Madison Cleary

Chapter 5

Here is something for you....it's technically past midnight which makes this a new day, I was itching to update..

The chapters are longer than my last book so more for you to read. 

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HE lifted himself off of her and smiled down at the horrified expression on her face. Never in her life did she think she would have to endure what she had just been through. Her heart was racing and every bone in her body wanted her to run but she just lay there. The blood on the sheets evidence of what tragedy had befallen her.

'You're a sweet little thing. My son chose you well.' he smiled. The older Mr. Cleary fastened his breeches before exiting the room. There was sheer silence.

Madison did not know when she began to cry or when she stopped. She lay there on the bed for a long while, not bothering to move and not minding the stench that was now building.

Baron had come in hours later screaming at her to make herself presentable, he said they would be dining with his parents.

The dinner was wanting. Nothing tasted sweet or sour. Madison tried to keep her head and smile, the older Mrs. Cleary nodding at her husband's every word and laughing when he attempted a joke. She placed her hand on his arm and brushed away crumbs from his face. To her right, Baron sat. He looked happy and satisfied.

After dinner they escorted his parents to the door, once it closed Baron turned to her and smiled, 'now my sweet, it is my turn.'

'The garden is a beautiful place,' Justina spoke. She had abandoned her knitting and was now looking at Madison with an expression that showed motherly love.

'Yes, it is,' she said absentmindedly. It had been two days since

'What is the matter Madison, you look a sore sight.'

Madison turned to the woman, even in her advanced age she still held her beauty. Her hair had long abandoned its former colour and was now a silver gray. She wore in a lose knot and gathered whatever did not comply around her head like a ring. Her hazel eyes, very much like her son's were still full of life but there was something else there, they were faint and almost fading.

'When I was younger, I dreamed of a life so flamboyant it hurt sometimes knowing it would never come,' she began, 'I watched girls from all over Scotland marry Earls and Barons and Dukes. I knew it would never happen to me but then I met James and we fell in love. Little did I know this,' she waved her hand around.

I had told him of my dreams,' she laughed, 'to be wed to a man of stature. He surely did not look surprised even after I assured him it mattered not if he had gold to his name or copper. It was then he told me. His great grandfather was the Duke of Abercom. It shocked me right out my chair that evening, I almost broke my hand.

His father, my children's grandfather was a gambler. He gambled every chance he got. He would gamble away trinkets that had been in the home for well, not for very long, but they held a certain sentimental value. He ran Abercom into the ground and it did not please the King, not one bit.

They were reduced to regular men, fallen from Grace.

Then one night, all the men were called away to fight a war. James went, he said he had to prove to the world he was worthy of me. I think he really just wanted that title back in the family, he always said James was a responsible man, one who could command over estates and not just a mere farm.