Page 5 of A Father's Insistence

Chapter Three

Theodore

I’m not entirely certain whether I’m awake or still in a dreamlike state after being injected with that drug. This should be a dream because otherwise, fuck, I just married a stranger. However, the ice-like hand of the tiny woman who’s following me into the grand bedroom of a house I’ve never seen before is all too real. I’m married. Shit! I don’t understand any of this, but the instant I saw Joanna’s hands shaking with fear, I knew I had to protect her. She’s little more than a bag of bones with fading bruises that shadow her eyes, and I’m sure under the white linen dress she’s wearing there’ll be more. She’s broken. I only need to see the distance in her eyes to know that. What she must have suffered is beyond comprehension to me. There is a part of me that wants to run from the room, find Nicholas Cavendish, and murder him with my bare hands. But the sane part, which is probably still a little worse for wear from the drugs, knows I can’t do that. I have to stay here. I have to protect her. I have to give her life again…if that’s even possible.

I let go of her hand, and she goes over to the bed. It’s king-sized, covered in freshly laundered sheets. She looks at me and then at the bed. I watch her, still unsure of what is real and what is a dream. Slowly, she lifts the linen dress over her head and underneath, she’s naked. I can see old and new bruising to her body. Scars from wounds mark her perfect skin, and I fight hard to tamper down the rage surging through me. She drops to her knees and bows her head.

“How would you like me, sir?” she offers in a voice so delicate it snaps my resolve.

“I don’t!” I tell her and stomp forward. I grab her arm, and she whimpers. My head is screaming at me to calm down and be level-headed around her, but my heart is filled with fury, overruling any sensible thought. This girl has been through so much and has just offered herself to me.

“I’m your wife. We must do…” She tries her hardest to express what should happen next, but she can’t. The words seem to stick in her throat—the mention of what normally comes after a wedding, silencing her. I throw her onto the bed, and as she parts her legs, ready for me, I turn away.

“Put the covers over you.”

“Please,” she pleads, and I can’t hear any movement of her doing as I ordered.

“Joanna, cover yourself up.” I swallow deeply. “Now!” The word leaves my mouth as an authoritative order, and I instantly hear her scrambling to do as instructed. I turn back to find her sitting in the bed with the sheets pulled up to her neck. “Thank you…stay here and get some sleep. Nobody except me will be allowed in here. I’ll be back later.”

“Where are you going?” She shifts to try and get out of the bed, but I put my hand up to halt her.

“Stay.”

“I have to…”

She starts, but I cut her off.

“You don’t have to do anything but sleep. Get some rest.” I find myself at her side. I stroke my hand down her cheek, and she lets me without showing any fear of the possible consequences in her sorrow-filled eyes.

“Ok.” She slides down into the bed. I flick a switch on the wall beside her, and the main lights in the room turn off. The only illumination in the room comes from a bedside lamp beside her. “You’ll come back?”

“I’ll be back in a little while. Sleep. You’re safe in here. Nobody will hurt you.”

She shuts her eyes, and I watch her for a few minutes. The feeling of protectiveness I have over her is strange—it’s strong for someone I’ve only known for less than an hour. I need to make sure she’s going to be all right, but the only way of doing that is to find out what is going on.

I quietly leave the room and go in search of my father. I find him sitting in the drawing room of the unfamiliar house with the lady who was comforting Joanna earlier.

“Theo?” my father asks quizzically when I enter the room. The woman jumps to her feet and bows toward me even though she doesn’t have to. My father dismisses her with a wave of his hand. “I thought you would be resting.”

“Not until I know what is going on here.”

My father gestures for me to sit, and I do so in the chair vacated by the woman. He indicates to a brandy decanter, sitting on the table next to him.

“I think I’ll pass. I’ve drunk my fair share this evening already, and mixed with whatever you drugged me with, I’ll be asleep in a few minutes. I need to know what is going on. I’m married to a woman because it’s the only way to save her, evidently. What is going on father? How much trouble are we in? What is happening with Victoria? Is she likely to end up as broken and bruised as Joanna is in a few months?”

“That’s a lot of questions.” Without lifting his head, my father talks into the half empty brandy glass he’s holding.

“That’s less than half of the ones I’ve got floating around in my head at the moment.”

“Ok. I owe you an explanation. I had hoped to do it with a fresh head in the morning, but I guess it can’t really wait. You remember how I told you I had to give Victoria to Nicholas Cavendish, or he would’ve destroyed our family name and killed me?”

“Yes.” I say, sitting with the foot of one leg resting on the knee of the other.

“Joanna’s father was forced to offer her up as well. Nicholas was given five women that night. His right, he insisted, based on years’ old rules. I tried to argue they could no longer be valid in this day and age, but I was shot down by those who support his rule. Out of those five girls, only two are still alive: Joanna and your sister. Unlike Victoria, Joanna was not put forward to participate in the trials. Instead, she was sold to a mystery buyer and then disappeared. Victoria’s story, you already know. She ended up married to Nicholas, and is now the mother of his daughter. A couple of days ago, my men got word of where Joanna was located. It’s been exactly a year ago tonight since we started searching for her. We put together a plan and managed to rescue her.”

My father goes silent, and his eyes fill with unshed tears. I know he must be reliving a horrible memory, which he wants to keep buried, so he doesn’t have to experience it again.

“She was hidden away in what was little more than a dungeon. No clothes, nothing. The smell is the thing that will haunt me forever: feces, decaying human flesh. Another girl long since passed was left lying there in the darkened room with her.”

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