The Crimes of Alice: An Underground Prequel Read online

  The Crimes of Alice

  Erin Bedford

  The Crimes of Alice © 2018 Embrace the Fantasy Publishing, LLC

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Also by Erin Bedford

  The Underground Series

  Chasing Rabbits

  Chasing Cats

  Chasing Princes

  Chasing Shadows

  Chasing Hearts

  The Mary Wiles Chronicles

  Marked by Hell

  Bound by Hell

  Deceived by Hell

  Tempted by Hell

  Starcrossed Dragons

  Riding Lightning

  Grinding Frost

  Swallowing Fire

  Pounding Earth

  The Celestial War Chronicles

  Song of Blood and Fire

  The Crimson Fold

  Until Midnight

  Until Dawn

  Until Sunset

  Until Twilight

  Curse of the Fairy Tales

  Rapunzel Untamed

  Rapunzel Unveiled

  Her Angels

  Heaven’s Embrace

  Heaven’s A Beach

  Heaven’s Most Wanted

  Academy of Witches

  Witching On A Star

  As You Witch

  Witch You Were Here

  Granting Her Wish

  Vampire CEO

  IT ALL BEGAN WITH a game of bridge. A frightfully exasperating game which I had no honest interest in playing, but it was the only respectable form of entertainment one could find on a Sunday afternoon.

  “Your draw, Alice.” My younger sister, Violet, tapped her cards on the table in front of her, her lips pursed with displeasure. She wasn't any happier to be playing the game than me. In fact, the way she kept flickering her eyes toward Edmond, one of our brother Fredrick's friends, Violet would much rather be kissing the roguish young man. Scandalous, for sure.

  “Alice,” Violet said my name again. This time, it held a hint of impatience. “Alice!”

  “Violet,” our mother chastised from her seat a few tables over in the game parlor. “Do not raise your voice to your sister.”

  Violet scowled. “She's got her head in the clouds again. No doubt dreaming about that place. That Won—”

  “Violet.” The sharp tone of our mother's voice caused Violet's lips to clamp shut. “Now, where were we?” She smiled politely at her companion, Mister Carroll, who had just come back to town from Cheshire, England.

  He was handsome enough with a straight nose and a pleasant smile. He wasn't balding or overweight. It helped that he had a job even if it was in a bank. Though, from my mother's point of view, that was far better than any of the other attributes.

  “I believe you were telling me about the accomplishments of your eldest daughter, Rhoda,” he said, “in an effort to have me take her as my wife.”

  A giggle escaped me. I quickly covered my mouth with my hand, but my mother caught it. She sent a warning glare my way before giving Mister Carroll a coy smile.

  “Now, Mister Carroll, you spoil the fun of matchmaking. You know with my children grown, that is all I have left that brings me joy.”

  Mister Carroll caught me looking and winked before replying, “Is that all? Then I must do my best to make sure you do not pass without finding such enjoyment. It is my responsibility as a gentleman.” He lifted his cup of tea to his lips, taking a long drink before sitting it back on the saucer.

  A sharp pain in my calf made me cry out. My eyes jumped to my sister who sat with a smug grin on her lips. “What was that for?”

  Smiling behind her cards, Violet flickered her eyes to Mister Carroll. “You know.”

  Wrinkling my nose at her, I drew my cards and discarded two. “Your turn.” I tried to pay attention to the game, but then it was my name on Mister Carroll's lips.

  “And what of Miss Alice?”

  I forced myself to stay in my seat, my eyes on my cards though I barely even saw the hearts or spades in my hand.

  “Oh, Alice?” My mother chuckled nervously, the way she always did when any young gentleman showed any interest in me. It wasn't that I was ugly by any means. In fact, out of all my sisters, I have been told on many occasions to be the fairer one. However, my mother called me a unique being, but what she really means was that I was mad, quite bonkers, gone ‘round the bend. Any of them would do to describe me in her eyes.

  “Yes.” Mister Carroll crossed one leg over the other, his hands sitting in his lap. “I find her quite delightful, and she is the more beautiful of your daughters.”

  I couldn't help but smirk at my mother's discomfort. Ever since our father passed, she had been bound and determined to have us girls married off. Fredrick was a kind enough brother and keeper, but soon he'd have his own wife and then children to go along. He couldn't take care of three spinster daughters and his widowed mother on his paltry professor's salary.

  Violet wouldn't be too difficult to marry off. She was pretty and had a bubbly personality. If only she could mind her manners better… though I was sure she could say the same about me.

  Rhoda was a different story entirely. Stern and studious, she had no time for silliness or the like. Some called her too serious. I called her my best friend. She was the only one of my family besides father who didn't think I was mad, that the dreams I had weren't delusions, or that I needed to be sent away. It was her that had fought to keep me at home, or I'd have been sent to the sanitarium already.

