"No, Father! Please! Don't marry me off to someone else! I am begging you!"
Elizabeth collapsed onto the polished marble floor, her hands clasped together in desperate supplication. Scalding tears streamed continuously down her reddened cheeks as she pleaded for mercy, desperately trying to alter her father's rigid, unyielding decision.
"Elizabeth, stop acting like an utterly foolish child!" her father bellowed, his loud voice reverberating off the high ceilings of the opulent manor. "You will marry Anton Xavier whether you like it or not! What on earth is so special about that penniless doctor? What could you possibly see in a nobody like him?! I am telling you right now—if I so much as catch a whisper of you meeting him again, I will have my men break his legs right in front of your eyes! Dare me to do it, Elizabeth! Dare me!"
