The Whitford mansion glittered with lanterns that week. Servants bustled in and out preparing gowns, polishing silver, arranging carriages. Anna, in her ivory satin gown with a string of pearls at her throat, stood by the window watching the city prepare for the Harvest Festival.And father Mr jacob Whitford , and servants maids , enjoying the day of festival
Her heart ached, torn between her duty to her students and the terror that clung to her like a veil. For days, the letter had haunted her the words "My mother of mystery" and that name, Richard, echoing like a bell she could not silence.
She had sworn never to speak of Richard. Not to her family, not even in her prayers. And yet the villain had written it, as if peeling her heart open with a single stroke of ink. Richard the boy once gbring spring in her life, her only weakness the youngest child of the house of ethens her childhood friend , her friend who listen to her story , without a word he disappeared to the rope, nobody knows the story , her weakness ..
Lady,
A calm from her maid clara woke her from thought
That afternoon, during her teaching hours, her students gathered with laughter and candied apples.
"Miss Whitford," a young lady said, curtsying, "shall you not read us something from the classics for the festival?"
Anna raised a brow, speaking with her delicate crispness: "I rather think Shakespeare has been read to death, don't you? Perhaps Milton shall do. Or Byron, if we are feeling wicked."
The girls giggled, whispering about how elegant she looked, how refined her taste was. None of them knew the truth: that their graceful tutor was A.M. Harrow, the one who had conjured Dorian Veyne into existence.
Later that evening, Anna attended the festival's grand tea party. The gardens were alive with music, laughter, and candlelight. She glided among the guests, exchanging pleasantries, sipping her champagne with an effortless poise that made her seem untouchable.
Lady Anna a call from behind she was afraid to look behind , because she thought it might be him in another mask, but when she looked back it wasn't him, it was Alexander a renowned journalist in London , one of her friend
Oh look who is it, anna replied with a sarcastic tone ..
Haha, give her a chilvary kiss and replied , how have u been, I haven't seen you in ages
Well well, I am around here unlike you roaming around collecting news and scandles,
Alexander replied by sipping the glass of champagne in his hand, well ya, and then he ask , dear ms reader have you read the book that is a talk of town
Lady Anna has a shiver in her spine but she played it cool and replied , yes yes, it is a talk of town , my father also mentioned days before
Alexander replied yes I heard majesty us looking for that merciless author
Lady Anna replied with a smile ,.. but before complete sentence , a murmur in the crowd
And then he appeared.
Not the villain in flesh, but in mockery:
a jester his mask painted in cruel smiles, tumbling before the crowd with jest and song. His voice rang sharp, his eyes though hidden fixed upon her.
He performed for all, yet every jest, every rhyme, felt sharpened for her alone, she cannot see his face, it's always blur
"A lady writes of sorrow and flame,
yet dares not give her villain a name.
She sips her tea with dainty grace,
but terror hides beneath her face."
The crowd laughed, thinking it harmless fun. Anna's blood froze. She stepped back, but the jester slipped close, his painted lips brushing her ear.
"You burn your letters, lady," he whispered. "But you cannot burn me."
Her hand trembled against her glass. She tried to turn away, but the oak-scent clung to him, suffocating her.
He laughed then, spinning away into the crowd as if nothing had passed.
Anna held herself together until the music swelled, until her polite mask nearly cracked. That night, when she returned to her candlelit study, she drew out paper and ink with trembling hands.
She had sworn never to write again. But his words left her no choice. She hasn't replied to the last two letters he asked to do something , she completlt ignored that and write now
"Sir, whoever you are, I beg you cease these cruelties. You know too much of me, things no soul should know. I am not your mystery, nor your mother of shadows. Leave me to my silence. Leave me to peace."
Yet even as she penned it, she knew peace would never come.