  I glanced over at Rhoda, who gave me an encouraging smile over her book. She was well over twenty and didn't care a lick about what anyone thought. She would never need a man to make her happy or find her way. Out of us three, she was the most adventurous and the most well to do.

  Me, on the other hand, well, I'd be stupid to not take any hand that was offered to me. If Mister Carroll wished to marry me, then I couldn't very well say no. It was either him or the asylum, and gray was not my color.

  That is what prompted me to lay my cards down on the table, muttering a firm, “I fold,” before standing from my seat and, without invitation, taking the seat between my mother and Mister Carroll.

  “I do believe someone called my name. I'm Alice.” I held my hand out to Mister Carroll who shook it with a bemused twinkle in his eyes.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Alice.” Mister Carroll brought my hand up to his mouth, pressing his lips to the knuckles. A light flutter filled my stomach but was replaced by another sharp pain on my thigh.

  My eyes moved to my mother and her offending fingers which had just left my lap. Her brows were drawn tight and her mouth set in a thin line. I was messing up her plans.

  “Mister Carroll will be at the game hall this evening, so you need to be on your best behavior,” she had told us. “Do not call attention to yourselves. Rhoda, wear the green gown and I better not see you reading. Men do
not take kindly to women who know too much.” Rhoda had rolled her eyes at mother at the time and, based on the fact that she had not waited more than five minutes before pulling her book out, never intended to go along with mother's plan.

  Apparently, neither did I.

  “Mother,” I cooed, sliding my arm through hers and smiling softly toward Mister Carroll, “you never told me Mister Carroll was so handsome. And here you were going to give him to Rhoda.” I leaned forward and brought my hand up as if to tell him a secret, and he moved toward my hand conspiratorially. “The only item she finds remotely interesting is a dead piece of wood covered in ink.”

  Mister Carroll threw his head back and laughed. “Well, I do enjoy a good book myself, but real life is much more interesting, don't you agree?”

  I opened my mouth to agree, but Violet said, “If you had dreams like Alice, then nothing in life is real.”

  I glared at my sister, who only stared me down before turning back to her cards. To Mister Carroll, I said, “One cannot control what they dream any more than they can decide if they will breathe.”

  “Too true,” my mother concurred and tapped the table with her knuckles.

  “Very well said.” Mister Carroll nodded. “And what kind of dreams do you have Miss Alice?”

  I shifted in my seat, unsure if I should really reveal what it was that ran through my head each night, if I should tell of the terrible and wonderful adventures I had ever since the tender age of ten. I, myself, didn’t know where they came from. An overactive imagination? Some kind of childhood trauma that had morphed into dreams so that I might cope with whatever had happened?

  The child version of myself used to insist they were real, that everything I’d seen and experienced had actually happened.

  However, as I grew older, my stories became less entertaining and more upsetting to those around me. No one wanted to hear about a rabbit in a waistcoat or a big blue caterpillar who smoked a hookah pipe and talked in circles. If I had dared even to mutter a trace of evidence of being given drugged tea by a handsome stranger with a top hat, they would have for sure have sent me on my way by now, marked as damaged goods and too scandalous for marriage.

  I didn’t know whether it was something in Mister Carroll’s eyes, the sincerity of his question, or maybe it had nothing to do with Mister Carroll at all, and I was just tired of pretending. Whatever might have happened to be the reason, I didn’t have a moment to contemplate it before I spoke.

  “Have you ever been to Wonderland, Mister Carroll?”

  “Wonderland?” He sat back in his chair, adjusting the jacket of his suit, a real keen interest in his face. My mother made a noise to interrupt us, but she must have seen something too because, for once, she did not rebuke my words and insist I was only teasing.

  Eager for an open ear, I leaned forward in my seat. “Yes, Wonderland. A place where everything is backward and nothing it what it seems.”

  Mister Carroll let out a laugh. “Oh, you must mean the higher offices of the political court. I have found myself falling into their rabbit hole of lies and mischief a time or two though I find it surprising for a young lady such as yourself to be so interested in politics.”

  I smiled politely, shaking my head. “No, not politics, though rabbit holes are quite a way to travel. I talk of talking animals and cats with smiling faces. Fairies and mad tea parties. The likes of things you have never dreamed of before.”

  And from there, I went on and on, regaling Mister Carroll with my dreams of Wonderland. The more I talked to him, the more interested Mister Carroll became, so much so that my mother eventually had to pull me away from him because of the late hour.

  “Miss Alice?” Mister Carroll called after me as we made our way to the gaming hall door.

  “Yes?” I paused between my sisters, my brother having had taken my mother to our carriage already.

