Twenty-One
I shoved open the garden doors, the wooden panels slamming against the interior walls. Mother came rushing around the corner as I stalked down the hall. My heart peaked at the sight of her, at the sight of Lucas following. It took only a moment for them to understand, to read it on my face.
“ Helena .” Mother tried to stop me, following me into the foyer and up the stairs.
“Quintrell,” Lord Highsmith warned, calling my brother into action. Warning him of whatever mutually beneficial agreement they had come to.
Mother grabbed her skirts, frantically trying to keep up. “Stop!”
But it was Lucas who caught up first, reaching the landing just as I did. He pushed me into the drawing room upstairs, gathering me in his arms and shoving me through. I heard Mother protest before the door was slammed shut. The lock flipped with finality .
He was breathing heavily, and I realized I was, too, as I stepped away from him. I felt like a mad rat in a cage, stuck within mazes and walls, never able to find my way out. I ripped the barrette from my hair.
My brother stood across from me, his chest rising and falling, his jacket ruffled in his manhandling of me.
It was not the first time.
“I won’t do it.”
The words, as I uttered them, chilled me to the core. I had angered him before—he was only ever angry at me—but never before did I outright disobey him.
Lucas’ sneer was full of disgust, for me, as it always was. He could not look upon me without a distasteful expression, as if the sight of me forced his brows lower, the corner of his mouth to slant, his eyes to narrow.
And in that moment, for a reason I do not know, I was reminded of how we were as children: how he would look at me with fondness, his laughter lightening his countenance, an ease to his posture, a permanent smile pulling at his cheeks. How we were the best of play-mates, he and I, always together.
Until it became clear to him the difference of our sexes. Until he realized he was an heir to our family name, and with that came power, and more money, and control. With that, came everyone’s scrutiny, and if he was held in society’s good graces, his power could exponentiate tenfold.
And I, his meager sister, would be the property of another man. Out of his control.
His lip pulled over his teeth. “You disgust me. ”
My heart dropped at the words, though they were not a surprise any longer. After so many years of hearing them, I thought perhaps I would have hardened to his scorn, but that little girl that used to yearn for his company felt every slice, every stab of pain.
“You can repeat that all you want.” I forced my voice to remain strong. “But it will not change my mind.”
Lucas’ hand raised in a claw, as if to grab me, but it stalled mid-air, his fingers curled around an invisible neck. “I wish you were like Lucille. Submissive. Pliant .”
There was a bitterness in my mouth.
I knew Lord Highsmith was being consoled by my mother, ensured that I would come out of the room with a smile and an apology. I was just nervous. I was just a girl with flighty emotions.
“Lucy hates you,” I hissed, wishing the words were the strike I wanted them to be. I hate you .
“Her feelings for me are irrelevant. She has done what she is meant to do.” His voice dripped with so much venom. “Perhaps you are too stupid to understand the role of a woman.”
As if I was not living it, not fighting against it.
He had advanced on me, and I had not realized it until I was a few feet behind where we had started our argument, the backs of my calves pressed against the velvet upholstery of the settee.
His face came closer to mine. His face, so like mine—our eyes the same hue, our cheekbones inherited from the same mother, the same complexion as our father—yet so twisted and distorted. I could feel his hot breath on my face as he loomed over me. And suddenly, his hands braced my shoulders, and he pushed me .
I suppressed a cry as I lost my balance and fell upon the couch, and before I knew it, he was leaning over me, one knee on the couch next to my leg. An instinctual part of me, deep in my chest, felt like an animal cornered, and I moved to lash out, to get him off of me. “Luc—” The shout died in my throat as he covered my lips with his hand, the other gripping one of my wrists so tightly I thought he may break it.
Our noses almost touched. I wrenched my head back as far as I could.
“You will marry, if not to save your own reputation then to prevent the ruination of mine ,” he seethed. “Once you are another man’s problem, I don’t care what you do. You can continue to whore around and ruin yourself. But until then, you will stay in line.”
With my free hand, I pulled his grip away from my mouth. “Go to hell.”
He laughed darkly, grabbing my face with both hands, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my cheeks, my neck. His nails felt like talons, and I had the sudden thought that he was worse than any monster my mind could conjure.
“What makes you think that you have the power to say no? What makes you think that you can defy me ?”
He pushed my head down roughly. I felt my brain rattle against my skull, gasping for air, like I was being suffocated, and he was sucking all the air out of the room.
“I have tolerated you enough. I should’ve sent you away all those years ago. Girls get sent away all the time to learn subordination. Maybe I should do it now, just so you can see what it’s like to disobey. Or maybe Wright will do it himself. ”
As he spoke, spittle flew onto my cheek.
“You are nothing , Helena. That is the difference between you and me. This world is for me, for good men like your husband, and you are only here to keep it going. To breed the next generation of men.” His eyes shone with frenzy, his face so close to mine I could taste his breath.
My blood boiled.
“Lucy knows it, Mother knows it, but you’ve been deluded into thinking you can do something different. That you are comparable to me .”
My hands were free, but I was too stunned to realize I should push him off of me.
What if someone barged in? Would a maidservant even bat an eye? Would Mother do much else than wag her finger at her son?
Hot tears lined my eyes, and it was only fuel for Lucas’s fire.
“There it is!” he cried as if I was proving him right. “This acting out, this hysteria —I should tell Wright to send you away so we can all be done with you.”
His hatred was like a brand, and I couldn’t stop the blurring of my vision, the gathering of tears in my lashes.
He just laughed. “You’re too feeble for this conversation. Just listen to me and perhaps your emotions will not overwhelm you.”
I burned with fury, looking at the devil that was my brother by blood, but had not been mine in years. “You’re wrong,” was all I could manage, glaring at him the best I could. But my voice was not strong, my throat aflame with shame, with frustration..
“And how am I wrong?” His voice was deadly low.
It was then that I considered, truly, for the first time, that maybe I was wrong. Centuries had passed and the order of things had been the same. The institution of marriage had remained the same. I could not name a woman leader, a female president, could not even fathom it. Besides perhaps the queens from bygone eras. But their lives, their wombs, were still the property of the public. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“God, you’re astounding,” he scoffed.
Pulling my wrist free, I moved to slap him, my anger rising, but he gripped me even harder. I saw the red capillaries in his eyes, the irises that almost seemed black, a monster lurching to break free somewhere within him.
“I should have you locked up somewhere so no one will have to deal with you anymore. Then you’ll be free of him. Isn’t that what you want?”
Images of a locked room, my arms bound, the wail of other imprisoned people, those poor people who deserved better—
Just then, there was a light knock at the door. A turning of the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Lucas, dear? Helena?”
He gave me a glare that said if I spoke a word, I would regret it.
Had she heard him through the door?
My chest heaved, trying to regain my breath, shuddering an inhale.
Lucas stepped away from me quickly, straightening his shirt. He smoothed his hair back with a flat palm and flexed his jaw, the fire in his eyes slowly dying off. A deep breath, another. As if the menace in him was something he could summon and send away. The mask returned, the facade built up once again .
I was left crumbling on the settee, my heart pounding against my ribs. I dared not move as Lucas went to the door. He turned to me one last time.
“ I dare you. ” His voice was barely above a whisper, but it rang loud and clear in my ears.
How dare you defy me , he had said that night, long ago.
And then he was gone.
The air sucked back into my lungs all at once, and I collapsed in a heap upon the floor, right in front of the settee, my vision blurring. My anguish came out in a sob, and there I stayed, weeping upon the drawing room floor.