I’d done many a similar ritual to Abigail, and even Lottie, but in those scenarios I was never scribbling in a notebook.
“What are you writing?” I asked.
They shared a look, but only scribbled more.
And then we descended into silence.
“Is it true you’re the Cinderella of Crowne Hall?” one of them blurted, the blonde one with light brown eyes, while the one with eyes like gemstones shoved her.
This time, I didn’t answer.
They finished their grooming and went to stand guard by the door, while I stayed seated on the vanity. My wild curls were braided with diamonds and white gold hoops. My skin was soft and had a subtle shine. I looked more like Lottie than I ever had before.
“I don’t think it’s her,” one of them whispered. It was low enough, I think they thought I couldn’t hear, but I was a servant, and I was trained in whispers. I kept my eyes down, catching glimpses of them reflected in the vanity.
The blonde one leaned slightly to whisper to her friend. “Then why does she have the locket?”
I touched my locket absently.
I’d avoided as much of the internet as I could after the attack. I didn’t need the world deciding if I was Cinderella or the Stepsister Slut—but just because I avoided it, didn’t make it go away. These two girls were proof. I listened harder as they discussed the possibility of my identity, and what that meant. Who was right, who was wrong…my life’s facts twisted in fiction.
My very real heartbreak someone’s fan fiction.
“If she were really her, Mr. Grayson would have come—”
“Mr. Grayson can’t exactly leave at the moment…”
I lifted my head, heart skipping a thousand beats at word of Grayson, spinning to meet their eyes. “Grayson? Grayson Crowne? What did you hear?”
They shared a look.
“Shall we begin?”
Madame had returned, cutting our conversation off at the quick. She held a foot-long ruler in one hand. I eyed it warily—I really didn’t want to go through more measurements.
Madame stepped between the girls and they lowered their heads, taking their place behind her. They handed Madame the notebook, along with whatever they’d been writing inside it. I followed them with my eyes, wishing they could tell me something.
Mr. Grayson can’t exactly leave at the moment…
What the hell did that mean?
Madame slammed the notebook shut with a snap. “On your knees, Storybook.”
Her cement-colored eyes bore into mine, waiting.
I could do this.
If anything, I’d been training years for this.
Dignity in the face of indignity.
But for the first time…I didn’t want to give in.
There was a time when I wouldn’t think twice about asking someone like West to throw away my gum wrapper; now I don’t think twice about getting on my knees.
Thwack. The foot-long ruler crop she held landed with a sting between my shoulder blades. I sucked in a hollow breath at the radiating pain.
“What the hell?”
When had she walked around me?
Thwack.
“Don’t speak unless spoken to,” she said. “Knees.”
But he couldn’t save me from everything. From rituals dating back centuries.
Josephine’s words were a death knell, echoing somberly in my mind as I dropped to my knees.
Numb.
“You will never call him by his name, only his title, Mr. du Lac or sir.”
“That seems—”
Thwack.
“Don’t speak unless spoken to,” she repeated, eyes hard.
Josephine jumped into my head again. Had she gone through this? Been forced to her knees while some woman calling herself Madame drilled draconian rules into her head?
She said she did it for her children.
I grasped my rounded stomach.
“If you absolutely have to speak, you are allowed one question: Sir, how may I please you?”
Servants were allowed one question to ask the Crownes…
My uncle had told me to swallow my indignity.
Maybe that was the problem.
Maybe I’d become used to it.
“Did you hear me?”
I blinked out of the memory, and nodded.
“You will learn all things necessary to be a member of high society and blend in among the du Lac world. You will be the perfect companion, seen and not heard. There is one cardinal rule for you to remember: the mistress comes second.”
I covered my body, hands to my shoulders in a crisscross. “What happens if I break these rules?”
There was a pause. The girls in front of me gave me a desperate, pleading look like seriously?
Thwack.
Madame slammed the ruler down on my knuckles.
“Do not speak unless spoken to. The only person you will be allowed to speak without question to is your girl. You may only discuss with her matters of dress, as she will help you be appropriately attired.”
I rubbed my sore knuckles. Fucking catholic school nun wannabe.
“You will be appropriately rewarded, and expected to uphold your end of the bargain. You can pick two items to cross off.” She held out her hand, and the blonde scrambled out of the room, returning moments later to place a clipboard in Madame’s hand. Madame gave it to me.
I glanced at it—a list.
Anal. Fisting. Anal fis—
I reeled. “W-what the hell is this?”
I braced for another hit, and sure enough it came.
Thwack.
Right between the shoulder blades again.
She stared back at me, stone-faced. “What do you think a mistress does, Miss Hale? You can pick two things to say no to.”
I opened my mouth to object, but paused at the gleam in her eyes.
I stared at the list, it must have a thousand items on it.
Once upon a time, Grayson had demanded a contract of me. This is what I’d feared then…this is what I’d imagined in the dark recesses of my mind.
Except…Grayson was always the exception to the rule.
He gave me a safe word so I could be safe. He never took what I wasn’t prepared to give. In the end, the most dangerous item on the list was love.
“You will learn everything, Storybook,” she continued. “Everything required to be the perfect companion to Mr. du Lac.”
“So like a corrupt, fucked-up Emily Post training,” I muttered. “Cool.”
I closed my eyes, bracing for her stick. When it didn’t come, I slowly opened one eye.
The ruler she used was suspended midair, held in a vice grip—in West’s hand.
The wood looked ready to snap under his hand. Veins throbbed down the back of his hand and wrist, disappearing beneath the fabric of his suit.
The muscle in his clenched jaw pulsed. The shadow beneath his jaw dark and cut like glass. His warm brown eyes burned, focused on me.
I’d only ever seen West like this once, the night his father attacked me.
“Mr.—Mr. du Lac,” Madame stammered.
He yanked the stick out of her hand, breaking it over his knee in one motion. The wood cracked in half, a few stray splinters hitting me in the face.
The two girls gasped.
“I…” Madame gulped. “I wasn’t expecting you for another two weeks.”
“Get. Out.”
They didn’t ask twice, shuffling out of the room in seconds.