Page 15 of Sweet Venom Of Time (Blade of Shadows #6)

Chapter Seven

ELIZABETH

M y fingers worked methodically, pinching off the withered blooms of my mother’s roses—as if I could discard my worries just as easily.

Petal by petal, they fell, a soft rain of decay littering the soil beneath my feet.

The air was thick with their lingering perfume, but it could not mask the stench of despair that clung to me since that night?—

Since that disastrous betrothal dinner.

With each dying flower I cast away, it felt as if a part of my soul fluttered to the ground alongside it, crushed beneath the weight of inevitability.

I was amidst a splendor of color and life, yet inside?—

I was a garden wilting in drought.

My hands moved from one rose bush to another, deadheading the spent flowers, coaxing life where it no longer wished to remain.

But there was no delaying the death sentence that loomed over me.

No removing the rot of fate.

I was to be chained to Lord Winston?——

A monster draped in gentleman’s clothing.

The thought sent a shudder up my spine, as cold as the shadow stretched across the garden walls.

And yet?—

Despite the dread sinking its claws into my heart, my thoughts drifted where they should not go.

To him.

To Lord Hassan.

His image was etched behind my eyelids, an unwelcome specter in the depths of my mind.

Those dark, piercing eyes?—

Seeing through me.

Understanding, and yet unfathomable.

He had come to the garden that night, and he was an unexpected solace in my world of chaos.

And then?—

He had given me his address.

A single slip of paper now burned into my memory.

I chastised myself for entertaining thoughts of him.

No good could come from such dangerous daydreams.

And yet?—

They persisted.

Fantasies wove through my mind like vines curling around trellises, twisting tighter?—

Pulling me in.

Offering a fleeting escape from the grim reality that awaited me.

With a deep sigh, I let my gaze drift from the delicate petals to the far end of the garden, where shadows slithered between the hedges.

It was there that my father’s associates had gathered after the betrothal dinner?—

Their laughter, grating against the stillness of the night, had reminded me of carrion crows coming to roost.

I had never met most of them before that evening, yet?—

They had all carried an air of familiarity.

As if they already knew who I was.

As if they already knew the role I was to play in their macabre theatre.

They had circled my father like vultures, their heads bowed together in urgent and secretive conversation.

I had not needed to hear their words to know.

It had been the way they stood—hunched, conspiring—that sent a chill through me.

The way their backs remained turned, indifferent to my existence.

Their murmurs, too low to catch, had coiled through the air like serpents sliding through grass.

I had told myself it was horrid to think of my father’s guests as scavengers, as beasts drawn to the scent of something rotting.

Even so?—

The unease in my gut had clenched too tightly to ignore.

A rustling sound snapped me from my reverie.

I turned, straightening.

From between two towering yews, my father emerged.

His gaze found mine, and without preamble, he spoke?—

“Elizabeth, you are summoned for tea at Lord Winston’s estate.”

My stomach plummeted.

The word summoned lodged in my throat like a stone.

“Now?” I asked, feigning a calm I did not feel.

“Immediately,” he replied.

Emotionless. Cold.

An executioner announcing a sentence.

I nodded—a hollow gesture of obedience.

And then I turned, moving toward the only sanctuary left to me.

My chamber.

Mary was already waiting, an array of garments across my bed.

She did not ask why.

She did not have to.

She merely began.

Fastening buttons. Tightening stays and smoothing lace.

Layer by layer, she built the cage I was expected to wear.

Layer by layer, she prepared me for the lion’s den.

And all I could do was stand there?—

And let it happen.

First came the stays, laced tight enough to ensure an elegant posture. My ribs compressed, and my breath shortened, but I did not complain.

Then came the hooped petticoat, the framework beneath the gown—a silhouette not of my choosing, a shape not my own.

Mary selected a gown of robin’s-egg-blue silk, the fabric as cool as water against my skin. Delicate cream-colored flowers embroidered across the bodice—so soft, so lovely, so at odds with the terror coiling inside me.

Over this, she draped a matching Caraco jacket, the lace-trimmed sleeves brushing against my wrists with every move, as gentle as a caress, as suffocating as a chain.

I was being adorned like a gift to be unwrapped.

My hair was gathered, woven with ribbons that matched my dress, twisted into curls, and piled high atop my head?—

A lady’s hairstyle.

Mary secured the final touch—a pair of soft kid gloves, sliding them over my fingers as though she could shield me from what lay ahead.

I could not help but feel like a doll being prepared for a child’s play.

