Haven House Read online

  To our darling Aisha,

  * * *

  When we look upon your countenance

  It clear to see

  The kisses of angels have settled upon your brow

  * * *

  Let them lead you in love

  Let them hold you in grace

  May your future be your own

  * * *

  Grandmere

  Please note:

  * * *

  The UK and USA share the English language, but there are many words that are spelled differently. Some words have extra letters in the British spelling, such as the word cancelled. In American English, it is spelled canceled. There also words that interchange the letters c or s and sometimes z. For example, in America, you spell offense and in Britain, it is written as offence. We also use the letter u in many words, such as colour and flavour.

  These spellings are not incorrect.

  This book is written in UK English to reflect my Australian/English background.

  Copyright © 2022 by Imogene Nix

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  Cover Art by Dexpress Covers

  Editing by Hot Tree Editing

  * * *

  EBook ISBN 978-1-922369-49-9

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-922369-50-5

  Contents

  Glossary

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  The Celtic Cupid Trilogy

  Star of Ishtar

  The Blood Bride by Imogene Nix

  Also by Imogene Nix

  About the Author

  Glossary

  Note: As this series is built on a Steampunk reality (historical) some of the terms may be unusual. The ones listed below are those you may see referenced throughout the Automatons series. This list is not exhaustive, but lists the majority of commonly used terms.

  * * *

  Aeroship/Airship—steampunk aircraft, normally associated with commercial or privately owned passenger and freight ships.

  Aeronaut—pilot.

  Apothecary—a person who prepares and sells medicines and drugs. Not a doctor, but more a chemist.

  Artificer—skilled worker; craftsperson; one who contrives, devises, or constructs something.

  Chronometer—clock or watch.

  Datascope—an analytical engine (computer) with a screen to access the data. May be portable or desk-sized.

  Datascreen—device to read data on a datascope or analytical engine, consisting of a flat surface displaying text and/or images generated by tightly focused aether rays lighting up tiny receptors on the back of the screen.

  Decoction—an extraction or essence of something, obtained by boiling it down. Usually used when describing medications.

  Dirigible— see aeroship/airship.

  Hermetic—Completely sealed, especially against the escape or entry of air.

  House—a central location, relating to the Cults. Ie Haven House or Nobel Crest

  Laudanum—an opiate, freely available in an apothecary. Pain reliever. Addictive.

  Marconi—device for communication through the air, a radio receiver.

  Ocular—a single eyepiece of an optical instrument. For example a telescope or microscope, unlike binoculars (having two lenses).

  Physiotraducere— a doctor/medical professional who specialises in the replacement of limbs requiring the use of cogs to replace musculatory systems.

  Prong Wheels— special cogs manufactured from copper and treated for use in the body. Each is marked with a symbol, ensuring we know they were used by a Physiotraducere - and particularly searchable by number.

  Tincture—alcohol solution of a nonvolatile medicine, e.g., tincture of iodine.

  Water Closet—lavatory. A toilet.

  Wireless Transmitter—a device for sending or broadcasting communications through the air. Communications are received by a radio (receiver) device. See Marconi.

  Wireless Power Transmitter—device designed to deliver electrical current to distant devices through the air; e.g., a Tesla coil.

  Wireless Telegraph—sends and receives communication through the air. Transmitter and receiver.

  Prologue

  Dearest Diary,

  For so many years, I’ve avoided remembering and writing the story of my life. Too many hurts have grown and festered, and I’ve struggled to find the good that exists to ease my mind. My husband suggested I should set myself goals in life. Things I wish to achieve and good deeds I may carry out to wash away the hurts I carry.

  Once free of these painful weights, we might conceive a child of love after all the years of trying without success.

  I’ve settled on the first. It’s also the most important to my mind.

  I remember the first time I met Amaryllis Coultihan.

  She’d been brought into the house. Yet another of the strays “bought” by my brother and father for the purposes of populating Haven Town, a blip on the map near Ericksville, in the state of Scottsvale. She’d been a little girl of maybe six or seven, though small for her size when Master purchased her from a farmer who could no longer care for his brood of children. He’d made the choice to ensure a better life for her—or so he thought—but it had turned out differently, unfortunately.

  They weren’t local. Not until later on.

  I remember that day. Vividly. The way Master had smiled, and the little girl’s silent tears. I was old enough to understand what was happening, and it was like a punch to the chest.

  There wasn’t an ounce of good in the transactions Master and Junior, as my brother was coming to be known, undertook. All I could see was more misery. My father had bought and discarded more women and children than I could count, long before I ran away.

  On my return to Haven Town, with the husband of my choice, I realised my brother, Travis Haven III, continued our father’s vision of a town set aside from time and the greater community and its values. In fact, I could almost see him surpassing our father’s evil intentions.

