Tracie Peterson - Dawns Prelude

Dawns Prelude

T RACIE
P ETERSON

Dawns Prelude
Copyright 2009
Tracie Peterson

Cover design by Jennifer Parker
Cover photography by Mike Habermann

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

E-book edition created 2010

ISBN 978-1-4412-0470-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Contents

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
Early April 1870

I have no intention of Lydia inheriting any of Fathers money, Mitchell Gray announced. Shes nothing to this familyan outsider imposed upon us after the death of our mother. Shes entitled to nothing.

Hush, his younger sister, Evie, replied. Shes just in the next room.

Sitting alone in the formal parlor that had displayed her husbands closed coffin only hours earlier, Lydia Gray rocked quietly. She allowed the hatred of his grown children to wash over her and numb any concerns or fears she might have otherwise given credence. With exception to Evie, they had hated her from the first moment shed entered their homenot that Lydia could blame them. Shed hated nearly everything about her twelve years of marriage to Floyd Gray. Nothing would change their feelings now.

And so she rocked.

Im only twenty-eight , she reasoned. Twenty-eight years old, and nearly half of those years had been spent in an abusive marriage to a man who treated his horses better than hed treated his wife. His second wife.

Lydia glanced up at the portrait of the childrens mother. The oil painting had been commissioned at Charlotte Grays request for her husbands Christmas gift in 1858. After presenting it to him in the morning, Charlotte promptly excused herself from her familys revelry and leaped to her death from the widows walk. She had been thirty-seven years old and had left behind two grown sons, a twelve-year-old daughter, Jeannette, and four-year-old Eve.

The sorrowful gaze of the blond-haired Charlotte stared down from the wall. Her lonely expression had haunted Lydia since shed first come to this houseit bore a look of pain that Lydia understood firsthand. It was almost as if the two shared a bond that crossed between the living and the dead. Many had been the time Lydia had come to this room just to rock and stare at the painting.

The will can be read immediately, and once we see what that has to say, Marston, Mitchells twin, announced, we can be rid of her. I cant imagine that Father would have left her anything. I believe we should give her until the end of the month to settle her affairs and leave. Its not like she has much to concern herself with. Father never gave her anything of her own. It all belonged to Mother. The jewelry, furnishings, and servants will stay here.

Then why give her until the end of the month? Jeannette Gray Stone questioned. Jeannette had resented the intrusion of her fathers second marriage. It wasnt that she missed her mother all that much, but she didnt like her position as lady of the house being usurped by a stepmotherespecially one only a few years older than Jeannette herself.

Lydia listened to them argue about how long they should give her to be gone from their lives. They had already established she should have nothing that had belonged to their father. No reward for enduring twelve painful years of marriage to a cruel and vicious man. No sympathy for all she had suffered.

She glanced up again. Charlottes gaze seemed sympathetic, almost soothing. She seemed to silently suggest that only death would ease Lydias miseries.

And so she rocked.

Shadows danced across the elegantly flowered wallpaper. The diffused light of early evening gave them a specter-like appearance. Perhaps Floyd Gray had come back to torment her. It would be just like him.

Less than a month hardly seems reasonable, and her father was killed in the same carriage accident that took our father, Eve told her siblings. You dont want society saying we were heartless.

She never loved our father, and she certainly isnt mourning the loss of him now, Mitchell declared.

But what of her own father? Eve asked. She has lost him, as well.

Marston quickly countered, They were never close.

Thats right, Jeannette agreed. Not only that, but she made Fathers life miserable. He told me so on more than one occasion. She was cold and indifferent to his needs.

Frowning, Lydia folded her gloved hands and sighed. She had tried to be the perfect wife to Floyd, despite being married against her will at the tender age of sixteen. The arrangement had been her fathers idea, and his alone. He had betrothed her to Floyd Gray as a business arrangement; Lydias mother had been appalled to see her only child wedded to a man who had been widower for two short months. She died the following winter after a bout of pneumonia weakened her heart.

Perhaps we should wait to decide until after the reading of Fathers will on Monday, Eve suggested.

Lydia didnt know why the young woman even bothered. At seventeen, Genevieve Gray Gadston had only been married six weeks herself. Her older siblings gave this no bearing, however. She was still a child in their eyes and would always remain so. Her comments were given little credence.

I suppose a day or two cant possibly matter, Jeannette replied.

Very well, Mitchell declared, thoroughly surprising Lydia. We will wait to decide, but as soon as the reading is finished, we will dictate our wishes with the lawyer as our witness.

This was agreed upon in hushed murmurs before the foursome entered the parlor to address Lydia. She didnt bother to glance up from where she sat; she had no desire to see their hard, hateful expressions. She was unwanted and unloved by this family, but very soon, she would be free of them.

We have decided, Mitchell announced as the family spokesman, that you will remain here until the reading of the will is complete. We are to meet with the lawyer on Monday.

Lydia picked lint from her black gown. Very well.

It would be prudent, however, Jeannette said, to have the maids begin packing your clothes.

Except for the furs, Mitchell interrupted. Those will remain here to be given to our sisters and my wife. They were much too costly, and Im certain Father never intended for them to leave the family.