Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 51855 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51855 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
“You can’t—”
“Yes, Your Grace or no, Your Grace,” I growl. “That’s all you need say.”
She fixes me with a look of loathing. Lady Wraye can hate me all she wants, as long as she does what I say.
“Yes, Your Grace,” she mutters.
Not nearly penitent enough. I’d like to see her crying and clutching at my sleeve. Maybe her cheek pressing against my thigh as I stroke her hair and listen to her promises to be good, so good, so very good for me.
“Put your clothes on and get out.”
I turn my back on her so she can get dressed. She sniffles as she does so, and I nearly turn back. I stay where I am, hands clenched into fists. She should cry, for presuming she can worm her way into my daughter’s affections for her own ends.
I hear the door open, and I follow Lady Wraye out and down the stairs.
Aubrey is waiting in the entrance hall. “Wraye, wait!”
But Lady Wraye hurries out, without even looking at Aubrey, and slams the door behind her.
My daughter rounds on me with tears in her eyes. “How could you? She was my only friend.”
“You’ll make other friends,” I tell her, straightening my cuffs, eyes on the front door, my palms still itching to make Lady Wraye’s behind burn. If only Aubrey hadn’t interrupted me. “Better ones than the Rugovas. Someone like her is only interested in you because you’re a Levanter.”
“That’s not true! I never even told her my name. She hasn’t been anything but nice to me since I met her.”
I round angrily on her. “This is my house to protect, and I will do so, as I see fit.”
“You’re nothing but a brute and a bully! Is this what prison did to you, or were you always like this?”
“How dare you speak to me so? Get out of my sight.”
Aubrey stares at me as if I’ve slapped her.
I take a deep breath, struggling to get my temper under control. This is my daughter I’m talking to, not one of my subordinates. How do you talk to a daughter? How do you talk to a grown-up stranger, who’s living under your roof, and persuade them to do exactly what you tell them? “You don’t understand. I spent twenty-seven years without even a square foot to call my own. I won’t let anyone touch what belongs to me ever again.”
She swipes at the tears on her face. “No, I don’t understand, because you won’t tell me. You just get angry and shout.”
Maybe I overreacted seeing Lady Wraye in Aubrey’s bedroom. Or maybe I didn’t. I’ve already explained myself, and if that doesn’t make Aubrey understand, then I don’t know what else to do.
“Do as you’re told, young lady. You’re not too old to go over my knee, either.”
I storm up the stairs, my heart beating wildly in my chest and feeling the darkness closing in around me, as it did night after night for twenty-seven years.
Chapter Six
Wraye
I hear Aubrey call my name, but I just keep running. When I reach the end of the drive, I make a right-hand turn, and the heel comes off my shoe. My stupid, cheap, secondhand pump. I stand by the green privet hedge, my chest heaving, tears streaming down my face.
Everything the Archduke said to me is blaring in my ears, and it takes ten minutes for me to stop shaking.
I brush the tears from my face, take off my other shoe, and start walking. The one good thing about only pretending to be a lady is that I’m used to getting around barefoot.
Mama isn’t home when I get there, which I’m grateful for. My face is a blotchy mess. I get changed into house clothes, splash water on my face and pull my hair into a high ponytail. Then I get to work making a vegetable casserole and carefully handwashing the silk stockings we wore last night. Mama finally comes home, and I pretend I never even left the house today.
She’s got an armload of tabloid newspapers. I frown at them, because they’re not normally Mama’s taste in reading material. She’s always called such papers trash, but here she is, sitting down at our rickety kitchen table and poring over the gossipy newsprint and Paparazzi-style photographs.
Curious, I pick one of the papers up from the stack and examine the front page. It’s all about King Anson at the ball last night. What he wore. Who he spoke to. There’s a whole column dedicated to guessing who he’ll marry. For a list of princess hopefuls, turn to page five!
I turn the page and see him. Not the King, but Archduke Levanter, in profile, the photograph taken through one of the palace windows. And what a proud profile it is. I feel the color drain from my face and hastily put it down. The memory of his body is imprinted on mine. The feel of his large hands taking hold of my wrists and then pushing me down over his lap. How dare he do that to me? If Aubrey hadn’t walked in, would he actually have spanked me?