Page 61 of The Enslaved Duet
“Do not call her by that name,” he ordered Alexander. “She is Ruthie now.”
I’d never seen anyone order Alexander, and true to my expectations, he took it as the insult it was.
“I will decide what to call her as she ismy slave, Father. You forget yourself. Perhaps your senility is impairing your judgment.”
“Perhaps your cock is impairing yours,” Noel snapped, the tendons in his neck straining. “Do you forget the reason we do the things we must? Is it so easy to forget your own mother?”
The silence that stretched between them was dense and toxic like the aftermath of an atomic bomb. The two men stared at each other unmoving for so long that I began to feel uncomfortable.
“Go upstairs,” Alexander bit out, clearly addressing me. “Go upstairs and ready yourself to be presented as my slave tonight.”
My cold feet were fleet against the marble, and I was halfway up the stairs before Alexander called out, “Oh, andtopolina, if you don’t follow my every instruction without hesitation, you will be who next sits in the Iron Chair.”
I could hear the low murmur of male voices punctuated by the clamour of cutlery on fine china and the clink of crystal glasses filled over full with wine. My heart was in my throat as I waited outside the servant’s door to the dining hall, my hands twisted like tangled twine in my angst.
Mrs. White had attended me as soon as I’d stepped through the doors to my bedchamber. I’d been bathed, buffed, and lotioned, combed, dried, and curled, then stuffed like a doll into a ridiculous frilled white frock that would have been better fit for a child since it barely covered my ass or breasts.
Finally, she’d secured a large pendant around my throat, the heavy carved ivory resting in the hollow of my neck. It depicted a red flower and a design that resembled a keyhole, as if the bloom was the key to unchaining some ancient sect’s secrets. Combined with the dress, it made me look occultist, like a sacrificial virgin offered up to some mythological sea monster.
She’d stepped away from my face in the mirror, beaming like a proud mother at the way she’d gussied me up to be paraded in front of a dining hall filled with men.
Now, I was waiting like a good little slave for Master to summon me into the hall. I’d been waiting over an hour if the grandfather clock by the sideboard was to be believed.
It wasn’t the waiting that bothered me, though I wasn’t a particularly patient person. It was that I could not fully grasp how I felt about my life or even in my body.
I’d set out with the intention to understand Lord Thornton. If I could understand him, I could humanize him. Strip away the gentlemanly artifice, the cold mask of domination, and the clinical rules of ownership to truly understand beneath it all.
Only, I felt as if I’d fallen down a rabbit hole. Not only had I failed to master the mystery of Alexander Davenport, but I’d lost sense of myself.
If someone had asked me four months ago if I would ever love to kneel for a man, to take the pain he gave me and thank him for it as a worshipper thanks God, I would have laughed.
Even three months ago, when I’d first arrived and been stripped so thoroughly of my liberties, I would never have imagined I could find a drop of compassion for the man who owned me.
But I did.
I thought of the awfulness of his mother’s death and the mystery that lay in its wake like an open, festering wound. I remembered the criss-cross of whip marks between his shoulder blades from an unknown incident that couldn’t have been pleasant for a natural Dom to take. I knew that he worked ceaselessly to increase the family fortune, not for greed, but in order to preserve a house and history he felt he was the custodian of.
He could be kind and tender, as he had just proven after the vile Lord Ashcroft defiled me. Ruthless too, as was evident by the way he punished him, screams ringing throughout the house. Mercilessness was not normally a characteristic to admire in a man, I knew, but I also understood that we lived in a merciless world and only the truly ferocious could survive it.
I startled from my thoughts when the butler, Ainsworth, pushed through the side door and stopped before me.
His eyes were gentle in his big face as he studied me. “Lord Thornton will see you now.”
Merda.
I straightened my shoulders but ducked my head to the proper respectful angle and then walked through the door Ainsworth held open for me.
Immediately, the cacophony of the dinner party fell flat.
I could feel dozens of eyes on me as I stepped through the door and waited to be called by my Master.
“Crawl to me,” Alexander’s hushed voice still resonated in the large, quiet hall.
I sucked in a deep breath to steel my spine, to lock away my dignity into a very small box inside my soul, and then I melted to the ground.
Unlike the first time I had crawled for Alexander, I was not aroused. I could feel the strange eyes of many horrible men on my body, slipping and sliding over my curves until I felt covered in grease marks. There were a few whispers and dark chuckles as I made my way to the head of the table where Alexander sat, but they otherwise seemed committed to the ceremonial silence.
“Rise,” Alexander ordered when I reached the left side of his chair.
