Page 36 of The Pureblood Daughter
“What are you going to do?” she says to his retreating back, but he doesn’t turn to answer her. “Papa. Papa!”
Lord Gray slams the door so hard the pictures on her walls rattle.
A moment later, a loud pounding sounds from the opposite side of the door: a hammer against a nail. So, this was his vile plan all along.
Still tangled in her sheets, Adelina struggles from bed, and when she finally reaches the door and gives the knob a swift tug, it holds firm.
“Papa!” she yells again, striking the door with an open palm. “Let me out! You can’t do this to me!”
On the other side of the door, someone weeps softly.
“Mama? Mama, is that you?” Adelina presses her forehead against the door and rattles the knob again. “Mama, please. Don’t let him lock me in here. You can’t. Please!”
The weeping intensifies, then fades away, the seventh stair creaking as Adelina pictures her mother descending the staircase to the foyer.
And then she’s left alone with the shattered remains of the teacup still scattered about the floor and the potent scent of garlic and hawthorn filling the air.
Chapter Fifteen
The sturdy lock installed onthe outside of Adelina’s bedroom door allows the maids to come and go, but they always lock it behind them, on order of the baron. Adelina tried twice to slip out, but the footmen caught her and took her straight back; she discovered they’re quite a bit stronger than they look, and dragging a woman kicking and screaming seemed almost easy for them. To their credit, they at least did her the courtesy of wearing penitent frowns.
Her father’s words swim through her head.
“If all goes to plan, that abomination will cease to breathe, and we can all go back to the way things were.”
He made no effort to conceal his threat; it’s as if he wanted Adelina to hurt, wanted her to know he means Lord Rosetti harm. But why? Because he’s courting her? Because she snuck out to meet him at the lake? There’s no way he could know of the viscount’s inhuman appearance that night, the fangs that flashed in the dark, sowhy? It makes no sense.
Amidst all the chaos, only one thing is clear: she has to warn Lord Rosetti somehow, tell him what her father said. She wants to believe her father was bluffing, but when he stood at her bedside, ready to strike her across the cheek, she felt she was looking at a stranger.
Lord Rosetti? Can you hear me?
It feels foolish at first, trying to speak to him in her head. She continues trying fruitlessly to contact him in the way he contacts her, but he doesn’t once respond to her pleas. Perhaps he’s truly gone. After what she said to him, it wouldn’t be a surprise. Oh, how she wishes she could take it all back.
It’s important. Please!
A moment of silence passes, and there’s no reply, not even a whisper in her mind.
She sits in the middle of her bed, knees pulled up to her chest, long hair hanging around her shoulders and down her back like a shawl. The maids cleaned up the broken teacup, but they missed a small piece, which still lies on the hardwood floor beneath the full-length mirror.
Blue eyes narrowing, Adelina crawls from bed and kneels to retrieve the broken shard. It still smells of garlic, and the odor makes her turn her face sharply away. While she’s never relished the smell or flavor, it’s even more pungent now, to the point of being offensive.
She crosses the room and pulls open the drawer on her writing desk. In the back, in a tiny fabric pouch, is the silver bullet Adelina stole from her father’s study.
The lock on the outside of her door clicks, and she hurriedly slips the porcelain shard into the drawer, then closes it just before the door opens.
In the mirror’s reflection, Rose enters the room and pushes the door closed softly behind her. She carries no tray, no linens. Her hands are folded before her, and though she holds her chin high, her eyesalmostlook remorseful.
Almost.
“Miss Gray,” she says, her voice gentle.
Adelina turns her gaze away from the mirror and toward the window over her desk. Though the morning was bright and seemed to promise a perfect day, storm clouds have since moved in, and they darken the sky. In the yard, the elm tree holds steady against an increasingly fervent wind. Leaves still green with summer come loose from the shuddering branches and swirl through the garden. The rose bushes the gardener was doting over in days past are already losing their silky petals, shedding them like a serpent does its skin, like Adelina must now do with everything she’s ever held dear.
“Adelina?”
“I already told you, it’sMiss Gray. You’ve no right to speak to me as if you’re my friend,” Adelina says, still staring out the window.
“I understand why you’re upset with me, but it’s my duty to protect you.”
