His Haunted Heart Read Free

probably caught up with her, dragging her out of the rain.
    My mother came in, unwelcomed, and started in right away. “Delilah, he’s here. Heavens above, is that what you’re wearing? You look like a thundercloud come down to visit.”
    Her face was made of the thunderclouds, so if anyone would know the look, it was her.
    Shuffling my worn boots, I looked down and appraised my garb. “It’s the best I have besides my plum dress. He certainly won’t choose me for my looks. It doesn’t matter, anyway.”
    “It matters. Trust me, it matters.” She approached me and I stepped back out of habit, though my mother had never physically struck me. “If this man offers you his hand in marriage, you must accept. Let’s be honest. There weren’t many to begin with and there won’t be another one after this. We can’t be throwing food down another gullet.”
    Though her case for me getting married was laughable, I didn’t dare speak against her. My sisters both came over for breakfast and sometimes tea, nearly every day—even though their houses were bountifully stored with any food they wanted.
    Of course, they were beautiful and refined.
    Beauty granted women anything in this world.
    Which is why I had nothing.
    “I’m sorry, Mother. If he makes an offer, I will go—no matter what. You needn’t worry.”
    I’d apologized for my parents having to feed me. Then again, I apologized for everything—just in case.
    My words and tone addressed her as though she were a mother who actually cared whether or not I was wedded to a troll or an insolent murderer. As long as she no longer had to see me and my wretched face at the table, everything would be well.
    I did what I could to help them. Working for three different households, doing all their laundry, brought in a decent amount of money, but my father demanded the lot of it, claiming that it didn’t even equal how much I ate. I handed it all over without complaint.
    I was used to it.
    It wasn’t a revelation, the disdain of my father. From the time I was born, he’d been adamant about my air of vanity and haughtiness. He claimed that he would break me of it one way or the other.
    The notion was silly, that I attained any measure of vanity.
    I wasn’t vain. I knew that I was pretty—just like the other girls. I knew I was thin—mostly because I was only given scraps to eat, like the family pet. And I knew I was smart because I had good marks in school.
    Vanity wasn’t my friend and I took no comfort in her. Even if I had, she granted me no favor.
    My face was ripped open—a fatality of my own sisters’ war on vanity, as if the society we lived in didn’t hold enough protestable sins.
    Still, an ember of hope lay lit in my chest, telling me that there was someone who could still love me.
    It probably wasn’t the man downstairs.
    “Good. Now get yourself down there. Let’s not keep him waiting. We’ve got enough of an apology coming down the stairs without adding to it,” she added, flicking my cracked button with a grimace. I allowed myself one last look to the rain before succumbing to her pull. The rain had always calmed me and the rumble of the thunder reminded me that I was alive.
    With her hand pinching my elbow, she shuffled me down the stairs; the bass of two male voices going back and forth could be heard over the crackle of the fire. A discussion was being had about whether or not the man in question could properly provide for a girl of my stature. My father might as well have asked him if he could afford to feed the heifer. The banter was so curt and strained, it sounded almost rehearsed.
    “She wouldn’t need for a thing—that I can guarantee you.”
    A grunt was my father’s only response. That and the squeak of his rocking chair were the only noises in the room. Maybe I could sneak in and just serve as a silent audience to this auction for their gnarly beast of a daughter.
    The last stair creaked and announced our arrival. It was the same