  What I hadn’t known at the time was Andrew, my husband, was Amaryllis’s older brother, and he’d been bent on finding and reclaiming her. He’d been away, working to amass enough money to purchase her back if necessary and ensure she’d be able to live her life in freedom and comfort.

  Andrew hadn’t known I was a Haven child, as we were known. I only ever used my mother’s name of Mulligan. After all, I’d been just one more bastard born to Travis Haven. A child without value, except for selling into sexual servitude.

  When we moved to Haven Town, everything became known to me and him. Finally, I could take up the cause I’d long wanted to campaign for.

  Amaryllis—my “niece of burden”, as my father called all the little girls he purchased—was also my sister-in-law. She was the young woman Andrew was determined to see released from the hell she lived in. I promised as soon as I knew that I’d assist, for a sweeter and more obedient girl you’d never find. She alone attended to the distasteful tasks, monitored the food in the house, and ensured everything was spotless.

  I will do anything
I can to assist. Today I will go talk to my father. I don’t hold high hopes this time, but I will do what I can.

  Gloriana Mulligan-Coultihan

  Chapter One

  As I stood on the steps, my stomach wobbled. The day I dreaded most had come. Travis Haven III had finally decided the time was come to “wed” me, and I, Amaryllis Coultihan, had no intentions of allowing that to happen.

  He was loud, ugly within, and his spirit meaner than an angry viper who’d just been stepped on. Even worse, he already had four wives pregnant and three who’d just given birth, not to mention the others waiting for his attentions.

  “No,” I whispered and edged around the table.

  His father had bought me from my papa many years before. I’d known all along that Papa couldn’t keep me. We were poor. Not church mice poor, because they at least had a roof over their heads. Ours was little more than a holed tin sheet on a ramshackle shed, and food was whatever we could scrounge up day to day.

  After the transaction, I’d grown up in the household, learning early what my future would be and shoring up my place. The older I got, the more I’d made a point of becoming indispensable around the house where I now lived, but worked on remaining as invisible as possible. I’d been obedient and quiet, thinking I could simply stay out of sight. Stupidly, I guess, I’d thought if I ensured the household ran smoothly, took over the upkeep of meals and staff, neither man would be interested in me and what I could give them.

  I’d had a cursory education too. Master insisted on that.

  I could count and read because a “Haven wife” should never be illiterate, or slovenly, I’d been informed regularly. The women they’d taken to “wife” wore delicate gowns and could converse on a wide number of subjects. They were encouraged to read the papers and take an interest in the local society.

  Education would uplift them, Master reminded us weekly at the prayer sessions. In truth, it hid how they were treated as little more than concubines and slaves. We really only had one job, and that was to populate the township for these horrible men and their followers.

  I’d always known I had too much spirit, but this time, I let it rise.

  “You will wed me this evening,” Travis—Junior, as the younger called himself in the house—screamed across the long refectory-like meal table, and it broke through the reverie.

  The wives sat at the lengthy table with round eyes and backs straight as rods while I headed toward the door. Escaping sounded like the only viable prospect right now.

  I need to be quick!

  Whether I’d reach the door remained to be seen.

  A blustering woman rose and sidled up to the door, cutting off my escape route. I stopped and turned as my knees knocked together and fear tied my brain into knots. “Stop right there,” she growled.

  “No. I will not.” My voice shook, and I twisted my hands around. “I won’t do it.” Very few ever stood up to these big men, and I was truthfully terrified.

  Travis advanced and raised a hand. I knew what that meant and ducked, hearing the gasps of those in the dining room. His face was white with fury. He’d moved past scarlet about five minutes ago, and Master, as the older preferred to be called, had risen to stalk to this end of the table.

  “You will wed my son, girl, or I’ll cut you off,” he growled, eyes colder than a midwinter day.

  Terror shot through me.

  I’d seen what happened to those they cast off. Ignominy and poverty were the first two words to come to mind, but I refused to submit to their kind of life. I’d live in penury if it meant I could escape their version of society.

  I wouldn’t bear children continuously, fodder for more unhappy “families” of Haven Town. There were too many other bastards to do that to another child. Or to me.

  Times had changed here, even against the decree of the Haven family. They might rule the town in 1893, but progress inched on nonetheless. I shook my head, refusing to accede to their will.

  “Then leave,” Master sneered, and I stepped backward, making sure not to trip over anyone, my gaze frozen on the two men who glowered and snarled like rabid dogs.

  “Fine. I’m going.”

  I scurried quickly, sidling beside the woman, who gaped at me. Reaching out, I turned the knob, and the door to salvation swung open. Just one more step and I’ll be free!

