by R. G. Angel
“Yes, it is.”
Archie’s head turned sharply toward me, letting his mask of indifference slip.
Our father arched an eyebrow. “Is it? Are you sure?”
No father sorry to disappoint, I will not take the bait. I nodded “Yes, I didn’t feel like studying and went to the park for a walk – I lost track of time.” I forced a smile and patted Archie’s arm. “Archie’s not to blame.”
“You know I have no other choice than reprimand you for this Esmeralda – you’ve been on your best behaviour tonight and this is important, but this act of defiance, volunteer or not can’t go unpunished.” He sighed again with fake contrition. I knew he was enjoying the punishment part, he loved to make anyone suffer – show his superiority every chance he got. “I was considering giving you access to your devices again but I think I will hold on to them for at least another month.”
My stomach dropped. I had forgotten about that. Did he actually really consider giving them back to me? I doubted it and yet I had to do everything I could not to let the tears of frustration reach my eyes. Don’t show them Esme, don’t do it. I nodded. “I understand, father.” Nine months Esme, nine months and you’re gone.
He nodded but I could see the disappointment in his face – he wanted me to fight, he wanted to punish me more but I wouldn’t give him that.
I could feel Archie’s eyes on my profile but refused to look at him, somehow fearing he would see in my face something our father couldn’t.
“You’re excused,” William added, standing up and heading for the bar in the corner. “Archibald, stay.”
I nodded and left the room without another look or word. Once I exited the room, I let my mask slip, replaced by the despair I felt at not being able to talk to my dad, Ben, Juliet – anybody from my old life.
Sophia was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.
“Oh Esme,” she whispered sadly, opening her arms to pull me into a hug.
I shook my head and brought my hand up to stop her – if she showed me any kindness now, I would break down, I would start crying and I feared I would never stop. “No, please.” My voice cracked. I took a deep breath. “Another day, OK?”
“It’s going to be OK,” she called after me as I went up the stairs.
I nodded absently trying to concentrate on the good things that happened today, Theo and his brother Mike – these were good things.
My mother’s journal was a good thing – an amazing thing. Something I could hold on to.
I changed into my pajamas and after ensuring the door was locked, I settled in the bed to read a bit more. I didn’t want to read too much too fast because I wanted the connection, the discovery, to last as long as possible. This was probably the only thing I’d ever get from my mother and the longer I could make it last, the longer I’d have something to look forward to. I was also an emotional wreck tonight – I couldn't deal with too much emotion.
This world is so different, a different planet. I used to see articles and videos about these socialites, this class so above my station it didn’t seem real. I even envied them – the Kennedys, the Rothschilds… it was all a facade, a beautiful veneer, and I learned within the first few years I’ve been a part of this world that, in reality, they were just as miserable as we were, as sad, as betrayed as hell… even more than we would be in the normal world. Friends are not friends, enemies… enemies are usually the same friends – there is no loyalty, no trust… no love. I have my children and I love them dearly but I have to admit and I’m sorry for this. If I'd known then what I know now I would have missed that debate trip, I would have never met William Forbes.
I closed the journal and slid it under my mattress. My mother was dead, my brother was a broken boy and my father was a sadistic bastard. I understood her, if she’d had been the kind soul Luke kept telling me she was, this world would have been her death, both physically and metaphorically. I couldn’t be mad at her for wishing nothing had ever happened, for wishing we weren’t born. I did feel her pain, her despair.
“I’ll save myself, mom” I whispered closing my eyes. “I promise, even if it’s the last thing I do – I’ll save myself.”
Chapter 8
The next few days my brother kept his abrasive comments and dark looks to a minimum – I wouldn’t say he was treating me like a fellow human being but it was a step in the right direction. I thought it was his way to acknowledge what he was probably seeing as some act of loyalty
The Saturday following the introduction party, after having done all my homework thanks to my non-existent social life and my prison sentence, I decided to read a couple more pages of my mother’s journal.
I settled, tummy down on the bed, and delved into her world.
To be fair, the signs of the craziness were quite subtle before we exchanged our ‘I Dos’. Your father was a controlling man but not unkind when we were dating and I thought, quite foolishly I have to admit, that it came with the territory of being born within the rich and powerful. But I was not even out of my white dress when William gave me a small book that I had to learn and abide by because now I was officially one of them and wouldn’t be allowed the faux pas I was before. The book was titled ‘The Guide of the Perfect Socialite Woman.’ I tell you, daughter, I thought it was a joke, a sick twisted joke but it wasn’t – it was ridiculous and degrading and everything you can imagine.
Did he give it to you already? Have you learned it? I’m so sorry Esmeralda, more than I could ever say. How old were you when he found you? I hope you were old enough to know that there is so much more to being a woman than what your father will try to force upon you.
I was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door.
“Miss Esmeralda?”
“Yes…” I frowned, nobody ever sought me after my duties had been completed and for some reason, no matter how many times I invited her, Taylor refused to set foot in this house.
“Your father would like to see you in his office now.”
