Bandit Bride

“How does it feel, Miss Elisa?”

Elisa stared at the full-length mirror in front of her, feeling like she was having an out of body experience.

“Miss Elisa? Is something wrong with the gown?” The young seamstress’s assistant was giving her a worried look and Elisa shook herself. The poor girl would get an earful if the seamstress thought she’d done something wrong.

“No, the dress is fine,” Elisa said, offering a weak smile. “It’s lovely, really.”

The girl looked relieved, returning to her hemming. The smile quickly wilted off of Elisa’s face and she went back to staring morosely at her reflection. The dress was beautiful; and slightly less audacious than her first one had been. She knew any girl would be proud to wear it. But it may as well have been Elisa’s funeral dress for all the excitement she felt. Since Thurston had brought her to his winter mansion several weeks ago, she spent her days plastering on a fake smile and making wedding plans; again; and spent her nights crying herself to sleep.

Thurston had taken his sweet time sending a letter to her parents, and Elisa had the sense he was doing it as a means of flaunting his power over her; reminding her that she had no actual choices in her own life anymore. But they were finally on their way to Venere to see her and attend the wedding ceremony taking place in two weeks. Elisa was right back where she started, only it was a hundred times worse now.

The seamstress returned to decide what final touches she wanted on the gown, complaining bitterly about the cold under her breath. Thurston had paid an incredible sum to get her here and have a dress made on such short notice; but Venere was covered in snow now and the journey to this isolated house wasn’t an easy one, even in a luxury carriage. There was a fireplace in almost every room to chase away the cold.

When the fitting was over the assistants helped Elisa out of the dress, and the maids hired to tend to her and the house rushed over to help her back into her normal dress.

“I can dress myself,” Elisa sighed, but as usual her protests were ignored. Thurston was the one in charge, and he’d given clear instructions about the maids tending to her every need. Elisa was pretty sure it was just a way to keep tabs on her; she was almost never alone. More temporary staff had been trickling in to prepare for the wedding. Today was taste tests for the menu. Elisa wandered to the dining room and sat, waiting for Thurston and the cooks.

Out of boredom, she’d begun to unravel some of the thread in the fancy tablecloth but jumped up when she heard a commotion in the hallway. She poked her head out to see Thurston ordering that someone be removed from the house. She craned her neck but couldn’t see who it was. She ducked back into the dining room before Thurston noticed her, darting to the window to look out. She saw the head butler shoving someone out into the snow. They seemed a bit small and the uniform they were wearing didn’t fit well; she wondered if it was a young stablehand or a cook’s assistant that they thought was stealing.

She squinted and leaned closer to the window, feeling like they looked slightly familiar. But who would she possibly know all the way out here? The exiled servant straightened their ill-fitting uniform and began to back away from the house reluctantly. Elisa almost fell off the windowsill she was kneeling against. She could swear the boy was Jack. She practically smashed her whole face up against the glass, straining to get a better look as the boy shuffled slowly away, throwing glances back at the house. Elisa rapped on the glass, though it wasn’t likely he could hear from where he was. His eyes roved over the house and then he seemed to notice her watching him through the window. She was almost certain it was Jack.

But then the butler stormed out onto the porch and shouted for the boy to go away, and he hunched his shoulders and began to trudge away across the snow. Elisa had never gotten a proper look at his face. Maybe if she moved fast enough she could slip out before Thurston saw-

Elisa stepped back from the window and shook her head. The house was crawling with people; if Thurston didn’t see her someone else would. And besides, it couldn’t possibly be Jack. He had his brother’s death to deal with, and she was the reason Felix was dead to begin with. Then she’d left with Thurston. Jack probably hated her and how would he find her here in the middle of snowy nowhere anyhow?

Thurston entered the room, one of the cook’s assistants and a maid in tow with a tray of small pastries and a pot of tea.

“Is everything all right?” Elisa asked.

“Oh, yes. No need to worry yourself, my dear. We just had a bit of a collision and a spill in the hall. So many people running about.”

“Of course.” Elisa knew he was lying but there wasn’t exactly anything she could do.

“There is some correspondence for you,” Thurston added. “A few letters from well-wishers, and I believe one from your parents.”

He began to hand her the letters and knocked over the cup of hot tea the maid had just poured. Tea spilled across the stack of letters and Elisa leaped to rescue them. The note on top was soaked through so badly she couldn’t read who it was from. She proved it off the other letters while the maid apologized profusely and began cleaning up the mess.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Elisa said, still trying to read the piece of paper in her hands. But the tea had made the ink bleed in every direction and it was completely illegible.

“Shame I won’t be able to send a thank you to this person,” she said. “I can’t read a word of this.”

“Whoever they are I’m sure you’ll see them at the wedding,” Thurston said, sipping his own tea. “And if they’re not on the guest list, they’re not of much importance anyway.”

Elisa slowly sat back down and he took the ruined letter from her, tossing it into the fire. Elisa watched it burn before the cook came in and began explaining the various dishes they were presenting and she had to pretend she was paying attention. But her gaze kept straying back to the fireplace. Whatever was going on, she knew Thurston was lying to her. And she didn’t think he’d spilled that tea on accident. As she tried samples of wedding cake she stared across the table at her fiancé and she decided again that no matter what it took, she would never marry him.



The wedding was in three days. Elisa’s family had come trickling in over the past week and her parents had fairly collapsed upon seeing that she was alive and well. Or alive, anyway. The “well” was really a facade, but at least planning how she was going to be rid of Thurston had revived her a bit. She wasn’t running away this time. She had to be sure he couldn’t come after her again. Her first step had been slipping in invitations for the chief of police and his wife when a maid was sent to mail out the fairly large stack of invites.

