Damsel's Hope

‘November 2nd, 1516’

‘London’

Angeline

I couldn’t believe how dusty the floors in this manor got.

I had just dusted the floors in the library last evening, and now I was here, doing the same thing again!

You would think by the year 1516, someone would have figured out how to keep the hardwood dust-free.

“Angeline! Angeline, come, quick!” Claudice yelled, breathless, in the doorway.

“What is it?” I asked, scrambling to drop the duster back in its proper place.

I knew that when one of the maids in this manor looked frantic, they always had a good reason.

“He’s back!” she whispered, her eyes wide.

“Already!”

“Come on,” she urged, practically pulling me out of the library.

We ran down the dark hallway then down the staircase and through the cooks’ kitchen, pausing for a moment to retie our aprons and flatten our skirts.

The kitchen was filled with cooks preparing dinner, and they weren’t happy we were taking up their space.

“Move!” a rotund cook with a rolling pin ordered us, so we took a few steps closer to the door.

That was when we heard it, the unmistakable sound of something heavy smashing to pieces. Claudice and I looked at each other, terrified.

Lord Maynard was bad enough on a normal day. But today was no normal day.

The kitchen door swung open, and Farrah scurried through. “Girls!” she loudly whispered at us. “What are you waiting for?”

That was when I noticed the blood dripping down her hand and the handkerchief she was trying to hold to the wound. “Farrah!” I exclaimed, rushing over to her.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She waved me away. “Go!”

She gave me a look I’d come to know well.

Farrah had been my guardian for as long as I could remember. She’d been the one to receive me on the day my birth mother sold me to the manor.

I’d been a baby, just three years old, and my mother had heard from the other women working at the brothel that Lord Maynard paid a good price for baby girls.

Especially baby girls with blonde hair and big blue eyes.

Farrah had taken me from my mother and cared for me in the manor until I was old enough to hold a broom by myself and work.

I was fourteen now, and Farrah was the master of the household.

She was the closest thing I had to family. She’d taught me how to be a good maid, sure, but she’d also taught me how to read and how to write.

She was the kindest woman I’d ever known, but she was also frank.

Ever since I was little, she’d warned me about getting older. As if it were something I could stop.

Because, see, I was beautiful. Abnormally beautiful.

Not in a full-of-myself way, but in a way that got me the wrong kind of attention from men.

Men like Lord Maynard.

“Angeline, come ~on~,” Claudice whispered, again pulling me forward.

We passed through the door and ended up in the dining room, where we tiptoed over to join the group of other maids huddled against a wall. The maids all had their heads down.

I kept my head tilted down too, but I angled my eyes up as far as they’d go.

I was able to see the floor of the room, where the glass vase had shattered. There were a million pieces of glass spiraling out across the hardwood.

I saw some deep red droplets on the glass and the floor—blood. Farrah’s blood, I guessed. She had probably tried to clean up when—

“Is everyone here?” he bellowed from the front of the room, a few feet behind the broken glass.

I risked a glance at him. His back was still to us, his long black overcoat all but soaked through.

It had been storming outside today, but he’d gone after her anyway.

He raised an arm over his head and spun around, pointing at us. Now I could see his dark hair was soaked through, too, dripping onto the wood.

His face was as pale as I’d ever seen it, and his eyes were filled with fury.

I looked around, realizing Farrah might still be in the cook’s quarters, but then I saw her among the group, a few girls over from me. She must have slipped through silently.

“I said,” he started, stumbling a bit, finger still pointed at us, “is everyone ~here~?”

“Yes, lord,” we chorused back, even more terrified. Because he wasn’t just angry; he was drunk.

“As you know, Lady Charlotte has… ~departed~ from the manor.” After a moment, he shot his eyes back to us.

“Yes, lord,” we repeated.

“The bitch has sought to call off the engagement.” I felt Claudice squeeze my hand from beside me.

The news was awful.

It was expected, of course, but we’d been dreading it. Because while Lady Charlotte was living in the manor, Lord Maynard had been more careful about his behavior.

“Apparently,” Lord Maynard continued, “the lady believes I was unfaithful to her. That I was an adulterer. Can you imagine the travesty?” He scanned the group of us.

“How can a man of my stature have a woman think so little of my character? To have her father, Lord Oswald, think me to be so savage? Is that right or fair?”

“No, lord,” we answered.

“No!” he exclaimed. “That’s right. And damned if the homely little tart wasn’t right. But now, I have been removed from the rights to the Oswald property and fortune. Farrah! Drink!”

“Maybe you should take a rest, lord, save the wine for dinnertime?” Farrah asked gently, stepping closer to him.

“I said...drink,” he said, his voice seething.

“Yes, my lord. Right away.” She nodded at one of the older maids, who ran into the cooks’ quarters and emerged a few seconds later with a glass, filled to the brim with wine.

