Finders Keepers

In a time when women were disposable, a young woman is sent off into the wilderness to be married to a stranger. The year is 1749, October 31, All Hallows Eve. What she finds on her arrival is enough to make her skin crawl. Limping footsteps, blood-curdling screams, smoking torches, and a house on a cliff... A man she only sees in the dark, his breathing labored behind a mask. All she wanted was to be respectfully married, to be mistress of her own home, and children - not to have her baby stolen as good as from her body! In the words of the man behind the mask: "A betrothal is as good as the wedding vows. You cannot leave." "Am I your prisoner?" "Yes! You shall stay here until you bear me a child. Then you can stay or go; the choice shall be mine!" The one person who might have protected her, her self-appointed guardian, Alexander Verhagen, was an unapproachable, grumpy man who didn't have any regard for her. Her only ally seemed to be the housekeeper, and she was tied by loyalty to the master of the house.