Lady Beatrice shrank back as if I had physically struck her. Her pale hands flew to her throat, her chest heaving as she swallowed hard, desperately trying to force air into her lungs. She looked like a woman standing on the edge of a sheer cliff, trembling so violently that the heavy indigo velvet of her skirt rustled like dry parchment.
"I... I..." She gasped, her throat bobbing as she tried to steady her breaking voice. She closed her eyes tight, tears squeezing past her eyelids and tracking through the dirt on her pale cheeks. "I didn't... I never intended..."
"Stop stuttering and tell me!" I demanded, my patience snapping. A sharp surge of white-hot rage boiled over in my chest, making my fists clench at my sides. "You sat in this mansion judging me for months! You looked down your nose at me like I was dirt under your feet! You called me an outsider, a disgrace, a threat—and all the while, you were hiding this?! Tell me what you did to him!"