She handed the glass to Farrah, and Farrah walked it over to him.

He took it from her and brought it to his lips, gulping it down. A few stray drops fell to the ground as he drank, leaving more red spots on the wood.

“Now, what I think,” he said when he finished the wine, “is that one of you little whores told Lady Charlotte. One of you is the reason for my tragedy.”

I heard murmurs of terror escape the lips of the maids around me, and I didn’t dare lift my eyes off the ground.

“Lord Maynard, I promise you that these girls had nothing to do with Lady Charlotte’s decision—”

“QUIET!” he screamed, interrupting Farrah’s plea.

She stopped speaking immediately. Silence filled the room, and I was certain that if a fruit fly flew by, we would’ve heard its wings.

Lord Maynard looked away from Farrah, his eyes falling on the group of us.

He eyed each face separately, letting his gaze lower over some of the uniforms of the more beautiful girls.

As his eyeline reached the middle of the group and then continued over, I felt my palms dampen with sweat.

My heart sped up.

I had never been the object of his physical desires before. I had always been too young.

But now I was fourteen, and Farrah remarked every day how I was getting more beautiful. In a way that told me it was a bad thing, a dangerous thing.

Lord Maynard’s eyes fell on Claudice, beside me, and I squeezed her hand.

He started at the top of her head, and I watched as his gaze fell lower, inch by inch, until he was looking at her feet.

Then he turned his attention to me.

I heard Claudice exhale. Relieved that he hadn’t summoned her.

While it had felt like he’d been staring at each of the other girls for minutes, I could’ve sworn he stared at me for hours.

I didn’t know where to focus my eyes, so I looked ahead, straight, and tried my hardest not to blink.

I could feel the weight of his gaze on me. Traveling down my body, then back up, then back down again.

He turned to the girl beside me, and I was just about to gasp in relief when—

“You,” he said, turning back to me and raising his hand, pointing.

Claudice squeezed my hand so hard I thought it might fall off, but I was frozen. I couldn’t squeeze back.

“Did you not hear me?” he asked, taking a step closer to me. I looked at Farrah, my eyes pleading with her to help me.

“Lord, she’s just fourteen—”

“SILENCE!” he thundered again and then softened his face and continued stepping toward me. “You. Come here.”

I took a deep breath, trying to steady my shaking limbs.

Then I took a step closer to him.

And another.

“Fourteen makes you a woman,” he said when there were just a few feet between us. I could smell the alcohol on his breath, even with the distance. “And a woman must take consequences for her actions.”

He kept leering at me, kept trailing his eyes over my whole body. “Don’t you agree?” he asked, giving me a tainted smile.

“Yes, lord,” I got out, swallowing.

“What was that?”

“Yes, lord,” I repeated, a little louder. I could feel tears coming, but I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, holding them in.

That was when I felt his arms snake around my waist. He had stepped behind me, pressing himself into my back.

His hands were intertwined in front of my hips, and his head was directly above mine. He turned me, so we were both facing the maids.

I looked at Farrah, saw her eyes were red.

“Tonight,” he started, speaking softer than he had before. “I will give you your consequence. I will make you a woman.”

It was like a nightmare, but it was happening.

It was really happening.

There was a loud knock, and everyone’s attention shot to the front door. Farrah ran to answer it, opening it to find the most beautiful man I had ever seen.

He had unruly dark hair, a sturdy jaw, and masculine eyes that seemed to be filled with strength.

The sight of him caused Lord Maynard to step away from me, to look nervous. I’d never seen my lord look nervous before.

The beautiful man walked toward us, and Lord Maynard bowed. “Alpha! Alpha of the Millennium. To what do I owe this honor?”

~Alpha of the Millennium? It couldn’t be!~

“I’ve just been visiting the Oswald estate. They told me some upsetting news,” he said.

“Lady Charlotte isn’t well, my Alpha,” the lord rushed to explain. “She is hysterical. Whatever she said, it cannot be believed!”

“Enough!” the Alpha said, holding up his hand. Then he turned to the group of maids, and he must’ve been able to see their fear.

I saw him glance at the broken glass on the floor, at the droplets of blood and wine.

He turned back to face Lord Maynard, but before he could say anything, his eyes landed on me. And the second they did, I felt it. Really felt it.

In a different way than I’d felt the gaze of every other man before him.

Heat ran through me, but not a heat ridden with nerves and fear. A heat I wanted more of.

“What is your name?” he asked me, his gaze strong.

“A-Angeline,” I stuttered, surprised.

“Good.” He smiled. Then he turned back to Lord Maynard. “I will be staying here to keep watch for some time, lord.”

“Here?”

“Yes. At your manor. And she,” the beautiful man, the Alpha of the Millennium, said as he pointed at me, “is now mine.”