The cold, draft-laden air pressed in upon her lungs, stealing breath as though the house itself wished to smother her. Flickering candlelight stretched and warped across rigid faces, throwing long, wavering shadows upon the walls. Her mother lingered by the doorframe, her expression carefully arranged — too composed, too deliberate for Florence to decipher.
"Florence, wherever have you gone?" she called, her voice syruped with false sweetness, the same practiced tone she used when an audience was present, as though concern itself were a costume she donned at will.
Florence stood frozen, no less stunned than her sister, who had braced herself for violence and found instead this unsettling calm. The realization settled heavily in her chest: her mother was performing. Every breath, every word, was an act.
Then footsteps whispered against the floorboards, measured and unhurried. Florence turned, and there he stood. Eulothorne. His face bore no warmth, no fury, no indulgence, only that familiar, impenetrable seriousness, carved as though from stone.
"Can we speak, Loxley?" he said.
The words were soft, coaxing, delivered with a gentleness that unsettled her more than any threat like a hand extended not in mercy, but to draw a frightened child back into the dark.
Florence sat rigid in her chair, the air around her feeling thick and unkind, pressing against her lungs until each breath came shallow and unsteady.
"What brings you here at such an hour, my lord?" Elizabeth asked lightly as she prepared the tea, her back turned as she lingered at the counter, the clink of porcelain masking the sharpness in her tone.
"Marriage," Eulothorne replied without hesitation. Eulothorne fixed his gaze upon Florence, his eyes settling on her with unflinching intent. "I intend to wed on your terms."
The words struck Florence like a sudden chill. Her thoughts scattered, her voice stolen entirely. On my terms? After I ran from the wedding? The notion rang false, almost blasphemous. A cold suspicion crept along her spine, tightening with every breath. Was this mercy or merely a subtler cruelty cloaked in civility?
Elizabeth's eyes flared with a greedy, unseemly light, as though coins had begun to chime within her skull. For a fleeting moment she appeared lost to reverie, already counting fortunes not yet hers. That illusion shattered the instant Eulothorne spoke.
"Only your terms," he said coolly, his gaze never leaving Florence.
Elizabeth stiffened, swallowing hard, as though he had laid bare the strings she had so carefully woven. Her silence was thick with unease, and for the first time, her ambition faltered under his scrutiny.
The exchange unfolded in a manner Florence had never anticipated. Eulothorne listened with a patience that bordered on unsettling, conceding to each of her conditions with measured calm. It was as though he had always known that a future bound tightly to him would be one wrought with shadow rather than promise.
"Why?" Florence asked at last, her voice cold and distant, stripped of curiosity and edged only with restraint. "Why have you suddenly taken such an interest in my conditions regarding this marriage?"
Eulothorne had already risen. He lifted his frock coat and draped it across his shoulders with practiced ease, his movements deliberate.
"My mother has grown fond of you," he replied.
The fragile tension Florence had carried within her chest shattered at once. Of course. Why else would Eulothorne Oberon come calling at such a late hour, offering concessions like gifts wrapped in civility? Not for her, but for his mother. Florence concealed the disappointment that threatened to surface, lowering her head in a quiet bow.
"Perhaps," she murmured softly. "You are right."
The sound of hooves from Eulothorne's carriage vanished into the night, its dark silhouette swallowed by the misted road. Florence stood at the window, watching the horses' measured steps fade into nothingness, their hooves striking softly against the earth like a fading pulse. Only when the last echo of movement was gone did she lower her gaze. Doubt crept into her chest, coiling tightly around her thoughts, which rang within her skull in endless, merciless repetition.
The spell shattered the moment Elizabeth's shoes struck the floorboards behind her. Florence stiffened, dragged back into the room and its lurking dangers.
"Well?" Elizabeth demanded sharply. She stared at Florence with thinly veiled anticipation, eyes gleaming as though already weighing gold. "What were the terms you gave him?"
Florence hesitated. Elizabeth's gaze burrowed into her, insistent and predatory. There was no audience now, no strangers to impress, no civility to perform. Only the certainty of punishment if her answer displeased.
"I…" The word faltered upon her tongue, dread thickening her breath. Elizabeth's eyes widened, her impatience forcing the truth to the surface.
