Loveless didn’t say a single word. His grip on Rosalie’s elbow was enough to keep him in full control of the situation. Rosalie had always been afraid of him, and he used that fear against her, against all of them. His madness knew no boundary, especially when he faced losing something he yearned for.
“Please…” Rosalie begged, her lower lip trembling, as she bit the inside of her cheek trying to displace the pain.
She didn’t want to cry. Not yet.
Finally, the Countess wrapped her arms around each of the girls, urging them to go back the way they came from.
“Let’s go, dearies,” the Countess spoke softly, as Rosalie suffocated her sobs. “Everything is all right.”
“But, grandma, why is that man holding Miss. Blake like that?” Madeline wouldn’t let it go.
She kept turning around, and it was her confused gaze which hurt much more than Loveless’ claws. Her little voice was heard echoing, and Rosalie knew she would never forget it. She would never forget any of them.
“Good,” Loveless hissed into her ear. “The carriage be outside.”
He pushed her down the corridor and towards the staircase. For a moment, Rosalie considered pushing him down the stairs. Lord knew he deserved it. He deserved to take his last breath and no more after that. That was the only way she could ever be free. She, and all her friends back in his freak show.
But she couldn’t. Despite all the hatred she felt for this man, it simply wasn’t in her nature to take a life, no matter how much harm that life had created for her.
She walked down the stairs slowly, minding her dress, the last remnant of the life she led here. But she would soon be stripped of that and placed into a much less refined dress than this one. He would take everything from her. Everything. And she would become an empty shell once more. But, still, she couldn’t commit murder.
Her footsteps were quiet, solemn. She felt as if she had joined a funeral march, only the deceased was her own self, her own soul. This vile man was taking her to Hell, where she would be locked up and chained for the rest of her life.
The sun that welcomed her outside only seemed to mock her with its freedom to shine. Her own freedom had been violently taken away from her, and she didn’t even have the chance to explain herself to Edmund, the person she loved more than anything in the world.
The thought of him broken hearted made her eyes water. Two tears rolled down her face, and she quickly wiped them with her free hand. Loveless either didn’t notice it or he didn’t care. Instead, he kept pushing her towards the carriage.
Rosalie stopped before it. This was her last chance to run away, her last chance to try to escape once more. But what was the point of all that? He would find her. He had proven that much. No matter where she would go or hide, he would leave no stone unturned until she was back in his claws once more. She had no more strength to run, no more strength to hope that life could be anything other than this Hell she was going back to.
At that moment, the door to the carriage flung open, and a hand appeared. The man it belonged to was still in the shadows of the carriage, refusing to come out into the light.
Rosalie hesitated. It was probably some hired hand Loveless had brought with him in case he couldn’t handle it on his own.
“Don’t worry, Rosalie,” the voice said. “Everything will be all right.”
Rosalie felt the whole world spin right underneath her feet. Loveless had to keep her up with the strength of his own body so she wouldn’t flop down onto the ground, like a lifeless puppet.
She tried to catch her breath. Her heart burned. Her eyes stung from all the tears she was holding back.
“Mr… Goosevelt?” she mumbled, before losing consciousness.
Chapter 25
Edmund didn’t hear the first knock on the door. He was still aware of his surroundings, but his senses had already been stupefied by the liquor he had ingested, in an effort to forget the fact that his life would never be the same. When the second knock was heard, he merely glanced up in that direction, but he didn’t say anything. He could hear some whispers from the other side when the door suddenly sprung open.
“Uncle, what are you doing!?” Madeline exclaimed, seeing him slumped in his chair, with an empty glass barely hanging in his hand.
His eyelids had already gotten droopy. He found it increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open. But the appearance of his nieces brought some sense back into his mind.
“What… are you girls doing here?” he managed to mumble, waving the glass in their direction, with some sense of decency still left awakened in him.
“We should ask you the same thing!” Madeline growled as only a self-confident thirteen-year-old girl could do.
Cecilia remained silent, but the stare she graced him with assured him that she felt the same way as her sister. There was no doubt about that.
“Why did you let Miss. Blake go with that ghastly man?” Madeline demanded to know. “Didn’t you see that she didn’t want to go?”
Edmund’s jaw tensed, his upper teeth grinding against his lower teeth, in an effort to displace the pain and anxiety that threatened to overtake him completely. Of course, he saw the look on her face when she recognized that man. It was a look of horror. But he couldn’t keep a man from his wife. That was a matter for the court.
