Page 1 of Hooked

Prologue

Before

I knew no words would change my situation as I watched my uncle making final checks and preparations on the coach that would carry me away.

“Your life will be much better when you are the wife of Captain Huckley,” my mother said as she fussed with some hairs that had come loose from the knot at the back of my head. It seemed they wished to escape just as much as I did.

“But I don’t want to get married.” My voice was flat.

“We’ve waited as long as we could, Wendolyn,” Mother cajoled. “But your uncle is adamant. We are fortunate that he was willing to take us in in the first place, but to allow you to stay here even after a wealthy man has offered for you? You are lucky he has been so patient. You’ve had these years to grow up, to learn how to run a household.”

I inwardly scoffed at that. I had learned to run a household long before Captain Huckley took notice of me. I’d done it for years. We had been wealthy once, but I barely remembered it. I had been only nine years old when Papa was arrested for treason. My mother and I were shocked, completely blindsided, but the magistrate’s words to us as my father had been hauled away were clear. Father and a group of merchants and townspeople had been working to overthrow the reign of the sovereign duke. My father roundly denied any involvement, but every member of the faction pointed to him as the leader, the man intended to seize control and rule Winberg. He’d been incarcerated and we’d been stripped of all our property. We’d had no choice but to go begging to my mother’s sister. She and her husband had taken us in, and for the past seven years had fed, clothed and sheltered us, though they were not particularly well off. In exchange I worked alongside my aunt, running and fetching, organizing and planning. They kept up appearances by allowing me a few new dresses to wear to public events so that I could catch a man’s eye. Then they could be rid of me.

It had worked.

I was only fourteen when Captain Huckley came to Norsing on business and attended a local gathering in which I had been allowed to participate. He’d been attentive and flattering, but he was also decidedly old. It never occurred to me that his flattery was an attempt at flirtation until he approached my uncle to make his interest known. Uncle Horace was ecstatic at the offer.

Captain Huckley was a merchant with a fleet of ships. He was not of the noble class, but his abundant wealth made up for that. A betrothal agreement had been struck. I remembered looking to my mother over and over, waiting for her to speak up for me, to object, to tell them no. Or simply to ask my opinion about whether or not I wanted to marry a man a full twenty years older than me. She never had. Instead, when the contract was officially drawn up, I was compelled to sign it as Uncle Horace loomed over me. They hadn’t even allowed me to read it.

So now, only four days after my sixteenth birthday, I was being sent off to my future husband. My trunks were packed and strapped to the hired coach. I was to travel alone to Captain Huckley’s house a half day’s journey from here. My uncle had spared only a maid to accompany me, in order to keep everything proper. Neither my aunt and uncle nor my mother would attend my wedding. I would simply arrive, be escorted to the church, bound to a man who terrified me, and then expected to be a dutiful wife.

I knew how to run a household. I did not know how to be a wife. I did not want to know.

Uncle Horace gave the driver a nod and looked to me. My mother took that as her cue and took my hands in hers. “Now,” she said in a stiff voice. “Hold your head high. Remember who you are. Who are you?” she asked in a whisper that my uncle would not hear.

“Lady Wendolyn Cecilia Stoffard,” I answered. It was something my mother had asked me many times over the years. Her way of reminding me that I came from something better and deserved more, but all it really accomplished was to remind me of all I had lost, all my father had taken from us because of ambition.

“That’s right,” my mother affirmed, then kissed my head and ushered me into the coach where I sat across from my maid, Annabelle. I tried to believe that my mother was doing what she thought was best, but the lack of light in her eyes told me that she had simply given up. She stood back, letting the footman latch the door. If only she would say something, do something so that I would know she cared—not about status or survival, but about me.

My aunt cared so little for me that she wasn’t even there to bid me farewell. I didn’t bother looking to my uncle for pity or remorse. It was too easy to see what he gained from this. One less mouth to feed and a handsome “investment” into his financial holdings. Uncle Horace was desperate to protect himself. If only my mother had been as desperate to protect me.

And I would need protecting.

Mother refused to give any heed to the rumors. The many wives the captain had had. The way they’d all died. But I heard them, and I knew in my heart of hearts that they were true. My marriage was a death sentence.

“Goodbye, Wendolyn!” my mother called as the coachman climbed up onto the seat.

I turned to look at her, and at my uncle as he stood a little behind her, but I didn’t say anything. Bidding them a good anything would have been a lie. So I simply stared until the coach rolled forward, pulling me from their view.

As we clattered down the rutted drive, past the overgrown gardens, I pulled the hem of my cloak into my lap, pressing it between my fingers to reassure myself that they were there. Annabelle’s hand covered mine, giving me hope that not all was lost. She and I had been carefully hoarding coins over the past two years, and we had worked together to sew them into my cloak hem, between the layers of fabric. Six gold pieces and nineteen silver. They were our only possible means of salvation, and I had to hope they would be enough.

1

Nine Years Later

Despite the dirt and dust, the stables held a sort of magical glow in the morning, made even more magical by the rapt attention of the children gathered around me for a story. Whenever Her Highness went riding, I would come here to entertain the stable master’s children and any others who wished to listen while I waited for her return. “And with one wave of her hand, the pixie Annabelle sprinkled her sparkling, golden dust over the fair maiden, and together they flew away from the evil captain.”

“They flew?” five-year-old Lindy asked in a whisper, her eyes wide with the magic of the story. I’d only been here at Sutton Manor for three weeks, but I’d already gained a small audience.

“Yes,” I assured her. “For when you have freedom and joy, all you need is just a bit of magic to make your heart so light that it lifts you right off the ground.”

“Where did they go?” she asked.

I grinned down at her from my seat on the barrel in the corner of the stables. “The Never Kingdom,” I answered. “A magical place ruled by a fairy princess with the kindest heart and the most beautiful smile. A place where the maiden would never be forced to grow up and marry that awful, old captain with the maimed hand and the blackened heart.”

“What happened to his hand?” Ansel asked, almost as enchanted by the story as his younger sister.

“A sea monster chewed on it when he was marauding across the seas!”