  “May I call on you? I would be delighted to hear more about this Wonderland.”

  “You would?” I pursed my lips, waiting for him to call it all a jest.

  Mister Carroll stood from his seat and approached us, my sisters twittering to each other behind me. Stopping before me, he took my hand in his and held it.

  “You have made a very dull evening, a delight. I would love nothing more than to look upon your face and hear about your wonderful tales. As long as you do not bring up banking ledgers, I could listen to you talk for the rest of my life.” He brought my hand up to his mouth, brushing his lips against my knuckles.

  My sisters gasped and then giggled behind their hands before Rhoda shooed Violet out the door giving me a meaningful look. I could hear her words in my head as plain as if they had been said from her mouth. Do not mess this up.

  I wouldn’t have another chance like this, maybe ever.

  Despite the apprehension in my heart, I nodded. “I would be delighted, Mister Carroll.”

  A joyous smile curled up Mister Carroll’s lips. “Please, call me Lewis.”

  I WOULD HAVE LOVED to say our relationship blossomed into a glorious love affair. That each day was like a blessing and we would go on long walks and gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes.

  Love. A four-letter word that one could only hope to find in friends and family. Any expectations of it in a relationship, especially with my reputation, was utter nonsense.

  “I'm quite surprised you were able to catch such a fine man,” Violet commented as she primped in the mirror for the fifth time in the last twenty minutes. “How did you dazzle Mister Carroll into marrying you?”

  I sniffed and rolled my eyes, thankful that my mother was greeting the guests, so she couldn't chastise me for it. “I did nothing of the sort. Lewis is too smart for those kinds of games.” I adjusted the skirt of my wedding dress, trying to soothe my jittery hands.

  “Well, you must have done something right,” Violet continued, coming to stand beside me in the full-length mirror. “No man would go to all this trouble to marry someone as odd as you for no reason. He's even paying for the wedding.” She played with the gemstones embedded in my pale blue gown. “You should have let him buy your dress. Then at least maybe it would be more in fashion.”

  I pulled my arm away from her with a frown, fluffing my underskirts and adjusting my veil over my blonde curls. “There's nothing wrong with my dress, and I don't need fancy things to make me happy.”

  “But they don't hurt.” Violet smirked, primping her hair now in my mirror. “You could have at least gotten a white dress like Queen Victoria. You know, it is the height of fashion now.”

  Rhoda, who had been quietly sitting in the corner a book in her hand, snorted. “How impractical. A white dress. You might as well throw a bucket of mud on it and be done with it.”

  “Agreed.” I peered over my shoulder at my eldest sister, and we wrinkled our nose at each other with a grin. To my younger sister, I said, “Unless you plan to catch a wealthy man, you might as well get thoughts of a white wedding dress out of your mind.”

  Violet pouted, but it didn't last long. Her fits never did before she was off daydreaming about some other impossible thing. And they call me the odd one.

  At least, that was one thing I didn’t have to worry about. Lewis loved my stories of Wonderland and prodded me daily for more information. I almost felt as though he had an obsession with it, even more so than I did.

  Nevertheless, it had gained me a husband, and I would soon be out of my brother's home and no longer a bother to anyone. I hummed to myself, thinking of all the different changes I could make to my new home. Lewis had given me permission to redecorate the whole estate if I wished.

  “Whatever your heart desires,” he had said, kissing my cheek. That had made my heart flutter and my palms sweat. At least, I knew that we wouldn't have any issues in the boudoir.

  A knock came to the bedroom door and interrupted my thoughts. Frederick’s dark head peeked into the room, and his eyes scanned around before landing on me. A small smile graced his lips as he pushe
d the door open completely.

  “Alice, aren't you a vision!” He opened his arms as he came to me, and we hugged briefly. Pulling back, he frowned. “You know you really should have gone with white or even a cream color. You are going to be a wealthy woman now.”

  “See?” Violet pointed a finger at me.

  Pushing away from Fredrick, I adjusted the high collar of my light blue gown. “I don’t want a white dress, and besides, blue was father's favorite color.”

  At the mention of father, the room grew quiet. A pensive expression crossed Fredrick's face before he spoke. “You're right, blue is perfect. Isn't it, Violet?”

  “Yes. Quite.” She nodded vigorously, her eyes brimming with tears. She sniffed and turned her face. “Excuse me for a moment.”

  I watched quietly as she left the room and then sighed.

  “Getting anxious?” Fredrick asked, brushing my hair away from my face.

  I bobbed my head.

  “Do not worry yourself,” he continued. “In half an hour, you'll be going down the aisle with yours truly at your arm, and then a brief time after, you'll be Misses Lewis Carroll.”