“I am betting the termUnholy Duowill be mentioned…mm… twice with some form of ironically-wrappeddecentattached.”
Leo relaxed his shoulders and chuckled, shaking his head.
“How about'the Lady Mildenhall was a vision in blue'right before they remind everyone of how‘the traces of recent scandals seemingly not affecting her lovely disposition’?”
“I am sure no one would call my disposition ‘lovely’ on purpose.”
“That is true. You have many moods, but what is generally considered lovely is not one of them.”
“I beg your pardon?” Prim pretended to be offended as she went through the edition.
She read the usual about the tea party before the Deveraux ball, and she turned the page to win her spoils from the wager with Leo, when she caught her name indeed. She read. Her heart dropped. Her skin went pale, her fingers crumpling the paper.
“Prim?” Leo read her body correctly. “What is it? What did they say?”
Prim looked up at him with a tense look on her face. Leo mimicked her, the coffee cup abandoned to protect it from being hurled to the wall.
“There is an expose,” Prim muttered. “About us. A letter. To my father.”
“Nonsense,” Leo growled. “I have no correspondence with your father that would be anything scandalous.”
“Well, you were calling me‘my rose,’and we haven’t even met when all this started, so I am not expecting accuracy and the truth from this.”
“Give me!” Leo took the sheet from her trembling hands and read.
Prim knew exactly what was being revealed to him. A letter that Leo had written to her father was exposed in all its fake detail. In this, it was alluded that Leo in previous correspondence had promised her that he would help her family financially, especially to help the twins have a better future. And in this letter, Leo was presented to withdraw such promises with malignant language, indifferent to the family’s struggles. It even had a note that painted Prim as a powerless wife, in name only, with no real power in the Mildenhall Estate.
“This…” Leo was shaking with anger. “This is outrageous. ‘I do not see how your difficult position is, or ever could be, any concern of the Mildenhall estate’after I seemingly confess that I promised financial aid, which I have promised to your family and have every intention to fulfill.”
“I know, Leo. This is all a lie. And it doesn’t let me unscathed. ‘When it says,‘your daughter graces my table and fulfills the public obligations of her title’it paints me like an aimless figurehead, a decorative wife.”
Leo’s fist came down on the polished mahogany table with a crack that made the china jump. His coffee cup overturned, soiling the fine linen.
“So, I am a cruel man without honor, and you are worth the same as a vase at the corner of my halls. This has gone out of line! I will take care of it, now!”
Without a second word, he storms out of the room, and soon after, Prim hears the unmistakable slamming of his study door. And Prim was left with the sheets in her hand and a dread in her soul.
She felt weary and tired and just needed a moment of quiet. It’s been a while since something kept constantly happening, the hours of peace were rare and usually in his arms.
And because the reality has a morbid sense of humor, she hears commotion at the entrance. And before she has time to recover, to put her thoughts in order, her parents barge into the breakfast room.
“Prim!”
The first one to enter her sanctuary was her mother.
“Have you read this?” Her mother waved the sheets at her daughter like a war banner.
“I have. I am sure you-”
“This is preposterous!” her father rushed in, his face red with indignation. “We are not beggars, but His Grace has promised us assistance.”]
“Father, these sheets always-”
“Is this how you permit him to treat us, your own family?” Her mother lamented.
“He gave us his word, but I guess that matters little to him. he is an all-powerful Duke.”
Prim looked at her parents in disbelief. They stormed in here not to offer a united front against the lies. Instead, they came in here to accuse Leo and her. Once more, they chose to be blind to who she truly was and who Leo was. They believed the lies people told instead of their own daughter.
