I wish he would just kill me and get it over with.
Something damp and warm touches my chest, and I jump out of my thoughts, heart racing wildly and body thrashing. The ropes around my wrists jerk me back onto the bed, and I’m left gasping with pain radiating down my arms.
“Oh! I’m sorry, miss!”
My head snaps right, and I find a girl dressed in a black and white frock standing beside the bed with a towel in her quivering hands. When I recognize her as Emma, one of the many maids in Greystone Manor, I force my raging pulse to ease. It takes a great effort, but eventually, my aching body sinks into the mattress again.
“Oh, Emma…” I mutter, my voice cracking at the end. I wish I could tell her more, but once pending tears prickle my eyes, I decide against it. It’s too painful to give the fear and sorrow swimming inside me a voice.
This isn’t the first time Emma has found me this way. Unfortunately, we’d met the first morning after my abduction. She’d been sent to change Lord Henri’sbedsheets and found me there instead, frightened, weak, and tied to one of the bed’s four posters like a captured animal. Even at the young age of twelve, Emma has shown me more compassion than anyone else here, and I’m so thankful to have her warmth in such a cold and dark place.
More tears threaten to spill, but I quickly blink them away. My gaze raises to the ceiling. Delicately painted cherubs look down at me with round faces and blush-colored wings. It feels as if they’re watching me, judging me, like I am some kind of poor, damned soul who’s too far gone to be saved.
“I’m sorry for startling you, miss,” Emma tries again, and brushes away a stray hair away from her face, “but you were bleeding from the…” Her words fade out as her eyes travel up and down my half-naked body. They don’t need to be said. We both know what she means.
The remaining cloth from my torn nightgown covers only from my hips to my knees, and I’m lying there mostly exposed to her. Color stains Emma’s cheeks, but that’s the only clue to any discomfort. “Did he—”
“No,” I finish quickly, knowing exactly what she’s referring to. “Not this time.”
Again, Emma gingerly presses the wet cloth against my wounds, while I do my best not to wince or show her pain. If I’m still bleeding, that means Henri only left me a few moments ago.
My eyes roll up to where my wrists are tied above my head. The flesh is red and raw underneath the ropes. Great, more scars for me to bear.
“I brought you some bread from the kitchens, and tea.”Emma pulls the white sheets over my nakedness before gesturing to a tray of freshly made rolls and a steaming teapot on the bedside table. “I know you can't eat or drink any of it now but—”
“Thank you,” I whisper. After much cruelty, the gesture has my throat tightening with emotion. It’s taking every last bit of strength I have not to burst into tears at any second.
As if knowing that, Emma’s green eyes search my face. Then, she wrings the water out of the cloth into a bowl in her lap and continues to dab at my wounds and talk. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.” I lick my dry lips. “I went to see my father.”
“Oh, no, miss. During the party? The lord must have been so mad…”
The mention of Henri again makes me cringe. Especially referring to him as a ‘lord.’ I severely doubt he holds any real title like that.
“He was,” I say. “But I was so close to seeing my father again this time. If Henri’s ‘Yes Man’ hadn’t found me…”
“Mr. Brenin?” she squeaks.
Unsure of his last name, I ask, “Avrum?”
She nods.
“Then yes. He’s been assigned to watch me. Make sure I don’t get too far. He’s the one who brought me back.”
It’s best to keep the other parts—the more personal parts, like our almost intimate moment in the foyer—to myself. I’m still struggling to make sense of it myself.
“He asked after you, miss. I don’t really know why, but Mr. Brenin sent me here to check on you,” she said.
What? He asked about me?
Better yet, he wanted Emma to come check on me?
I stare at her in disbelief, but my stomach flips with apprehension. Did he know what Henri had done to me, and that’s why? As Henri’s favorite, he must know, right?
Even after asking myself the question, I can’t seem to answer it definitely. The way he was trying to talk to me about his family, let me see into his life, and then care about my wet and cold condition enough to have a bath arranged, it’s more compassion than I’ve seen from any other of the blood-thirsty creatures living here.
Maybe, just maybe, Henri is hiding it from him, too.
