Featured on @HistoricalFiction @NARomance
🥇2023 Rose Gold Awards
🥇Literary Book Awards
Story of Edith&Andre:
"O'Lady Liberty divine!
For thee alone, my life I'd resign:
I beseech all to carve thy name so fair,
On my tombstone, for all to stare...
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Mother Agatha disappeared.
For several days, Fiona heard the timid whispers of her girl schoolmates. Some claimed that the hideous nun was a witch, and now was summoned to the devil she served. The girls who had always harboured deep hatred for the old woman insisted that Agatha was facing her retribution, punished by the archbishop, destined to be thrown into the fiery depths of hell for eternal torment.
There were also older girls who sighed with trepidation that Mother Agatha had probably offended some big shot, and her fate was most likely to be bleak!
Apart from all these rumours, Fiona also noticed a strange shift in the attitudes of the girls around her. The change seemed to have started after Miss Sarah Hensfield got out from the visiting room having met her family:
First, Sarah and Claudia, in an unprecedented move, invited her to join their courtlike conversations. Then, several other popular girls came forward, sweetly taking her hand, showering her with praise for the exquisite adornments the Marquis had bestowed upon her. Within days, Fiona de Sèvremont had transformed from the lonely and pitiable newcomer into a sought-after "belle amie" among the school girls.
Initially, Fiona was perplexed and uncomfortable with these changes; but a child, after all, could never long resist the allure of friendship. She gradually embraced her new role and soon cast aside the animosity her companions had previously held and her own stubborn vows made before the icon.
Life in the convent ceased to be an endless and arduous penance for her. Now, Miss Fiona Sèvremont had become another centre of attention for the children. Her childish dignity and enchanting beauty truly befitted this position - when Fiona was present, the gatherings of young girls around the stone steps in the garden, imitating the salons of noble ladies, sometimes really taking on a hint of sophistication reminiscent of the adult society.
It was only after the lights were out, and merely the faint breaths of the girls remained in the air, that troubles once again invaded her heart.
The source of pain and fear was gone, yet there was little solace in the heart of the girl. She vaguely felt that Sister Agatha's missing was somehow related to her own confidences to the Marquis in the visiting room that day.
Did Monsieur the Marquis help her? Perhaps the Mother was simply sent to another convent, or maybe she was indeed expelled for her own misdeeds.
The Marquis had not forsaken her; he remained the relied-upon and trustworthy protector she had known. But why did he now begin to evoke a sense of fear within her?
Lovely Fiona tossed and turned, reluctant to succumb to sleep. But eventually fatigue overpowered her, and she drifted into slumber.
"Whore! Currish bitch!"
In her dreams, she once again felt herself trembling in fear, huddled under her mother's body. The rich man, enraged by the ruined clothes in the wash, spat at her mother, forcefully stomping his heavy boot on her arched back again and again, kicking her hips with the toe of his shoe. Mother sheltered Fiona beneath her, shielding her own head with her hands, enduring the man's blows and abuse without a word.
