CHAPTER TWENTY
NICHOLAS
“Elizabeth, leave,” I order the smug woman out of my sight. Two weeks, two fucking weeks, I haven’t seen Victoria. I thought that she might’ve grown a brain during that time, but it appears not.
“My apologies, My Lord, for you having to witness that appalling attack on your character.” The jet-haired woman, who pleasured me the night of my drunken rampage, sways her hips seductively as she leaves the room where the girls were eating their breakfast. She runs a hand across my chest. I don’t move. I allow the show of dominance from her because I see the look of jealousy that flits over Victoria’s face. She quickly suppressed it, but I saw it. Too late — I have her. “If you need me, I’ll be in my room. Try not to get beaten again, Victoria, I’d hate to delay the trials any further. I want to get on with my life and obtain my rightful position.” Elizabeth sashays off down the corridor.
“Trailer trash bitch.” Victoria coughs under her breath. I can’t help the smirk that touches my lips because she’s right. Elizabeth Sandford is a slut. She would make a terrible wife — she would fuck my entire retinue. I could never be sure that any children we had were mine. It isn’t her fault, though. With a Bishop for a father, she was sexually repressed for years and has finally discovered her calling.
“Come here,” I order Victoria — now that we’re alone.
“Hell no.” She takes a step farther away.
“Come here,” I order again. This time with a little bit more force.
“Are you trying it on with all of us? I bet I was a big disappointment, seeing that you had to give to me rather than receive.”
My lip lifts into a smirk again.
“You really are a freak. My god, you’re actually enjoying this.” She steps forward, this time, at a rapid pace and makes to go around me. I stand fully in the doorway, filling it with my muscular frame.
“You aren’t going anywhere.”
“I’m getting the hell away from you, and when I get out of here, I’m getting tested for STDs. You’re probably a walking infection. Now, let me pass.”
“You’d rather die than have me touch you again?”
“Yes.” She makes a charge for me to try and get me to move out of the way. As she bounces off my taut body, I can see that she hurts herself more than she hurts me. “Get out of my fucking way.”
“I didn’t call her name, when I came.”
She throws her hands up in the air.
“I don’t want to hear this. Who you stick your dick into isn’t my concern. As long as you keep that thing away from me, I’m happy.”
“I mouthed yours because I was drunk — completely pissed off that you still weren't listening to me, and what I want you to do so that we can get through this together.”
“Great, you were pissed at me, so you stuck your dick down another woman’s throat. That really makes you a good candidate to be a husband. You say that you want to marry me, but what happens the first time we have an argument? You find the nearest willing hole and stick yourself in it.” She tries again to get past me. “Will you get out of my fucking way?” She balls her fist and punches me in the jaw. It hurts — it actually causes me pain. Damn, she’s strong for such a little thing.
“Argh,” she cries. “God damn it.” She grips her shoulder where, I know, the deepest of her wounds is. It must still be healing and was jolted when she hit me. “Please, just move.”
“You know, for hitting me, I’m within my rights to put you back in the bridle.”
Her eyes fill with worry, but her cheeks turn pink with fury.
“You have no rights over me. I’m a woman with my own thoughts and mind.”
“You’re my property — your father gave you to me,” I snarl back.
“I’m a human being. I’m no one’s property.”
“Wrong. Until this is over, you’re mine.”
“Jerk.” She tries one final time to get past me. I move out of the way at the last minute, and she goes flying by. I grab her arm and start to drag her down the hallway.
“Get off me.”
“No.”
“Nicholas, you’re hurting me.”
“I don’t care. For once, you’re going to listen to me.”
“What’s the point? You have nothing to say that would remotely interest me.”
I pull her up the stairs toward my room. She digs her heels in.
“I can’t go up there.”
“My father’s out. What I want to show you is up there.”
“Thank God, you didn’t say it was in your pants.”
“You back on my dick again? I can show you that as well, if you want,” I chuckle.
“Drop dead,” she snarls.
I tug hard, and she has no choice but to follow me. Reggie appears from one of the rooms.
“Help me,” Victoria screams.
I glare at him. He holds his hands up and steps back into the room.
“Jesus, all the men in this place are insane,” Victoria huffs.
We get to my room, and I pull her inside, shutting the door and locking it, to give us privacy, I put the key into my pocket.
“I’m not going to sleep with you or suck you if that’s why you’ve brought me up here. I mean it. You're holding me hostage and should be in prison.”
“I know.”
“What?”
“I should be in prison. I know you aren’t going to sleep with me, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to touch you whenever you’re in the same room as me. It doesn’t stop me from wanting to seek you out to talk to you. In fact, you being my possession makes it even harder because I know that I can’t have you.” Both of us are breathing rapidly. Our gasps for air fill the sudden silence in the room
“Don’t, please.” Victoria’s sweet tones finally break the tranquility.
“You're at an unfair disadvantage to the others. They seem to all know what happens next. You don’t. They’ve already learned, from their fathers, what is required to become my wife. I want you to learn what’s involved from a Duchess.”
“Nicholas, there’s no Duchess? Your mother, she’s dead because of this.” The word dead is stressed with such poignant emotion that I have a momentary regret that I’m about to share a part of my life with someone. I’ve hidden it away for so long, but this is Victoria. I’ve known since the moment I first saw her, staring intently at Van Gogh’s Poppies, that there was something different about her. I’ve known that she’d be the one to break this curse, hanging over our families. I step up to a chest of drawers in my room and remove my mother’s diary from it. I brought it up here a few days ago and have read the whole thing since.
