The Beastkeeper's Bride

3. Bellarina

3. Bellarina

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The weakened sunlight of a new day had been filtering through the narrow pane of glass that served as a window in Millie's prison for well over an hour before the door of the chamber finally opened.

She jumped to her feet, ready to barrel past whoever entered. One of Theo's henchmen lumbered through, promptly depositing a tray of food atop the service near the door. Despite the rawness of her throat, despite the low ache and rumble of her empty stomach, she would not miss an opportunity to escape and ran towards the open door almost desperately.

The backhand that met the side of her face sent her sprawling and she only just managed to catch her fall, bracing her palms before her as her hip slammed into the carpet painfully. She gasped in shock and rage and pain, her lip cutting against her teeth with the jarring impact. Her eyes burned with the sting of unshed tears and she jerked her head up to glare through a mane of unkempt locks at the unnamed man, but he was already retreating, the door locking solidly behind him.

The silence in the chamber was encroaching, her pulse throbbing loudly in her ears, and for a long moment Millie could only sit crumpled on the floor. Eventually, she rose unsteadily to her feet, drew a steady breath, and resolutely strode over to the tray of food that had been left for her.

At least, she thought bitterly, Theo was not so inclined to leave her to starve. The penalty, no doubt, for the murder of a daughter of a duke was too harsh a punishment for him to endure. No, he needed her meek and willing to his rule, which she would not entitle him to. And it seemed that he was prepared to meet her obstinance with force. With that unpleasant contemplation on her mind, she snatched up the tray and brought it over to the bed. Her appetite had been lacking since days prior to her father's death yet she compelled herself to force down the dry hunk of bread at least to fill her protesting stomach, as well as the water that had been set aside the bowl of porridge, which she couldn't bring herself to endure.

Once she had stomached her fill, she set aside the tray once more and paced the length of the chamber, her thoughts fraught. At the forefront, after a night of deep exhausted sleep, was the resolute need to escape Theo's hold, at least until she could find herself a suitable husband, or seek counsel with someone familiar with the law regarding these things. If there was no other means for it, then she had to resolve herself to a marriage of convenience. Once she was married, Theo wouldn't have a claim to Ravensfield- bound by law, he would have to desist and retreat back to the decrepit hole from which he crawled.

Just how she was to escape posed a problem. The only way out the chamber were through the heavy and solid wooden oak doors, currently barred shut, or the window at the opposite end. Millie ambled over to it once more and pushed it open, leaning over the sill to study the sheer two storey drop.

There was very little to stop her fall other than the narrow, concrete awnings above the two windows below hers, and even those were hardly wide enough to serve as useful toe or fingerholds. Even if she dropped from this height, there was a very large possibility that instead of landing on the grass below, she could impale herself on the pointed wrought iron fencing surrounding the house, and that hardly seemed like a painless way to die.

The quiet alley that her window looked over was subjected to a few servants as they made their way. It would have been Theo's first priority to ensure their loyalty was not misplaced with the newest Duke of Ravensfield in residence and Millie could not fault them for their decision, sure that Theo would have threatened to terminate anybody who did not adhere to his rules. They would not interfere with her business now, though she could hope for the loyalty of perhaps some of the more stalwart Ravensfield staff- people whose beliefs were not so easily swayed by coin and rather beholden to morality and justice.