I grunted my approval and fell heavily on the bed looking at the ceiling. What kind of prank had Archie come up with now?
It took a few minutes to make myself presentable even if I hated it, no matter what my father wanted it was not good, I didn’t need to anger him even more by looking shabby.
“Come in,” my father’s commanding voice called from his office, I hated that cold voice, so clinical, so unloving. I felt yet another pang of sadness for Archie. He might hate me and love this rich, vain life but he didn’t know anything else, he didn’t know what love felt like.
“Father, you wanted to see me.” My voice faltered as my eyes connected with Caleb Astor’s icy blue ones. If I’d thought he was giving me death glares before it was because he’d never looked at me the way he looked now.
Beside him, his father James had a little smile as if he’d just won the lottery, I didn’t particularly liked that.
“Yes, please have a seat.” He gestured to the brown leather sofa across from Caleb’s. “We have good news,” he added with a big smile coming to sit beside me, in a mirror of the scene across from me.
I looked at him silently, I was pretty sure that his idea of good news was completely opposite to mine.
“Caleb Astor just asked me for your hand in marriage and I agreed.”
I turned toward Caleb, not sure I understood. Marriage? To Caleb?
I burst into laughter. Oh, it had to be a joke, it had to be. I was laughing so hard I folded over but once I wiped my eyes and met Caleb’s darker scowl and his father’s surprise, I realised it was not a joke.
I looked at my father, he was radiating disapproval with his straight back, pursed lips and furrowed brows.
“Why are you laughing, Esmeralda?!” he snapped. “Caleb Astor is one of the most eligible bachelors in America, you should feel more than honoured to have been chosen by him.”
“It has to be a joke!” I exclaimed, jumping from my seat letting go of the little decorum I’d been faking for t
he past few days in the hope to win my phone and laptop back.
“Esmeralda…” My father said my name as a warning.
I shook my head. “No, he hates me – he doesn’t want to marry me any more than I want to marry him. No, it’s not happening I-”
My father stood up briskly. “Esmeralda, enough!” he ordered.
He turned toward Caleb and James. “Could you please excuse us a minute?” He asked them so calmly it was scary.
I looked at him in strange awe of his ability to switch moods instantaneously.
James nodded and stood up. “Of course, we will be outside the room.” He gave me a big jovial smile as he passed me. “It takes time to adapt, I understand,” he added, patting my shoulder gently.
My eyes followed him with incredulity, did he think I just needed time? How delusional was that man?
I looked at Caleb who gave me the stink eye, like I had personally offended him by reacting that way. That guy was a walking contradiction. He clearly didn’t want to marry me any more than I wanted to be married to him and yet my rejection offended him. I shook my head. Idiot.
Once they closed the door behind them, I turned around and didn’t even have a chance to talk before my face flew to the left.
I actually heard the slap before I felt the burning sting or tasted the bloody tang in my mouth where I’d bitten my cheek.
I turned to look at my father, my hands in tight fists beside me, my cheek burning like a bitch. I wouldn’t give him the pleasure to see how much it hurt.
“This is just a friendly warning, Esmeralda. Do not disrespect me ever again or question one of my decisions. You will not like the result.”
“I will not marry Caleb Astor – nothing you can do or say will change my mind.”
“Nothing?” he asked, and I hated the challenge in his voice.
“What more could you ever take from me?”
“You,” he laughed. “Ah sweet girl, you’re even more naïve than I thought.”
He laughed some more as he returned to his desk and took three folders out of his drawer and slammed them on his desk.
He took the first one and started to read. “Luke Danvers, born Luke Fieldman. He changed his name at age 19 after being estranged from his parents.” He looked up at me. “He did that when they disowned him because of his substance abuse… which is still very much a problem.”
I crossed my arms on my chest, glaring silently.
He sighed in fake contrition. “He is now in a very high-end rehab facility, which I’m paying for. It would be too bad if after losing the girl he loved like a daughter he finds himself on his own in the streets and worse…. Imagine how he will fare in prison for kidnapping?” He shook his head, “I don’t give him a long life expectancy.”
My heart started to hammer in my chest, I would never allow Luke to be punished for me, not after all the sacrifices he made, not after what I started to discover reading my mother’s journal.
“Do you want me to continue?” he asked, resting the first folder on the side.
I looked at the two folders remaining, not sure I really wanted to know what, or who else, he could blackmail me with.
He chuckled. “Oh what the hell, you’re my child after all, I’ll share with you. Benjamin Deluca.” He looked up at me to gauge my reaction but I did my best to keep my face as blank as possible.
Mom said it in her journal, and Taylor warned me. These Patricians were like hyenas, looking for the first small sign of weakness before going for the kill. I’ve made it too easy for them, I kept making it too easy for them but I needed to learn and fast.
“His parents had him late didn’t they? Umm,” his eyes skimmed the paper. “All of their income is dependent on their little Italian restaurant. I wonder how they’d manage without it, especially to cover his mom’s diabetes medication. It’d be tough, don’t you think?”
