Anne held her cheek, a look of pure, stunned disbelief on her face. The stinging pain was nothing compared to the shock of the act itself. In all her life, through all her tantrums and manipulations, her mother had never, not once, laid a hand on her. The slaps and all were only reserved for Delia.
Augusta looked at Anne with a horror that mirrored her daughter's. She looked down at her own trembling hand, the hand that had just slapped her precious, beloved child, and a wave of instant, sickening regret washed over her.
"A…Anne. I…I" She stammered.
Anne slowly lowered her own hand from her cheek and went to sit on the floor at the foot of her grand four-poster bed, amidst the wreckage of her own making. "This is madness," she said, her voice a low, broken whisper as she stared at the shattered pieces of a porcelain vase.
"Now you are treating me the way you treat Delia." She looked up at her mother, a cruel, knowing smile twisting her lips.
