A BRIDE IN BLACK

The bride wore black, and the priest refused to marry her.

"Change your dress, Miss Whitmore." Father Benedict kept his book shut against his chest. "I will not conduct a wedding in mourning colors."

Clara Whitmore looked past him to the open chapel doors. Rain needled the graveyard beyond them, filling the names on the headstones with muddy water.

"Then conduct it quickly," she said. "My stockings are already wet."

Her uncle made a choking sound behind her.

Clara turned. Lord Henry Whitmore stood beneath the chipped stone saint, purple mottling his cheeks. He had sold her father's house, spent her mother's jewels, and now expected gratitude for finding her a husband.

"You will do as you're told," he said.

"I did. I came."

"In that?"

She smoothed the black lace at her wrist. Three weeks earlier, she had cut the dress from the curtains of her mother's old bedroom. She had sewn a silver thorn into the hem, small enough to hide beneath the first fold. Its point had pricked her thumb while she worked, leaving a rust-colored stain no amount of washing would remove.

"My mother died in this parish," Clara said. "It seemed rude to pretend otherwise."

Her uncle crossed the aisle and caught her arm. "Vale can still change his mind."

"No, he can't. You've spent his money."

His fingers tightened.

The chapel bell struck once.

Every candle went out.

In the sudden dark, Clara heard horses on the road. Not the uneven clatter of a farmer's cart, but a measured approach, hooves striking the stones in perfect time. Her uncle released her.

The bell struck again.

By the seventh toll, the guests had stopped whispering. By the tenth, Father Benedict had opened his book. At thirteen, a man appeared in the doorway with the storm behind him.

Lord Adrian Vale wore no wedding finery. Water darkened his gray coat, and mud marked his boots. He was younger than Clara had expected, perhaps thirty, with a pale face and a scar interrupting one eyebrow. Nothing about him suggested the mad widower from the village stories.

Then she saw his gloves.

They were black, and he kept them on despite the rain.

He surveyed the empty candlesticks, the wilted altar flowers, and Clara's dress. His attention paused on her face.

"You came," he said.

The words held no welcome. They held an accusation.

Clara lifted her chin. "So did you."

Something changed in his expression, gone before she could name it. He walked down the aisle, and the guests pressed back against the pews to let him pass.

Her uncle hurried forward. "My lord, about the girl's attire-"

"It suits the occasion."

Father Benedict stiffened. "My lord-"

"Begin."

The priest began.

There were no rings. Clara's uncle had taken her mother's wedding band the previous winter, and Adrian had brought none to replace it. When the time came for her vows, his gloved hand closed around hers. Even through the leather, his fingers were cold.

"Do you, Clara Eleanor Whitmore, take this man-"

"No."

A bench creaked somewhere behind her.

Father Benedict stared. "I beg your pardon?"

Clara looked at Adrian. "I want a private word with my husband."

"He isn't your husband yet," her uncle said.

"Then there's no need to worry about what he'll do to me in public."

Adrian released her hand. "Leave us."

The chapel emptied with remarkable speed. Her uncle tried to remain until Adrian looked at him. Then he too shuffled out, pulling the doors shut behind him.

Rain tapped the high windows. Without the guests, the chapel smelled of wet wool and extinguished wicks.

Clara moved beyond Adrian's reach. "Why me?"

"Your uncle offered you."

"He offers many things he doesn't own. Last spring it was my father's horse."

"And yet here you are."

"Here I am." She folded her hands to stop them shaking. "My question stands. You could have bought a more agreeable bride."

"I didn't want an agreeable one."

"What did you want?"

He studied her for so long that she checked the doorway. Her uncle's shadow blocked the lower gap.

"Someone with no reason to protect your family," Adrian said.

That silenced her.

He walked to the altar and picked up one of the dead candles. "Your uncle borrowed twelve thousand crowns from me. The debt comes due at midnight. You are the security he offered."

"You call that an explanation?"

"No. You asked why you. The explanation would take longer than we have."

Clara glanced at the dark windows. "Before what?"

He set the candle down.

"Before nightfall."

The village said his first wife had died after sunset. They said he had found her at the bottom of the chapel tower, her white dress unstained though every bone in her body was broken. Some claimed he pushed her. Others claimed he carried her upstairs and begged her to jump.

Clara had dismissed both versions. Grief made monsters of ordinary men, and rich men attracted uglier stories than poor ones. Now she wondered whether grief had anything to do with it.

"Did you kill Evangeline?" she asked.

His head turned.

For the first time, he seemed truly awake.

"Who gave you that name?"

"It's carved on her grave."

"Not here."

"No. In my dream."

The rain filled the silence between them.

Clara wished she had swallowed the words. For six nights she had dreamed of a woman climbing a spiral stair while something struck the walls below her. Last night, the woman had reached the roof and turned around. Clara had seen her mouth shape a name.

Her name.

Adrian crossed the space between them. Clara backed into the front pew.

"If you see her again," he said, "do not follow her."

"So she exists."

"Finish the ceremony, Clara."

"And if I refuse?"

He looked toward the closed doors. "Your uncle returns to a house he can no longer pay for. You return with him."