“Their restaurant is working very well.” I replied rather defensively realising only too late I’d walked straight into his trap.
He nodded, taking a piece of paper from the folder and waving it in front of me. “Yes, I’ve got a copy of their annual accounts here. Too bad they’re only renting, huh? I know a company quite interested in buying the building just to make changes.”
Fear was now mixed with my anger. If Ben’s parents lost the restaurant, it would be a disaster, it was their only source of income, his parents were much too old to get a job somewhere else.
My father’s smile widened maliciously. “I see we’re understanding each other.” He slapped the file on the desk and reached for the last one. “Last but not least… Juliet Anderson.”
I frowned, Juliet and I were friends, yes, but we weren’t even that close – how much did my father know about my life prior to coming here? “I see she is raised by a single mother and has a severely mentally impaired little brother. They are lucky her mother has a good job as a hotel manager and that she is getting such a good medical cover.” He sighed, letting the file fall on the desk and walking back to me, his eyes locked with mine. “What would happen if someone bought the hotel and fired her, huh? How would the family cope?”
My nostrils flared in anger, I cared for them all, I loved Luke like the dad he’s always been. My father understood I had little consideration for my own wellbeing but I wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt of destroying someone else’s life, no matter what the cost would be to me and he knew that, of course he did. Evil bastard – he saw right through me and my weakness.
“What do you want?” I asked not able to stop my voice from shaking.
He stood very close to me, right in my space hovering over me threateningly. “I want you to learn your place, I want you to act like you’re supposed to. The only thing I want to hear when I order something from you is ‘yes, father’ or ‘absolutely, father’ or even ‘right away, father’. Do not dare discuss my orders again, especially not in public. Are we clear now, Esmeralda?” He asked, one eyebrow arched challengingly.
“Yes… father.” Saying these words felt like swallowing razor blades. I was planning to leave at the end of the year. One year in Brentwood Academy would have helped me get a scholarship to any university and I would never have had to look back at this life, my hateful father and my damaged brother.
But this marriage, these threats, they were life sentences hanging over my head. I wanted to scream at the realisation that Taylor and my mother’s journal had been right. Once you were in the Patricians, you were not getting out unscathed.
“Very good, take a seat” he motioned to the sofa. “I’ll let your betrothed in.”
I did my best not to snort at that word ‘betrothed’... I was definitely stuck in a Jane Austen novel except that Caleb Astor was no romantic hero and I was not going to get the happy ending.
“Please come in.”
“Is everything settled?” James asked way too cheerily, as if he hadn’t just witnessed coercion in its purest form. I wasn’t sure what he was taking, but he needed to share.
“I believe so,” my father replied coming to sit beside me and throwing me a warning glance.
Caleb detailed me and he pursed his lips tightly when his eyes stopped on my right cheek, probably noticing the angry red mark my father left there. If I didn’t know better, I would have said he was angry at the mark but I did know better and he was probably angry that he was not the one that left it there.
“Esmeralda? Don’t you have something to say to Caleb?”
“Yes of course.” I forced a smile. I want you to go and die. “I would like to thank you for your proposal and nothing would honor me more than becoming your wife.” Death, actual death would honour me more.
“Marvellous!” James clapped his hands, seriously what was his deal? “When are we thinking?”
“I was thinking just after graduation, so they can go on their honeymoon during the summer to the Astor villa in Tuscany.”
Marriage, honeymoon, Caleb – I shivered at the thought of bei
ng left alone with the sociopathic Astor.
“What do you think, Esmeralda?” My father asked, but we both knew it was rhetorical and a test to our previous conversation.
I nodded. “Whatever you think is best, father.”
My father nodded, his eyes glowing with approval.
Caleb narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“What about you, son? Does it work for you?” James asked resting his hand on his son’s leg.
Caleb nodded curtly. “Of course, the sooner the better.”
It was my turn to narrow my eyes at him, it didn’t sound like Caleb at all.
Father laughed. “Ah, I can understand the impatience. My daughter is quite a beautiful and desirable young woman.”
I looked down, trying to hide the disgust I felt at the implications of my father’s words. It was not what a father should say… ever… and he should never use his daughter and ‘desirable’ in the same sentence – it was disgusting and, frankly, messed up.
“She is indeed,” Caleb replied, and I didn’t miss the threat in his voice. He stood up, extending his hand toward me. “Do you mind if I steal a few moments alone with my fiancée?” He asked my father.
I looked at his hand dumbfounded, as the rest of him his hand was perfect, with no trace of scars or callosity, a perfect pale skin with manicured nails, his hand itself transpired his standing in society.
My father laughed again. I hated his laugh, hated his happiness that was built on my misery. “Of course, we’ll be here discussing the details.”
“Esmeralda,” Caleb nudged his hand again.
I took it and it was warm and soft, comfortable – too comfortable, too nice to belong to the hateful man in front of me.
He pulled me gently out of the room but once we were out his hand tightened and his pace quickened until he reached the bathroom downstairs and pulled me in.