  A voice—Travis’s—imperiously called, “Stop right there!”

  Years of training and punishment stopped me in my tracks as my fingers clutched at the doorjamb. My heart thudded in my chest, while the clamminess of my hands was unmistakable.

  I turned and looked at his face. A cruel smile emerged, though his eyes glittered like shards of ice. “Those clothes aren’t yours. They belong to us.”

  Shock coursed through me. My clothes, the only covering I owned apart from a filthy housedress I wore while undertaking chores, weren’t mine?

  They would strip me?

  They’d leave me naked?

  “I…”

  Travis reached for me. Now the glare in his eye turned a shining red that told me he would do whatever it took to exact revenge for my refusal.

  My hand curled over the knob, and I ran, hurrying out the door. All the while, I attempted to evade his hands. I knew what was hidden beneath the heavy leather gloves. The lights and metal. I’d only ever once before seen him without them, and that was when he’d been “cleaning up after himself”, the night Eldora, one of the “wives”, had disappeared.

  The circuitry in his hands had spun and whizzed, and the sounds of the automaton that worked them had gleamed beneath his skin. Like many of the upper class, he’d had “enhancements” fitted. Master and his son didn’t flaunt their additions, but you knew in the way they held themselves, the smirking laughter on their faces, that they welcomed them.

  Before her disappearance, Eldora had confided men like Junior used the enhancements for their own pleasure. These two were brutal men who’d made choices that never appeared to end well for those on the receiving end of their threats and interest. No, more than one “wife” had been damaged by their pleasures.

  The steps felt so far away as I hurried across the wooden decking, careful lest I slid and fell.

  All these memories and the fear coalesced inside my chest.

  Strong hands caught me as I scurried for freedom. I fought the touch, but they folded around me. It was a woman I knew by scent.

  Gloriana.

  Master’s daughter.

  “What’s going on?” Her voice echoed around me, and not for the first time, I’d been grateful for her intervention. She’d done so many times before she’d run away.

  “Step away, harlot,” Master called.

  I felt her still, the sinews and muscles locking tight as if the barb had driven itself deep into her gut. “I am no harlot. I am your daughter, and I intend to talk to you about Amaryllis.” She tugged me closer. “Don’t move,” she murmured.

  I was terrified, but Gloriana had never lied or let me down before. In that moment, I had to trust her. My fingers clutched at her, likely even bit deep, but I wasn’t letting go. Here was the path to freedom.

  “You orchestrated her disobedience?” Master demanded.

  I felt her inhale. “I have never orchestrated disobedience. What I did is defend, care for, and show concern for those less fortunate.”

  “Then take the bitch with you,” Junior snarled. “But give us what belongs to us first.”

  “What?” Confusion coloured the air.

  “The clothes. They belong to us.” Junior’s voice took on a hideously amused tone, and I locked my knees, hoping and pleading inwardly that she wouldn’t strip me and add to the current indignity I was captured in.

  I cowered in her embrace, fear and hope warring mercilessly in my breast.

  “You cannot be serious,” Gloriana said, and I heard the horror in her voice. She slid her cape around us both, as if shielding me.

  A clawlike hand settled on my shoulder.
/>
  I tried to shrug Junior off me, but he dug in, fingers squeezing on my collarbone.

  I jerked, but that action didn’t work either, as he grasped the material of my shirt and tore it from me.

  “Be still!” came an unfamiliar voice. I didn’t know it, and yet there was comfort in it. Despite that, I cowered now, because this was a deeply male tone I couldn’t place.

  “Leave her be, Travis. I’ll return the garments later today,” Gloriana added as that other voice called, “Leave the girl alone.”

  Whimpering, I peered over Gloriana’s shoulder. There stood a man. He could have been in his late twenties or early thirties with eyes of piercing emerald and a brooding brow. A. shock of dark hair and a savagely jagged scar on his left cheek caught my attention. His shoulders were broad, but it was the badge on his chest that soothed me a little.

  Sheriff.

  I’d heard of him.

  New to town and with a will of iron.

  His gaze caught mine, full of concern, before his eyes flicked up to Gloriana. “Take the girl. Bring the clothing to me later today, and I’ll return it.” There was no mistaking the authority in his tone.

  Manly.

  I quivered even as my interest rose. Until now, I’d never met a man who could be manly and authoritative without also being hard and ruthless. Yet I saw caring and concern in his gaze. It was confusing and terrifying.

  “Come on, Ammy,” Gloriana said and steered me toward the carriage at the foot of the steps. It was black and shiny, horseless as many of the best were. The door opened without a squeak, and I climbed in, Gloriana following me and settling beside me.