It was a neat trap. She hated him for making her admire it.

She held out her hand. "Then let us become miserable together, my lord."

He did not take it.

"When we reach Vale House, stay out of the east wing. Eat nothing offered by a servant wearing white. And if you hear music after midnight, lock your door and cover every mirror."

Clara waited for him to laugh.

He didn't.

"Is there anything else?" she asked.

"Yes." His gaze dropped to her black veil. "Whatever happens tonight, do not let them put you in white."

They were married seven minutes later.

Father Benedict pushed the registry toward Clara. She signed her maiden name for the last time, then stared at the blank space where he expected her to write it again.

"Your married name," he prompted.

"I know what goes there."

The pen scratched too loudly in the empty chapel. Clara Eleanor Vale. She blotted the ink before she could change her mind.

Her uncle waited by the doors, rubbing his hands together. Adrian gave him a folded sheet of paper. Henry opened it at once, read the first line, and beamed.

"Then we're settled."

"Not entirely," Adrian said. "The interest remains."

Henry's smile vanished. "That wasn't our agreement."

"You offered a bride. You did not specify a living one."

Clara stopped beside them. "What does that mean?"

Adrian took the paper from her uncle and tore it in half. Henry lunged for the pieces, but Adrian held them over a candle Father Benedict had just relit. The edges blackened.

"It means your uncle should leave before I reconsider his terms."

Henry fled without saying goodbye to her.

Clara watched him squeeze through the chapel doors. She had expected relief. Instead, she remembered being six years old and hiding behind his legs at her father's funeral, back when he had smelled of peppermint and promised she could always come home.

Adrian followed her gaze. "Would you rather go with him?"

"No."

"Then don't mistake my kindness for safety."

"I haven't mistaken anything about you for kindness."

He offered his arm. After a moment, she took it.

The carriage that carried them to Vale House had no crest on its doors. Adrian sat opposite Clara with his eyes closed, leaving her to watch the road narrow between dripping trees. Twice she saw white stones among the trunks. The third time, she realized they were not stones.

People stood in the woods.

They wore long pale dresses, their faces turned toward the carriage. None held an umbrella. None moved when the wheels threw mud across their hems.

Clara leaned closer to the window.

Adrian's hand caught her wrist.

"Don't look at them."

She pulled free. "Who are they?"

"Guests."

"They're standing in the rain."

"They have nowhere else to go."

The carriage passed through iron gates before she could answer. Vale House rose above them, its windows lit against the afternoon gloom. Half the roof had collapsed into the central courtyard. Ivy covered the western wall, but the eastern wing had been scraped clean. Nothing grew on its stones.

A row of servants waited beneath the portico. All wore gray except the woman at the end.

Her apron was white.

Clara looked at Adrian, but he had already stepped down.

An elderly housekeeper took Clara's cloak and clucked at the rain on her veil. "This way, my lady. Your room is prepared."

"My things?"

"His lordship sent for them last week."

Last week, Clara had still believed she would enter service at the dressmaker's shop in Bellford. Her uncle had not yet told her about the debt.

She followed the housekeeper upstairs. Adrian's boots sounded behind them for two flights, then faded along another corridor. The woman unlocked a bedroom overlooking the ruined courtyard and hurried away before Clara could ask her name.

A fire burned in the grate. Clara's single trunk stood open beside the bed, her folded dresses visible inside. Someone had even placed her mother's hairbrush on the dressing table.

On the pillow lay a white nightgown.

Clara carried it to the fire.

A knock stopped her.

"My lady?" The maid in the white apron stood outside. "Dinner will be served at six. His lordship asks that you dress appropriately."

Clara dropped the nightgown onto the coals.

"Tell him I've already dressed."

The maid watched the lace curl. She smiled, and Clara saw that several of her teeth were missing.

"As you wish."

At six, nobody came for her.

At seven, the housekeeper brought cold soup and a candle. At eight, the corridor fell silent. Clara tried the door and found it unlocked.

She should have stayed by the fire. Instead, she took the candle and went looking for her husband.

The upper hall divided at a portrait of a severe old man. To the west, lamps burned behind open doors. To the east, darkness crowded a single archway. A chain crossed its entrance, fastened with a new brass lock.

Stay out of the east wing.

Clara stepped over the chain.

The corridor beyond smelled of dust and closed rooms. Her candle showed squares on the wallpaper where pictures had hung. At the far end, a tall shape leaned beneath a dust sheet.

She told herself it was furniture.

The cloth slipped when she touched it.

A woman in a black wedding dress stared back at her from a painted canvas. Her veil streamed across one shoulder, caught in an invisible wind. The artist had painted every stitch of lace at her cuffs and the tiny bloodstain near her hem.

Clara raised the candle.

The woman had her face.

Below the portrait, tarnished letters formed a name on the brass frame.

CLARA ELEANOR VALE

BELOVED WIFE

1841-1861

Clara read the dates twice. She had been born in 1863.

Behind her, the chain rattled against the floor.

"Clara," Adrian said from the dark corridor. "Step away from your portrait."