Florence exhaled shakily and spoke at last, her voice fractured with nerves she could not fully conceal. "I told him the brideprice was improper, that such a custom is not English. I asked that the marriage be kept traditional… and that we would be the ones to provide a dowry. Then I would consider the marriage."
Elizabeth recoiled as though struck. Horror twisted her features, grotesque and raw. In that instant, her gilded fantasies collapsed into dust.
"What were you thinking?" she shrieked, her finger jabbing toward Florence like an accusation made flesh. "With what property do we pay a dowry? How dare you destroy a future I planned so carefully?"
"The dowry existed only to ensnare you," Florence replied, her voice trembling but resolute. "It was Emaranthe's bait. I will not be married under terms built on deception."
"That wedding was to be private!" Elizabeth cried, fingers clawing into her hair as panic overtook her. "Who would ever question a private union?"
Florence stood unmoving as the storm broke. Her defiance, so foreign, so unwelcomed finally drew the punishment she had once bent herself to avoid. Yet she did not retreat. This life, she believed, must not mirror the last. Choice, even if it bled, was still hers.
And in that defiance, Elizabeth felt it: the unfamiliar tremor of fear. Florence was slipping from her grasp, breaking free from the control that had once seemed absolute.
Florence withdrew, unwilling to endure another breath of her mother's senseless tirade. She began to pace the length of the chamber, each step restless, each sigh heavy with dread. She was ensnared now—caught in a cruel bind. The path she had carved toward escape had collapsed beneath her feet, undone by honeyed words and false gentleness. She had listened. She had believed. And in doing so, she had ruined herself.
Back and forth she moved, gnawing at her thumbnail until it ached, her thoughts spiraling into ruin. Her sisters lingered nearby, silent witnesses to her unraveling, their eyes sharp with judgment as she made a spectacle of her despair.
If Eulothorne persisted in seeking her out so relentlessly, she feared her resolve would erode beyond repair, for she had always been a woman too easily swayed. She knew she must not remain so, not if this second life were to be spared the same ruin—but Eulothorne had ever been a creature of quiet cunning, skilled in turning weakness into surrender.
Panic descended upon her like a carrion raven, wings outstretched, eager to feast upon her living flesh. She had not prepared for this turn of fate. In her former life, Eulothorne had been indifferent—cold, distant, uncaring. Yet now he was altered, familiar and unfamiliar all at once. The sameness unsettled her; the difference terrified her. She sensed it instinctively, though she could not yet name it.
Once, Eulothorne had granted none of her wishes, not even the simple ones. She had been little more than a personal shadow to him; a living instrument meant to press his coats, polish his shoes, scrub his floors. Not a wife, not a companion, but a possession. A servant. A slave. And when displeasure found him, his punishments were merciless, more savage than the butcher's blade against hanging meat.
The memory clung to her, cold and suffocating, as the walls seemed to inch closer, eager to bear witness to her undoing.
Night crept toward her like a living thing, and none of it felt unfamiliar. Florence lay still, her gaze fixed upon the fractured wooden ceiling of the villa's attic, where splintered beams sagged like broken ribs. It was a cruelty she had long learned to endure that her chamber was hidden in the most decayed corner of the house. Yet how could she ever have protested? She had exhausted herself trying to make the space livable, mending and cleaning what little she could. Still, even her mother's cats kept only to hunt vermin were afforded warmer, safer shelter than she had ever known.
Florence did not allow the suffering to gnaw so deeply at her in her former life. She had believed, with a quiet and desperate faith, that obedience would one day be rewarded with affection. If she endured, if she complied, then surely she would be loved. But love, she had learned, was never given freely. It was always bartered, always bound to a price she alone was expected to pay.
Her thoughts pulled her downward, deeper and darker, until they blurred into something shapeless. She did not realize when wakefulness abandoned her. The next moment, rough hands seized her, shaking her with abrupt violence in the breaking dawn. Her mother loomed over her, breath quick, eyes gleaming with an excitement that bordered on mania.
"Florence," she hissed and called all at once, voice trembling with anticipation, "Lord Eulothorne has come for you!"
Florence jolted awake, her heart leaping violently in her chest, panic flooding her senses as the night seemed to close in around her once more.