A child’s game?—

Where I had no say.

“Lady Elizabeth, you look most becoming,” Mary said, stepping back to admire her handiwork, offering me a small, comforting smile.

I tried to return it.

I failed.

Because all the finery in the world?—

The silk. The lace. The ribbons.

It could not mask the foreboding that clung to me like a second skin.

None of it could stifle?—

The silent scream that echoed within my chest.

“Thank you, Mary,” I whispered, though my thoughts had already strayed far from the reflection in the looking glass.

They drifted—unbidden, unstoppable?—

To him.

To Lord Hassan.

To the man whose stoic countenance and resolute gaze had marked my mind.

He was a puzzle. A man ensnared in my father’s web, yet somehow... different.

Uncorrupted.

Untouched by the decay that lurked in the folds of power and privilege.

And that difference?—

It called to me.

A beacon in the encroaching night.

* * *

The carriage wheels crunched over the gravel, a discordant lullaby against the silence of the journey.

A breeze whispered through a small crack in the window, carrying with it a scent that sent ice curling down my spine?—

Faint. Rotting. A breath of putrefaction on the wind.

The manor loomed ahead.

Its grandeur was long lost to time and neglect.

Ivy clawed at crumbling stone walls, clinging like desperate fingers to a ruin that refused to let go of the past.

The gardens, once vibrant, were now a tangle of withered blooms and thorny brambles.

A corpse of a house.

And inside it?—

My fate awaited.

“I’m with you. I’ll be there. Don’t worry,” Mary murmured beside me, her voice a soft reassurance against the storm of my fears.

Her hand found mine?—

A comforting squeeze.

A reminder that I was not alone?—

Even if the walls of this house had already begun to close in.

We alighted from the carriage.

The silence of the great house swallowed our footsteps whole.

And as we crossed the threshold?—

The doors closed behind us with the finality of a tomb.

The parlor was a dying room.

Once, it might have been grand—its faded opulence whispered of wealth long past—but now, it felt hollow, rotting from the inside out.

And at its center?—

Lord Winston.

A corpse draped in velvet and arrogance.

His pallid skin stretched thin over his skull, waxy and unnatural, as though death had already begun to claim him in slow, unhurried increments.

And his eyes?—

Milky. Vacant. Orbs of malice, fixing upon me with hunger, made my stomach turn.

A slow, shuddering breath left my lips, and I forced my feet forward.

The weight of his gaze clung to me like filth, something I could feel but never scrub away.

Every step was a silent war between duty and the primal instinct to flee.

I sat.

The ancient chair beneath me sighed with dust, exhaling remnants of time long lost.

Across from me, he watched.

Mary positioned herself discreetly against the wall, a silent lifeline I dared not grasp.

Her sympathy was a small comfort, but it could not penetrate the thick layer of dread suffocating me.

Because this was real.

This was happening.

And the screams in my mind?—

They were deafening.

The clock struck, its pendulum swinging in time with my dwindling freedom.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

And all I could do was sit there?—

Trapped.

Caged.

Awaiting my fate in a house that had already begun to bury me alive.

The delicate clink of porcelain broke through the suffocating silence as the butler placed the tea service before us.

The cups were chipped.

The glaze was cracked.

A reflection of this house, the man who sat across from me, and the rot that festered beneath wealth and power.

Lord Winston poured with an exaggerated flourish, his fingers trembling slightly, betraying the illusion of control he desperately clung to.

I took the cup he offered; its once-vibrant pattern now faded to ghosts of its former glory.

And so I sat—nodding, feigning interest, listening to the droning hum of his hollow words, trying to drown in the monotony of civilized discourse.

Until his voice cut through the air like a rusted blade?—

And I wished I had never listened at all.

“It won’t be long, Lady Alexander. Soon my cock will fill you up and produce my heirs.”

The teacup trembled in my grip.

My mind refused to process the words for a moment—just a moment.

But then they settled.

They seeped in.

Like poison.

Like filth.

My breath hitched, and my fingers clenched so tightly around the porcelain that I feared it would shatter.

The room suddenly felt too small, the walls creeping closer, the air growing thick, suffocating, and unbearable.

“Once we are wed, you will learn to obey and serve my purposes,” Winston continued, his breath foul as it slithered across my skin.

He leaned in.

His lips puckered and were grotesque.

A thing pretending to be a man.

My stomach twisted—a violent churn of revulsion and panic.

I recoiled, my hand flying to his chest, a feeble, trembling barrier against the inevitable horror of him.

He laughed.