Her next move was considerably trickier and she was going to have to time things just so in order to pull it off. First she had told some of the staff that she wanted to have a small gathering of select guests before the wedding, and she wanted it to be a surprise for Thurston so she could present him with a gift from her family; to thank him for his efforts to rescue her. Everyone seemed to think it terribly romantic and so dispensing the specific invitations to the dinner party and making arrangements for it wasn’t very difficult.

She just needed to be sure Thurston had no idea the guests were there before she got him to reveal his true colors. So Elisa had played the role of dutiful fiancée; making color palette selections and pretending to be as excited as her sisters and mother when they saw her dress.

“It’s even more beautiful than the...other one,” Poppy said. Her family had been walking around on eggshells when it came to her “kidnapping.” They were all sure she must be traumatized and she was content to let them think that was the case because at least when she was alone with them she didn’t have to put up quite so cheery a front.

“Yes, it’s a lovely dress,” Elisa agreed. Ellen Nyxin was probably going to be apoplectic when yet another of her fine gowns went to waste. “You’re all coming to the dinner party tomorrow night, aren’t you?” she asked, changing the subject. “And remember, it’s a surprise so not a word to Thurston.”

“Of course we’ll be here. We’re so happy to see you again, and we can’t thank Mr. Bramfield enough for getting you back.”

Elisa’s stomach twisted. “He really is something, isn’t he?” she muttered. She tossed and turned most of the night, unable to quiet her nerves. This plan had to work or else she’d be stuck with Thurston for the rest of her life. A slow death by poisoning sounded better.

She timed the arrival of the dinner guests for when Thurston had his brandy in the library, and gave the maids firm instructions not to tell him anyone was there. She had them all ushered off into the dining room.

“I’ll just fetch Thurston and we can begin.” Elisa almost ran from the room, hovering at the bottom of the stairs and waiting for Thurston to come down. He seemed surprised to find her there.

“Is there something I can help you with?” he asked coolly.

“I wanted to tell you that, once this wedding and honeymoon are over, I’d prefer it if I could spend a few months here during the year. Besides during winter.”

He narrowed his eyes, grip tightening on the empty glass in his hand. “You what?”

Elisa drew herself up haughtily and started to walk away, moving toward the dining room. As she’d hoped, Thurston followed.

“We both know this wedding is basically a sham,” she said. “You don’t really care about having me as a wife, it’s merely a point of pride for you. And I clearly don’t want to marry you. I’m playing the part you wanted me to here; pretending I want this, going along with your story about the kidnapping. You can at least not force me to live with you all the time.”

“You are in no position to making demands,” Thurston growled. “You will always play the part I want you to. I will not let you humiliate me again by living in my winter house. That you even have the gall to ask-“

“I have gall?” Elisa whirled on him, voice rising. “You are lying to everyone we know. You dragged me here under threat of violence. And you killed an innocent man in cold blood.”

Thurston closed the gap between them, shoving her roughly against the wall with a hand resting lightly on her throat.

“So you know full well what I’m capable of,” he said, cold. “Yet you continue this behavior.”

“I promised to come here and go through this charade so you wouldn’t hurt anyone else. But if you think I’m going to be a doting wife when we’re alone, you’re dead wrong,” Elisa snarled back. “I would rather slit my own throat than call myself Mrs. Bramfield.”

“That can be arranged.” Thurston’s grip tightened slightly around her neck as they flared at each other. Elisa was done pretending to be a good fiancée.

“Go ahead,” she spat. “Kill me. What ridiculous story are you going to make up about how I strangled myself?”

“Enough.”

“How did you kill Felix?” she pressed. “Did you run a blade through him while his back was turned?”

“I said enough.”

“Or maybe you had someone else do it, so you wouldn’t get your delicate hands dirty.”

“I threw your precious rat off a cliff! I offered him money to just walk away and he refused. He was as stupid as you are, and believe me, my dear Elisa; I didn’t think twice about killing him and I won’t think twice about hauling you to the roof and throwing you off.”

He was shouting now, and his grip tightened more; Elisa felt her lungs starting to protest, screaming for air. Tears leaked from her eyes and she lashed out, tearing her nails across his face. Startled, he jerked back. He glowered at her as blood trickled along his cheek. When he lunged for her again Elisa reached out and caught the glass in his free hand. He reached for her throat, she smashed the glass across his head, and the dining room doors slammed open to reveal her stunned dinner guests. Thurston seemed equally as stunned to see them.

“Did I forget to mention that I invited some people for dinner?” Elisa asked, hands shaking. “Must have slipped my mind.”

“I-this isn’t what it looks like,” Thurston stammered. It was the first time Elisa had ever seen him shaken or at a loss for words, and she relished it. Even more shocking, her father; who had never been prone to violence or even raising his voice much; hauled off and punched Thurston so hard in the face that his nose cracked. Elisa’s mother wrapped her tightly in her arms while her sisters and brothers-in-law clustered in around her like a human wall of protection, giving Thurston looks that could turn a man to stone. The police chief stepped forward, disgust plain on his face.

“Mr. Bramfield, I’m afraid your wedding will need to be cancelled yet again.”

“But I didn’t-she-this is all a misunderstanding!” Thurston backed away, looking like a madman with blood all over his face. His staff seemed at a complete loss for what to do but no one moved to help him as he was rather forcefully apprehended by the chief, with help from Elisa’s father and brothers.

“And to think I was grateful to him,” Judith scoffed. “What a brute! Elisa, darling, are you all right? Are you hurt? What has he done to you?”

“I just want to go home,” Elisa said, leaning against her mother’s shoulder, all her energy spent. “I just want to go home.”