Prologue:
Papa's Little Dove
The dress mocked her.
Fashioned from silk and fine embroidered lace, the quality of which was equal to none, it was perfection from the puffed sleeves to the mermaid skirt that swept the floor. The neckline plunged enough to show her ample chest, and the bodice would cling tightly to her impossibly slender waist when worn. It was a gown to tempt men and be envied by women.
In it, she was the fairy tale princess in one of those books Papa used to read her as a child. For her special day, he wanted a dress worthy of her, a gown befitting the most beautiful young bride to ever grace the halls of the family parish church. The emerald necklace belonging to her mother and her grandmother sat around the neck of the dressmaker's mannequin joining the dress in its elegant display. Somewhere on her dresser was a pair of matching earrings, equally expensive.
To Julia, the dress and everything with it, was a death shroud.
Slipping all the jewellery into a small velvet box, she proceeded to the mannequin and took the necklace to be worn during her wedding and placed it with the others. It was the second to last bit of business remaining before she left this house forever. Snapping the lid shut, Julia looked up and took a final view of the room in which she had grown up. It had been her castle for so long, the ivory tower she occupied as a tenant and never much liked the rent she was required to pay.
This day was always inevitable.
For years, she'd deluded herself with the hope his money would be hers after he died. As long as she could remember, his fortune was the Holy Grail she would use to make her own choices.
Her mother, whom she had never met, passed on early in life. Eleanor died bringing Julia into the world, and in the moment where souls pass each other through the threshold of life and death, wife and babe exchanged places in Donald Avery's heart. From the moment of her first spirited cry, she became her father's sole reason for being. In the daylight, he lavished upon his little daughter every scrap of his time and love as proof of his undying love for a woman who had gone too early.
But in the dark, his love had a price which Julia paid once the lights dimmed and the house was quiet.
To survive him, she became cruel and selfish, taunting the relatives around them with the freedom of her unbridled lust for life. A lust which led her to form dalliances with any man who sparked her interest. Better to be the abuser than the abused. It aided her cause that she was an uncommonly beautiful creature that could manipulate men with a knowing smile and well-placed whisper.
Hers was hair like fire, yet not at all vulgar and crass, but subtle in the way copper shimmered under sunlight. Her emerald coloured eyes showed great intelligence, although she was never encouraged to use that high-powered intellect for anything but manipulation. Her skin was as flawless due to a lack of employment in any activity that might be considered work. She was created for the sole purpose of seduction, and she knew how to be nothing else.
She wielded her power like some men commanded armies, sending others forward to die willingly on the battlefield. For many years, she used the men in her life the same way. For a taste of her skin, they would do and say anything, and she enjoyed her power over them. It inflamed her with a fire nothing could abate, and she had yet to meet a man she had not believed to be a fool. Her father continued to adore her and was completely blind to how much she hated him.
By the age of 25, it had been years since she dreaded the turning of a lock in the night. She suspected his appetite skewed to a meal much younger than her and Julia was grateful for it. Their mutual secret meant she could fend off any attempts by him to marry her off and Julia waited in patience, for his eventual death so she could take the fortune she'd earned with her innocence.
But he wasn't nearly done with her yet.
With his health beginning to deteriorate and the realization his days were soon ending, he decided to spare his sweet Julia the agony of loneliness by deciding for her future.
His name was Roderick Packard and he was what was deemed "new money" to the circles of blue blood society. He was not quite forty, coarse and completely unrefined, but he was also frightfully rich and in need of a wife who would make him acceptable to the world he to which he aspired. From the moment Julia met him, she knew without a doubt she loathed him as much as she despised her father. The very thought of his big, rough hands on her made the revulsion in her stomach surface with such intensity she could barely breathe, and somehow, against all expectations, her Papa had promised her to him.
She accepted the proposal quietly, never allowing her father to know just how much she hated the idea. Her relatives, enjoying what they felt was her deserved comeuppance, gloated over the marriage with obvious delight. Julia accepted the situation and allowed the preparations to proceed, all the while wearing the mask of the gracious and dutiful daughter. The wedding day drew closer, and tomorrow she would wear this shroud of fine lace to what she considered a life of slavery.
