Page 26 of Broken Princess
“But what about the bruises?” I asked, shaking my head with confusion. “You told me that Chuck has always been an abusive husband. Why would your family let him get away with hitting you and treating you so terribly when they intended on making you the supreme leader of their cause one day? And why would you put up with it?”
Liz let out a tinkling laugh. “Oh, honey. Chuck has never hit me. He wouldn’t dare,” she said. “Also, I never claimed that he beats me. All I ever told you was that he has a bad temper, which is true.”
“So that was just another thing you did to manipulate me? You gave yourself the bruises and made me think you were a poor, innocent abuse victim, so I’d feel inclined to help you and do whatever you asked of me?”
She lifted her chin again. “That’s mostly true. I didn’t give myself the bruises, though. I actually have a very rare form of hemophilia. Do you know what that is?”
“It’s a blood clotting issue.”
“Yes. Obviously it can be life-threatening if it goes untreated, but as long as I take my medication every day, I’m fine,” she said. “Unfortunately, despite the meds, I still bruise very easily if I’m not careful. Even the tiniest thing can leave a huge mark on my skin if it brushes against me a little too hard.”
I sighed. “So that’s why Logan never seemed concerned about the bruises.”
“Yes. He’s always known it’s a health issue. Not the result of abuse.” Liz smiled. “But you didn’t know that, did you? And you never asked. When you saw me looking sad and meek around you, covered in bruises, you jumped to conclusions instead. You assumed I was a victim, and you thought you could manipulate me by offering to help me out of my situation.”
I swallowed hard again. “I played right into your hand.”
“Yes, you did, and you performed amazingly. You did as I asked and got Logan interested in politics again, and you convinced him to spend more time with me, too. It really couldn’t have gone any better.”
“God,” I murmured, looking down at the bed. “I can’t believe how dumb I’ve been.”
“Don’t blame yourself, darling,” Liz said, patting my shoulder. “I’m very good at what I do. No one knows who I really am, except the people I choose to tell.”
I gulped as something occurred to me. “What about Chloe?” I asked, raising my eyes to Liz’s face again. “She knew, didn’t she?”
She sighed. “Yes. That was a terrible miscalculation on my behalf.”
“What do you mean?”
“Every Order leader has to pick a successor one day, and they must groom that individual and prepare them for the position. I chose Chloe.”
“Why?”
“Because she always reminded me of myself,” she said. “I knew Logan would make an amazing public leader one day, but I thought Chloe would thrive as a leader behind the scenes. Like me. So I let her in on a few things when she was sixteen. Tried to introduce her to the world she’d eventually take over.”
“it didn’t go well?”
Liz shook her head. “No,” she said, eyes clouding over. “At first, she seemed excited, which was what I expected. After all, who wouldn’t be thrilled to learn that their family is going to rule the whole country one day?”
“I guess that’s true,” I grudgingly admitted, twisting my hands in my lap.
“It didn’t last. The more she found out, the more her excitement waned. When I told her about the contract binding you to our family, she seemed upset, and when she discovered the true source of most of our fortune, she seemed even more troubled. She said she needed some time to think it over.” Liz hesitated, straightening her shoulders. “I agreed. I understood how shocking this new information was to someone so young and inexperienced. I figured she’d come around in time, just like I did after my uncle told me everything when I was a teenager.”
“But she didn’t?”
Liz pressed her lips into a flat line. “No. To make matters worse, she had her own dark secrets.”
“Like what?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “She informed me that she was pregnant to a boy she knew.”
“Who?”
She waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter. He was a nobody from a poor, no-name family,” she said, nose wrinkling. “If she kept that baby, it would’ve ruined everything. She was adamant, though. She wanted to keep it.”
“What did you do?”
“I pleaded with her to give it up, of course. I told her she didn’t have to get an abortion if she didn’t want to. We could send her away to have the child in secret, and we would tell everyone that she was at a Swiss boarding school to explain her absence. When she recovered and returned, it would be like nothing happened.”
