Content warning: This chapter includes scenes of unwanted physical contact, coercion and emotional distress that may be triggering to some readers.
HER
He says nothing as I talk.
The sun sinks low in the sky, painting bright colours across the fluffy clouds. Crickets start to chirp, creating a chorus of summer nights. Some sort of flower perfumes the air with its sweet scent, so at odds with the dark memories spilling from my lips.
Silence stretches between us after I finish the story of the day he kissed me. The next part is the worst, a smudge in my mind even now, my brain shying away from it.
"You don't have to."
He speaks for the first time in what feels like forever. Piercing the charged silence. His voice sounds strained and thick.
It gives me the confidence to go on.
—
The next time I saw Thomas was before dinner that same day.
The inky night leaked into the library where I hid. I had written him, asking him to meet me here. The only light that held the darkness at bay was from a small candle, flickering on a small table.
I paced, working a track into the rich carpet.
I was alerted of his presence by the soft creak of a floorboard behind me. Whipping to face him, I tried for a kind but firm expression.
He was smiling a particularly greasy smile at me, his tongue flicking over his bottom lip the same way it had mine.
Nausea roiled in my gut, and I had to grip the towering bookcase to steady myself.
"Your Grace."
His eyes narrowed, smile disappearing like a blown out flame. He took a step towards me, and I took one away from him. The beginning of anger sparked in his eyes, all too familiar. Fear settled in my gut, but I forced myself to remain still.
"I…" I swallowed. "I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression."
His expression darkened, made more intimidating by the flickering shadows, but I pressed on, needing to put a stop to this thing between us.
"I've only ever thought of you for Lady Eliza."
Stalking towards me, his lips pulled back from his teeth. I tried to distance myself from him, but my back hit the bookcase. He was on me in a second.
"Liar." He hissed, far too close. The faint smell of alcohol tainting his breath. "You've been trying to seduce me this whole time."
My eyebrows had shot up, heart dropping.
He couldn't possibly believe that.
I tried to respond, to defend myself, but he pressed his mouth to mine before I could.
His lips were rough, more like an attack than a display of affection.
Icy fear gripped me, and for the first time, I understood just how much danger I was in.His hands grabbed at me, my mind going blank with terror.
When he tore my uniform I finally regained my senses.
My arms clawed at anything and everything I could get ahold of, my feet finding purchase and causing low swears and growls.
He was stronger than me. He had an advantage.
I couldn't even scream, his hand pressed roughly to my mouth as his lips trailed down my throat, sinking his teeth into me.
Screaming seemed futile, but I did until my throat felt raw.
Please. Anyone.
My wish was answered.
A piercing ray of light blinded me, eyes going wide.
Thomas had me pressed against the bookcase, him crowded between my legs, pinning my arms. He froze.
Relief caused fresh waves of icy tears to streak down my face.
Finally, I'm saved.
If only.
Any illusion of a kind saviour was shattered when I saw her. Lady Eliza stood, face a mask of disgust and horror. Looking at me like it was I who was the monster.
I woke from one nightmare only to be thrust into another.
—
I pause, brows furrowed. Aleksi's knuckles are white where he grips the reins and as I speak, his muscles get more and more tense.
God.
He must hate me.
I frantically wipe my eyes, willing my face back into neutrality despite his inability to see it. My attempt to appear calm is ruined by my shaky voice as I continue.
"Lady Eliza blamed me. She thought I must have led him on. She… She fired me that very night."
Aleksi flinches.
"The money, the same I used to help that lady with, was actually from his mother. She paid me for my silence. Got me the job here. I suspect she kept him away from me but…" I stroke the horses main idly, memories weighing heavy on me.
"But he found you."
I shake my head.
"Yes but no. She died."
Stupidly, when I had seen the newspaper announcement I had ignored it. Too happy with Aleksi's letters to let it phase me.
"He must have tracked me down as soon as it happened."
The next part comes easier. I tell him how he burned his letters and threatened him and Lady Anna. About leaving.
I rush through the night I departed, not wanting to dwell long on that fateful letter he ignored. By the time I finish with everything, leaving out only that I actually lived in his home town this whole time, we're back at the house.
He dismounts easily, turning to help me.
His hands grip my waist, gently lifting me down.
I expect him to let go, but he leaves his hands there, standing close.
My breath catches.
Seeing him now, even though he already knew everything, is like being stripped down in front of him. All my armour removed piece by piece.
He only looks at me with an intense, unreadable expression.
—
It feels like only a moment later we're in his room, despite the fact it's been almost an hour.
I had to let the house know the train was delayed and that I was staying another night. I had expected Aleksi to lead me to my room, but when he had continued up to the men's floor I followed without comment.
Ever since we arrived I could tell he wanted to talk to me.
Apprehension roils in my gut.
Everything is on the table now. There's nothing to hide behind.
I gasp when I get to his doorway, his room looking like it's been ransacked. Everything is strewn about and he does nothing to fix it, only walks to the middle of his room and turns to face me.
I blink at him, more lost than ever by his strange behaviour today.
"You want to go back there?"
It takes me a moment to understand, and when I do, I flinch. He nods before I voice an answer, a determined look slowly taking over his face.
"I have to go."
Maybe if I convince him it will make it easier to accept myself.
"Maybe not."
Frustration and exhaustion bubble up in me. Tears, so close to the surface since my reminiscences, leak out.
"Don't you understand, Aleksi? Thomas is crazy, he wants nothing more than to find me. To control me. Own me."
The fear I usually so carefully smother comes raging to the surface, my hands turned up in helpless surrender.
"There might be a way."
My head is pounding, and I can't help the glare that settles onto my face.
"Go on then. Tell me, oh great Aleksi, what idea have you thought up in one day that I have not considered for the past three years?"
My voice drips with sarcasm, but his expression remains unchanged.
There is a blinding intensity in his eyes, yet he stands, unmoving, a few feet away.
"Marry me."
END OF SEASON THREE