laugh. “Ah, there’s the hysterical woman I married,” he said coldly. “You want to be kidnapped by orcs, is that it, wife? You want to be used and brutalized by a giant greenbeast?”
And for a screeching, dangling instant, there was the wild, almost uncontrollable urge to scream. To shout,Yes, actually, at this point, being kidnapped by orcs would surely be an improvement on this hollow husk of an existence, trapped here in this horrible house with you —
The truth of that seemed to strike Maria all at once, hammering deep into her soul, firing streams of fury and terror in its wake. Without her money, she was well and truly trapped. She had no other income. No living family. No friends who wouldn’t betray her to their ruling Duke. And even her own personal servants were all in the palm of her husband’s hand, united in their eagerness to closely monitor their frigid, unstable young duchess, ensuring she didn’t fall into melancholia again, or suffer another of her hysterical spells, or worse…
She’d finally been defeated, for good.
“Well?” her vile husband asked her, cool, amused, mocking. “Shall I set you out upon a plain, wife, and wait for an orc to come and ravage you?”
Maria swallowed hard, her wide blinking eyes trapped on his — and catching, for an odd, dangling instant, upon that faint flare ofemotionacross her unfeeling husband’s face. The distaste, the revulsion, perhaps even — thefear.
He’s better off dead. A lord, in the prime of his life, cuckolded by an orc. They would love nothing more than to publicly ruin me…
And even as the idea flashed through Maria’s thoughts, she knew it was no doubt the hysteria, come home to roost for good — but it still held there, gripped there, sank its teeth deep into her churning gut. The orcs had money, from those wealthy women they’d seduced. They desperately craved women and sons. That wouldneverhappen here…
But surely, Maria could run —there?
Her heart was wildly flailing, suddenly, her clammy hands clutching at her skirts, her eyes still blinking at her husband’s smug, obnoxious face. She could do this. Good gods, she could do this. She could seek freedom, and justice, andrevenge.
“Is that what you want, wife?” repeated her husband, taunting, vicious. “You want to be ripped away from your pampered, privileged existence as aduchess, so you can be ravaged and broken by anorc?”
And somehow, somehow, Maria found the strength to shake her head. To give the odious man before her a small, wan smile. To be defeated. Until…
“Of course not, my lord,” she said. “To want such a thing, a woman would have to be trulyinsane.”
2
Six weeks later, Maria silently slipped out of Warmisham House, and into the night’s quiet darkness.
She wore faded overalls and a men’s tunic, and her long dark curls were carefully tucked under a cap. On her back she carried a heavy canvas pack, and the gold coins she’d managed to acquire were hidden close against her skin, under the large swath of fabric binding her chest.
She was ready.
It had been weeks of secret, silent preparations, painstakingly concealed from Warmisham House’s ever-present, ever-vigilant servants. She’d re-assembled her hidden stash of supplies, rigorously planned her route, surreptitiously researched the best available travelling options. She’d even made multiple deeply upsetting visits to her bank and a variety of reputable lawyers, all of whom had confirmed the worst.
Her inheritance was gone. And without her husband’s direct intervention, it would never again return to her hands.
And with the truth of that still fresh and bitter in her thoughts, Maria had resolutely turned her attention to the main thrust of her revenge. To gaining her husband’s thorough, devastating defeat, in as public a way as possible.
And it wasn’t enough, she’d soon realized, to be merely kidnapped by orcs. Not when such an event might only prompt her immediate pursuit and rescue, or be swiftly covered up again. Not when it would surely offer her husband spectacular grounds for his sought-after war.
No, it had to be more lasting than that. More insidious. More… permanent.
So after much deliberation, Maria had turned to letters. Such small, simple things, letters — but not, perhaps, when they contained such sordid, scandalous revelations as these. Not when they were then sealed and left with the lawyers Maria most trusted, with explicit instructions for their delivery in precisely one month’s time. And surely not when the letters’ intended recipients included typesetters, columnists, rabble-rousers, and known enemies of her husband — as well as a select list of the well-placed busybodies who’d so carelessly helped destroy Maria’s own public reputation.
And tonight, on her lady-in-waiting’s weekly night off, Maria left her bed rumpled, her window latched, her few distinctive pieces of jewelry — including her wedding-ring — entirely untouched at her dressing-table. Offering no immediately obvious reasons for her abrupt disappearance — and thus also gaining enough time, she hoped, to reach her destination without disruption. Enough time, even, to perhaps make her letters truth.
A lord, in the prime of his life, cuckolded by an orc.
Maria cast one final glance up at Warmisham House behind her, at its symmetrical square elegance, its deep, deceptive whispers of safety and family and home. And then she resolutely turned her back, hoisted her pack on her shoulders, and fixed her gaze due west.
Toward Orc Mountain.
Her plans for the evening’s travels were fully set, and thankfully, they all unfolded exactly as expected. She walked undisturbed on foot for several hours, hired three separate carriages on a circuitous route, and then spent the night in a reputable working-class inn. The accommodations were sparse but clean, and after an admittedly fitful night’s sleep, Maria climbed aboard the morning coach, and continued making her way west.
The days and nights began blurring together after that, marked only by one new inn after another, by night after night of uneven, uncertain sleep. Waiting, constantly, for the sudden raised alarm, the storm of her husband’s soldiers.The Duchess of Warmisham’s on the run, we’ve found her, apprehend her at once —
But the alarm never came, and neither did the men. And Maria’s only true surprise, as the days plodded past, was just how easy it was to slip back into this role as an unremarkable, unimportant commoner. As though her father had never inherited the wealth that had marked his later years. As though the memories were close enough to touch, after so many years spent thrusting away their painful promises of happiness, of home.
