𝚂𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍 ✔

Chapter One

It was warm, the sky was clear, and the ground was damp from the rain showers that had visited the night before. The smell of moist dirt still prominent in the air gave me a sense of comfort.

That Tuesday was a perfect day for a stroll about the town, or if you preferred, like me, a walk through the woods. The breeze was just right, a perfect balance between being warm enough to not need a cloak, all the while still cool enough to keep from breaking a sweat.

But of course, on a beautiful day like that, mother had other plans for me. I personally would have preferred to have promenaded through the gardens that we had behind our manor, or anything else in general.

Instead, mother dragged me to the dress boutique on Saint Annabeth Street, which was halfway across the city and where all the higher-class stores were. Just to watch my elder sister, Adela, try on the newest dress mother had ordered for her.

If we were to have been a normal family, perhaps I would have enjoyed that quality time with the two of them. However, unfortunately for me, we were not, and I absolutely hated any time I was forced to spend with them.

My father, Lord Beckett, and my mother, Lady Beckett, held the titles of Baron and Baroness. Adela and I had no brothers, nor any other siblings. I suppose mother dreaded the thought of anymore children after she had me. Since she had refused to hold me, nurse me, or have anything to do with me for the first eight years of my life. Then, the years following those, when she took charge of my upbringing, you could hardly consider what she had done to and for me as parenting.

Though, when it came down to my sister, Adela, they held her in the highest regard and their love for her was unconditional and unending. Me, on the other hand, they hated with every inch of their being.

They had always given her anything she wanted, and I had to accept anything she did not. My dresses were always a season behind, and I had never received anything that was new or not worn previously by her.

It would have been fine if we were falling close to being destitute, but father's estate was quite large, which left us all very well off and them no reason to treat me as they did.

However, that was just trivial mistreatment compared to the rest. Like most parents, mother would scold me, sometimes rightfully so. But she would also hit me with enough force to leave marks or break the skin. And quite occasionally, if wine was involved, she would wish death upon me. Despite that, there were times where she would not even acknowledge me at all, which I preferred the most.

My father was never vocal about his disappointment in my existence, but his eyes spoke volumes and told me everything that I needed to know. Sometimes mother's scoldings, that could have lasted a half an hour, were far better than his silent hatred. There was something terrifying that lurked in the emptiness that he left between him and I. Knowing just how much mother hated me was, at the very least, comforting when compared to the uncertainty of my father's feelings.

Perhaps it was the hope, the chance, that he secretly cared for me that had struck fear into my heart.

"Oh, it is absolutely lovely." exclaimed Adela as she twirled around in her new white dress. The bodice was V-shaped, and had a square neckline paired with long sleeves, and a large, hooped skirt that had an overlay of floral embroidery which was made up of several different pastel-colored threads.

"You think so?" Mother glanced over the dress a final time with a face made of stone. When she finished, Adela and I watched as she slowly turned her head to make eye contact with the aging seamstress, who had been waiting on her opinion, and proceed to demand in a disapproving tone, "Mrs. Lattesworth, do take the hem up an inch and remove that rather tacky looking lace from around the neckline." She stalked closer and pointed at the hem, "With the skirt being this low it will collect mud, dust and God knows what else. Do you think we are peasants who are okay with wearing dirty, worn-out looking clothes that drag up on the ground? Is that what my coin is worth?"