It was past midnight when she made her way down the darkened hallway to Papa's study. As anticipated, the servants and the rest of the family were safely tucked away in their beds and unaware of her nocturnal departure. She was dressed in dark clothes that were not really her colour but she wanted to fade into the background, at least until she was out of Philadelphia. Confident that no one was about, Julia stepped inside the elegant confines of her father's study. There was no need to light the lamps, she knew the layout of the room from memory and the moonlight peering through the glass doors was just bright enough to offer some alternate illumination.
The safe was hidden behind her mother's portrait, and before she took it from the wall, Julia paused to take a final glance at it. Her mother stared back at her with that non-judgmental smile of hers that often gave Julia comfort on those rare occasions when the night terrors had become too much. She wondered if Eleanor Avery had fled just like her, dying to escape.
Removing the painting, she turned her attention to the safe behind it. She retrieved the combination a few days ago while Papa had gone to visit Roderick Packard to discuss the fortune she would be inheriting once they married. No doubt, Packard would have total control over it, she thought bitterly.
Working quickly, she soon had the heavy door of the vault open. Inside were several inch-high stacks of fresh, crisp bills. Papa did not entirely trust banks and so he always kept enough in the safe to ensure his financial security in the event the establishment attempted to leave him penniless. She knew that there was something in the vicinity of $50,000 inside the vault and Julia wasted no time liberating its entire contents.
Suddenly, the room flooded with light. She spun around and saw Papa standing before her in his nightclothes with a bewildered expression on his face.
"Julia? What are you doing?"
There was no point in lying. Even as she decided if she would make the attempt, she could see his eyes darting from the empty safe to the leather case in her hand. Very quickly, he would guess her purpose.
"I am leaving Papa" she remarked neutrally. Julia had hoped to avoid this encounter, but now that it was here, she supposed she owed him the truth.
"Leaving?" he said, astonished. "You are to be married tomorrow!" he exclaimed taking a step towards her. This too, was something she had anticipated and her fingers slipped into the small purse she was carrying.
"Stop where you are Papa." The derringer stared him in his face before the old man had been aware of his daughter reaching for it inside her purse. The astonishment in his eyes defied description.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, his shock having faded now into anger.
"The meaning of this Papa," she said as she moved slowly towards the glass doors, "is that I am leaving this place and I am never coming home."
"But Roderick..." he stammered, quite unable to believe that this was his cherished daughter pointing a gun at him.
"Is a pig and before I let you prostitute me to him, I would rather eat this bullet first. Goodbye Papa" she started to turn around.
"Julia!" he ran forward, "you're not leaving!" He could not let her go! "We will talk this out!"
"No!" she said sharply, swinging back around to aim the gun at him again. "Don't assume I won't use this Papa." The ice in her voice was enough to convince him that she would indeed pull the trigger, even if he could not fathom how his daughter had become this cold-blooded thief standing before him. "I'm not a little girl anymore and you have made me very capable of pulling this trigger."
He cringed at that. "You're my little dove..."
The phrase made her skin crawl.
"No more," she said firmly. "I endured you for years because I believed your money would be mine. It is an inheritance we both know I've armed. I'll not stand by idly and let you sell me to another man, who'll take control of my fortune and lay claim to my body. The days when I fear a door knob opening in the night, is over. So yes, I am leaving and I'm taking what is mine. You will never see or hear from me again. Goodbye."
With that, she turned on her heels and walked out through the glass doors.
He watched her disappear into the night, still coming to grips with the sting of her words. What had he done that was so terrible? He'd only loved her. Just as he would have loved her mother. The anguish of that realization clutched his heart with such pain that for a moment, Donald Avery believed he would die. Stunned, he walked to the open vault and saw that she had only taken the money and left the other valuables within. With trembling fingers, he closed the safe door with a soft clang as it locked again and replaced the picture that kept it hidden.
The agony inside his chest went unabated, even when he staggered to his desk. He sat on the leather chair, unaware the cold night air was blowing through the open doors. The only thing in his mind was how terribly wrong he was about his daughter and what that misjudgement was going to cost him.
He knew without doubt she meant what she said. Julia Avery would not grace these halls again.
He could have her brought back but if he did, she could speak to their special relationship and people wouldn't understand. They never did.
Easing back into the leather chair, he ignored the heart crying out its warning as it stiffened in pain. It was broken he decided and there was no reason to pick up the pieces. He closed his eyes and waited for the black to take him away to a place where Julia did not hate him anymore.