The White Mansion distorted in all its imperiality. Its marble pillars radiating just below the chandeliers that never stopped glittering.
The majestic structure was seen by outsiders as the acme of the estate's power and wealth. A castle of prorogation.
This felt different for Maxwell, even in his nobility it was as if he was in a half-remembered dream. It was a strange emptiness.
Every night he sleeps only to wake up every morning to the same routine.
Servants bow in sight of him. Attendants gave him a deferential nod. "Patron White" they greeted, and presented to him with ledgers of figures that peered his eyes.
His grandfather's death the late Patron had held him aloft at the head of the family to lead, but his own memories restrained from him.
It has been 3 years already and it has all been just misty. Like a wall imprisoning him in his own mind.
The doctors had diagnosed it to be a trauma induced Amnesia. Freda and Michael called it an opportunity.
"Don't beat yourself up Maxwell, running the Skye's Corporations could be complicated" as Freda always said to him with feigned smiles.
"Grandfather would've wanted you to rest and heal, just leave all the paper work to us, alright?"
Having so much to learn and alot of fuzzy memories to contend for, he had little strength to object and no other options but to give in to what ever that was asked of him.
He signed whenever, wherever and whatever he was asked to sign on, nodding to every financial strategy presented to him.
His once keen impulses, despite invigorating beneath the surface has been buried under the haze of confusion barely allowing him to act.
There was always a foggy heaviness pressing against his skull, compressing his spirit and his body responded slowly. His mind uncertain.
It was another White family's evening galas. Lydia emerged.
Draped in ruby spinel silk. Her dark hair cascading towards her shoulders.
She was beguiling. Diabolically desiring. Sharpened and intentional.
She alluringly smirked as her eyes caught Maxwell standing cadaverously amongst his relatives.
Suddenly, there was whispering in the entire room.
"Wait… isn't that Lydia Voss?"
"Yeah, I heard her family just after her husband's downfall"
"Who knows why she's here… looking all dulled up?"
She ignored them. Stealing the show as she majesticly walked up to Maxwell.
"Patron White. It is an honor to finally meet you" she bowed slightly.
Something about her stare on Maxwell was unsettling. Too deliberate and full of intent. But he masked it all up with suspicion.
"The honor is mine, Miss…?"
"Lydia" she supplied smoothly playing along swiftly.
"Before now I only moved in circles close to your family. But I take it circumstances have changed now, Your Eminence"
Fred's eyes gaped on sighting Lydia.
Narrowing on her from across the room.
He knew Lydia and understood scandalous she could be. Her ties to Richard Stone. Not to mention her desperation.
He walked closer but kept a distance, only to hear Freya leaning close to Maxwell and whispered "...i only wish to be of service to you my lord".
"Service?"
"Yeees, she could be useful" Fred murmured to himself.
His deviant calculating mind began to spun in another plot.
Later that night Lydia's diabolical plan was already on motion.
She hovered through the corridors like a shadow until she got to Maxwell's chambers.
The guards already well-aware of Fred's unspoken approvals had been bribed and allowed her pass through.
Seated by the window. The lunar glow brushing against his face through the window.
In a split second of just sighting him, she saw vulnerability from the look on his face. Like that of a man whose own history had been taken away.
"Patron" she muttered, stepping into the room from the side with a glass of wine in her hand.
He turned. Alarmed. "Lydia, What are you doing here? It's late"
"Sometimes…" she responded softly.
"Late hours are usually the loneliest. And being lonely shouldn't be something to worry about for someone like you"
The wine in her hand shimmered. Spiced with more than just grapes.
Ignorant and exhausted from yet another day of turmoil and foggy decision making, Maxwell took the cup and gulped in all the drink.
Within minutes the edges of his eyes grew obscured and warmth diffused through his veins.
Lydia ran her hands through his hair. Caressing his skin. Her eyes leering on his body. Her touch deliberate.
"You don't have to remember the past Maxwell, the present is enough. Here... with me."
His strength stammered as he tried to pull away.
The alluringly scent of incense thickened the room.
Lydia leaned closer. Her lips brushing his ear. Exciting his pleasures.
She whispered "Tonight… I'll make sure you're never alonely again"
Trying to focus on what she was saying, he blacked out.
Its the next morning. Rhe sunlight pierced through the glass. Maxwell sprung up stirred.
Confusion spread through his face.
Disappointed.
His shirt all crumbled on the bed and his body heavy in exhaust.
Just beside him was Lydia. Again.
Her lips curved into a satisfied smile, stretching languidly on the bed.
"How…"
"What'd…" Maxwell's voice cracked, his mind scrambling.
"Its alright, you don't have to say anything". she purred placing a finger on his parted lips.
"Last night… binds us my lord"
Maxwell sat up, with dread filled in his face. He tried recalling what had happened last night but all he could remember was only fragments;
Her smile
The taste of wine
And then a darkness engulfing his thoughts.
Caught between denial and guilt. "Lydia…" his tone was uncertain.
She sat up too staring at him mischievously and smiling in triumph.
"Not to worry my lord, no one should have to know about any of this. For now."
Weeks passed in the White family's usual galas.
Whispers grew rapidly as Lydia was seen more frequently at the Mansion, always near Maxwell. Always wearing her confidence regardless in the tilt of her chin.
Sooner than later, the news came
She was pregnant
The White Family was thrown into uproar.
"Will she dare to claim that she carries the Patron's child?"
"Outrageous! This will disgrace us all"
"But what if this was true". Fred plotted, hiding his smirk behind his feigned outrange.
He knew Lydia's scheme to make Maxwell seem responsible and although the child belonged to Richard the timing was just flawless.
With Maxwell crippled in honor to take responsibility of the child, the White's fortune would futher be interweaved in their plots.
And although gnawed in doubt, Maxwell was shaken.
Just when he thought he had enough to worry about with his memory loss. Now here surfaced yet another trouble.
"Had he permitted this?
Had his defect gotten the best of him again?" His mind kept haunting him.
Standing right there in the hall and Lydia just across the room with her hand resting on her stomach. Slightly rubbing it.
He felt his burden drowning him. Slowing seizing his breath.
"Maxwell…" she softly said before the gathered family as she walks up to him.
"Our family begins now"
There was a murmuring of shock in the crowd.
Maxwell nodded gently to convince his honorable guests. But his heart was heavy. And right inside of him enraged with a Question against his ribs, trapped in the thunder of his pulse.