These men kept my skirt on, at least. Her skirt. The hem comes down past my knees, and I’ve never been so grateful for four inches of satin. It will buy me more time.
Ten hours. I’ve already lasted ten minutes. You can do this, the courageous part of my soul whispers. But then that voice dies in the wake of two more words uttered in that guttural cadence.
“Leave us.”
The two smaller men scatter in the direction we entered—but it’s all wrong. No. No. I don’t smell Robert, and he’d never leave me alone with another man. Not his lackey. Not even his own father.
Most alarming of all, this man certainly is no Winthorp. His voice isn’t familiar and this house doesn’t smell like any property on the familial grounds.
They took me from the motorcade…
Fire sears through my skull as memories return in snatches. The clearest one is of her face. Briar. So beautiful, dominated by that pure, sweet smile. “I want you there,” she insisted. “We’re sisters, after all.”
Sisters. I cherished how that word sounded in her soft cadence, tucking that moment inside myself like one of the trinkets hidden in my secret cache. Love was more precious than a button or rock I’d stolen away. Those four words meant everything. I want you there.
But the memory of that moment serves as a weak antidote to the terror paralyzing me now. More bits and pieces come back.
I was in the car—the beautiful limousine for once, instead of one of the servant vans that took up the rear. For part of the way, I was even sitting beside her while she braided my hair. “We look alike now,” she wistfully remarked, beaming at our reflections in the polished windows.
We look alike. The phrase haunts me. As if I could ever look like Briar, with her lighter ringlets and her creamy skin. The only feature we truly share is our eyes. Our mother’s eyes. Large, round, and blue. In every other respect, she takes after her father, with a beautiful aristocratic nose and a graceful neck. Every Winthorp possesses the same subtle characteristics—markings of the blood, they like to claim. Good blood. Blue blood.
I take after my father, whoever he is.
Briar loves to tout our tentative resemblance anyway—especially to her benefit. I am the one the maid saw sneaking out back two summers ago. I am the one who scurried out of the room of that visiting businessman one winter.
And now…
We look alike.
“Take off the blindfold.” That voice…
I swallow hard, uneasy. Robert has found a new monster to play with. Someone who shares his flair for the dramatic. But where is he? My tormentor always relishes this part of the game. How he enjoys savoring my fear as I try to piece together where I am. Admittedly, it wasn’t this hard before; he never strays too far from the property.
His favorite lairs are the boathouse, or the deserted crypt, or the east wing. I could always hear the bluebirds chirping throughout the grounds, no matter which corner of the estate he deemed my chosen cell.
My ears strain, searching for that faint, familiar song. This time of year, they’re nearly deafening, able to be heard in even the farthest reaches of Winthorp Manor.
Two seconds. Three.
I hear nothing.
“Take off the blindfold.”
The harsh rasp of syllables steals my breath away. I know anger on Robert. On Robert Sr. Even on Briar. They stutter. They shout. They scream.
None of them ever exude their impatience to the point where I can sense it in the air. Or taste it: copper on my tongue. This man isn’t a Winthorp.
The realization coaxes my body into action. My sore fingers finally contort, trembling after what must have been hours of captivity. Whoever tied my blindfold snagged bits of my hair in the process and every tug on the knot at the base of my neck rips tiny strands loose from my scalp—comparable to my pathetic hopes being ripped from underneath me one by one.
I don’t hear the bluebirds.
I can’t smell Robert’s favorite cologne.
When I finally get the knot loosened enough to uncover my eyes…
I see hell.
Mother used to say it was beautiful, forsaking the teachings of the local priest. “Hell is a rose,” she used to murmur, her gaze turned inward, wistful and distant. “A flawless one, with all the life sucked out of it. The thorns have become knives. Its leaves have swallowed up the stalk. It’s grotesque. It’s deadly. But never forget that, underneath the violence, it’s still beautiful.”
He is beautiful. Or he was once. Blond hair draws my attention first—a sun-kissed gold in places, darkened with age in others. It’s been clawed back from his face into a ponytail longer than mine was before Briar trimmed it. His eyes are that dangerous color between blood and brown. Like a flame, they catch the light filtering in through a sloppily boarded-up window beside him. His face is angular. Chiseled. Stone. Every feature is sculpted to convey just one emotion: determination. The way an owl might watch the mice scurrying underfoot in the stables. Or the way Robert used to look at me.
The way the devil looks, I presume, as if he has all the time in the world. More than ten hours.
An eternity to torture me.
~ Continue Reading XV ~
A Word from the Author
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