“Here.”
“What’s this?”
She looks down at the silk cover as I push the book into her shaking hands.
“Open it and read a page.”
“I don’t think I should.”
I roll my eyes.
“For once, in the short time we’ve known each other, accept that I’m trying to do something to help you. Please read the damn diary,” I snap and plonk my weight down into a Queen Anne armchair. It’s my favorite and, thankfully, survived the attack I made on my room. I place my head in my hands. I can feel a migraine simmering at the edges of my temples. This isn’t how I thought my day would go. I hear the pages turn and look up. Victoria’s flicking through the diary.
“Is this…?” she hesitates, so I answer for her.
“My mother’s.”
“Nicholas, I can’t read this. It’s personal to you and William.”
“If it helps you in any way with what’s to come next, then it's more pertinent to you. William and I have read it. We’ve mourned our mother, and what she was forced to do.”
Victoria flicks through another few pages then gasps. I don’t know what has elicited such a reaction because the whole diary’s full of such moments.
She opens her mouth to speak and shuts it again.
“Read it.”
“Fire, sex, death. That’s what they called today. A death that’s what I had. I’ll never forget it, the pale face, the blood, the pain. Freedom, he was lucky. I wished for it. I pray for it nightly, but it never comes. I’m in hell and became one of them today. There’s no hope for me. I know he’ll choose me. I see it in the way he looks at me. I’ll have the last laugh, though. I’ll end this — I’ll conceive his son against my consent. The compassion that dies within me will be born into him. He’ll rule and rid the world of the society of Oakfield.”
When she finishes reading, Victoria closes the book and sits in her own chair.
“I don’t know if I can read anymore.”
“Take it with you. You need to prepare for tomorrow.”
“Death? Nicholas, please tell me it isn’t what I think it is?” she asks.
“I’m afraid toward the end my mother’s words get a little jumbled. She wasn't in her right frame of mind.”
“You’ve read this but still want me to go through with the trials?” I try to sense whether she’s angry at that fact or sad, but I can’t get a read on her.
“You should go.” I pull the key out of my pocket and throw it toward her.
“Talk to me.” She slides off the chair and picks the key up like it’s a security blanket, but she’s still hesitant and doesn’t make a run for the door.
“I have to go through with this, Victoria. It’s the only way. I can’t let my mother die in vain. I can’t risk William. I know I sound like I’m completely selfish, but please, read that and understand my point of view.”
She looks down at the diary again.
“Thank you.”
I shut my eyes and listen to her put the key into the lock, turn it, and leave the room. I’m no good at verbalizing what I’m feeling, but hopefully my mother can, in some way, show Victoria why I need to finish this properly. I need to take the title from my father and make everything right for William, for my mother, and for all the other girls who’ve been harmed over two hundred years of the Oakfield society. Even if it's to the detriment of the woman I'm falling in love with.
“You know — I can look after myself — I’m not that incapable. I could walk out of this place tomorrow if I wanted to.” The hidden doorway behind me creaks, and William’s voice comes through it.
“Your sense of direction’s awful. You’ll get lost before you get to the end of the driveway,” I retort with a weary laugh.
“I’m not that bad. Better than you are. You got lost going out for Chinese once.”
“They’d changed premises.”
“No excuse.”
He slaps me on the shoulder, and I sit up.
“What are you doing here?”
“Keeping hidden but seeing things again. You gave her mum’s diary?” He pulls up a chair and sits next to me.
“I thought it might help her understand why I need to do things this way.”
He snorts, and his tics appear. He strokes the side of his face, nose, and taps twice on the arm of the chair.
“William?”
“Listen. I meant what I said. If I chose to walk out of here, I would be alright. You should fight for Victoria over me. I know she frustrates the hell out of you, but I’m not a fool. I see the growing feelings between you both, despite the situation.”
“Stop it,” I command and take his hand to stop him from tapping on the chair. He taps on my fingers instead. “This is stressing you. I made a promise to you and Mum. I'll always be there to help you and protect you from our father.”
“You were five years old. I don’t even remember the promise. I was three.”
“But I still made it,” I interrupt.
“What if you don’t succeed?”
“Then, I’ll die for the cause. I won’t allow another woman to go through this. Any children I may be lucky enough to have will choose their wives the conventional way. They'll go on dates and have their hearts’ broken.”
“Not heartbreak. Isn’t that what women have and demand ice cream for all the time?”
“It is, but I’d never say that to them.”
“Maybe I should ask Victoria if she want’s ice cream while she’s reading the diary?”
“William?” Because of his autism, my brother isn’t always aware of the social norms. “That’s not a good idea. You should probably stay away from her for a while. I’m not sure how she’ll react to the diary."
“Joke, brother. I miss you smiling at me. I know that she needs time alone. I don’t always understand everything, and I think that gazing at the stars is a lot easier than interacting with society. But, somehow, I have this built-in instinct when it comes to understanding women.”
“You need to share that with me, then.”
“You’re doing well. The diary was the right decision.”
There’s a knock on my door. William freezes.
“Who is it?”
“Mr. Hane, My Lord.”
My butler, thank god. “Come in.”
He enters and bows to us.
“Hello, Lord William.”
“Reggie.” My brother gets to his feet and, without an understanding of personal space, embraces my butler with warm affection.
“William put the man down.” I also get to my feet and pull my brother off.
“Sorry to disturb you. I’ve just had word from His Grace. He's to return home within the hour. He’s sent the call out to the society members. No more waiting. You’re all to be in the banqueting room for his return. The next trials will be happening then and there.”