A Thing of Beauty

Chapter 1

With a slow hand Besha knelt and put the last stone on the grave.

"Goodbye, Mama,"she whispered.

Her mother was the last member of her family, except for a brother she had never met. Tran had left two years before she was born, after a fight with their father. Both men too stubborn to make peace, the younger Havern had left to seek his own fate in the world.

She turned to look back over the village in the valley below. The ones who had come to say goodbye with her, started to make their way back. Besha wasn't yet ready to leave. She turned back to the headstone and rested her hand upon its cold black head.

Memories of being read to, smells of bread baking, and the courage even at Isabé's last moments assailed her. So many memories.

"I will find him,Mama. I will keep my promise," she whispered, ignoring the tears that dripped onto her too washed dress. Alone. So alone.

When the south wind dragged the dark clouds from the ocean, she wiped her face with her sleeve. With a last touch to the weathered stone next to her mother's, Besha got up and retreated slowly as a last goodbye.

The darkness descending over the village drowned out the sun's rays, but for a sliver hanging on over the eastern horizon. It wouldn't rain, not yet, but the dreariness and the rising damp only made her feel cold and more miserable.

Even though grief rested heavily on her shoulders, she noticed the three people waiting for her at the cottage. Wariness dragged its own weight into the fray.

"Robert. Sarah. Evan," she acknowledged the mayor, his wife and son.

"Bethesda," the mayor began, "with your family no longer with us, I feel that we should hasten the wedding."

The eager faces next to his made her angry. She considered venting her pain. She had never liked the bully Evan had become, and had never actually said that she would marry him. They all assumed she would fall in with their plans, simply because she had lost her family. For a moment she considered reminding them about Tran, but bit her lip at the last moment.

Instead she sighed the sigh of the weary. "Not now please. I have just buried my mother. I cannot think about this right now."

Evan grabbed her arm. "Don't you look down at me, missy. No one else will have you, not with that pitiful dowry. You will crawl to me with or without marriage."

She knew he believed that. And that was what she had feared all along. With her mother bedridden, she had not left the house much and too many people visited for him to catch her alone. Her reprieve was buried this day. And he was not going to wait. He had never liked it when she said no, and that archaic law of a public claim was way too fresh in everyone's minds. After Sonja and Adam used that to prevent her parents from marrying her off to a guy she couldn't stand. It was too risky to push Evan, and she wanted to have say in choosing her own mate.

She didn't believe for a moment that he cared about her. Neither was he going to be faithful. It was the one thing she would not tolerate. Her parents might have had their problem, but they respected one another. She wanted that. The way Evan looked at her or any woman told her that respect was the last thing on his mind.

She suppressed the revulsion, nodded to his parents, and opened the door without another word.

Inside she locked the door, ignoring his taunt that a locked door wouldn't stop him.

His father wielded too much power in this village for her to seek the help or support from her neighbors. She didn't have many friends and they would be powerless against Evan's threats. Neither did she want their lives to become difficult because of her.