Page 5 of Kept 3
She dashes to the sideboard and hurries back with a black velvet case, handing it over eagerly and watching with anticipation as I turn it over it my hands with suspicion. I’ve seen enough horror movies with Margarita to expect some kind of cursed piece of jewellery that will bind me to my vampire captor in some ridiculous way. Still, curiosity and the urging of the nurse prompt me to flick open the little gilt catch.
I can’t help but gasp when I see what he has sent, and I turn it to show the nurse before wordlessly handing it to her. No man had ever given me jewellery before, but then again, I snort and turn away, he isn’t a man.
“Ooooh,” she says, smiling up at me, but getting no smile in return.
“You can have it,” I murmur, “for caring so well for me. Take it, wear it.”
“Dunna be so silly,” she says, slipping back into her hard-to-understand Scottish brogue, “this necklace must be worth more than my house, lass. It’s not a gift I could ever accept.”
“I insist,” I say, slipping out of my nightdress and easing my arm out of the sling to facilitate pouring myself into the black gown. It is short-sleeved, has a plunging neckline and comes in tight at the waist with two little diamante clips on either hip, before flaring out into chiffon layers. At least I think, studying the art deco shape of the clips, that they are diamantes. For all I know, given the sapphire and diamond extravaganza in the velvet box, they are real diamonds.
I survey myself in the mirror. I can’t wear a bra, the strap hurts my shoulder too much, but I don’t need one in this dress – it is tight enough that it holds my boobs up with ease and I am not overly endowed, having only average to small breasts anyway. Besides, the underwear he has bought for me is hardly support wear, it is all frothy, lacy and looks like something Victoria’s Secret models should be strutting on the catwalk. Even the black, lacy thong I was wearing tonight contained the most material of any of the knickers I could find in the drawer, and yet it is so flimsy, I may as well be going commando.
“You look lovely,” Nurse Orion says, handing me a hairbrush.
I brush as instructed, but my hair feels gross from days on the pillow. I ask nurse Orion to help me pull it into a bun at the base of my neck and leave it at that. Now that my face is losing its sun-tanned colour and regaining the pallor it usually has, my blonde hair no longer suits me. I resolve to dye it black again when I escape.
I don’t have any make-up with me, or perfume or deodorant, so I guess I will just have to rely on the cool of the evening to stop me stinking up his dining room. As I think this, I smirk. He can suffer, keeping me locked up, killing my friends. The bastard! Just thinking about this makes my blood pressure rise, and I feel a headache coming on.
“I don’t want to go,” I say, staring at the nurse’s face, reflected in the mirror, “I have a headache.”
As if on cue, there is a knock on the door, and the nurse gives me a worried little smile before bustling over to open it.
The butler, the same one who kicked me out of this place after finding Daniel and I in the Lord’s library, is waiting. He doesn’t look pleased at all when he recognises just who he is meant to escort to the dining hall. He nods at me, his mouth set in a grim line.
I’m pretty sure though, that my expression is much the same.
“Toad in the hole,” the butler announces, as the waitress puts the dish down carefully before me, whisks off the silver dome covering, and backs away.
I can feel the butler’s disapproval radiating off him, even if his face is neutral. He probably can’t believe that the woman he caught trespassing in his Lord’s library is now someone he has to serve. I wonder if he knows I am a prisoner, or if he would even care. How much does he actually know about the man at the other end of this vast, timber dining table?
I wait for him to leave, before raising my eyes to my captor’s where he sits, some 15 metres away at the other end of the table, dressed in an impeccable tuxedo. Between us are three candelabras, each with a dozen lit candles, and a large crystal bowl overflowing with pale pink roses – but even they don’t feel like enough of a barrier for me, tonight.
He looks down at his meal, and up to me, his face neutral, eyes twinkling in the candlelight, and I scowl. I already know he eats real people food, as well as real people, I’d watched him eat every night at the restaurant when I served him – but I wonder now, as he picks up his fork, if hehasto eat, or just likes to.
Still, I’m not going to ask him. I’m not planning on keeping up any kind of conversation with athingwho is keeping me prisoner, no matter how gorgeous that thing is.
“Are your attendants looking after you well, Josephine?” he asks quietly, putting his fork aside and reaching for his wine.
I nod, curtly.
“Do you want for anything?”
I make no reply, I mean duh! I want to get the hell out of here.
“Are you planning on speaking to me tonight?” I hear a faintly amused tone to his words as, studiously ignoring him, I frown down at the dish before me, my own fork dangling in my hand.
“Can we at the very least, discuss our meal?” he laughs gently, “after all, you plan to be a chef, and I am somewhat of a gastronome. Over the meal we can share some common ground, surely? You look beautiful tonight, by the way.”
I scowl. “Are you going to bite me tonight? Is this all some creepy prelude to you eating me?”
“No,” he shakes his head, “when I said, ‘discuss the meal’ I meant what was on the plate before you.”
‘Phew.’
I sniff, not wanting him to see my relief, to see how worried I had been or scared I was of him. “Why do you even eat food? Do you even need it?”
He considers my question; seemingly choosing his words carefully.
