Anastasia's Story

Chapter 26

I could hear the rain outside, could hear the sound of it hitting the roof, and could see as it rolled down the window. I looked down at the blank paper. I was trying to find the words to tell Marcus that I was back with Klaus and that even if I wasn't, I could never marry a man I didn't love. But the truth was, this bad news had to be delivered in person and I would have to wait until my family and I went up to London to tell Marcus that he was not gaining a wife.

I was startled when Conchita clumsily dropped the empty tea tray on my bedroom floor.

"I'm sorry Miss, my mind is somewhere else." she replied quickly.

I turned around to look at her as she nervously picked up the tray. "Then where is it, Conchita?" I asked curiously.

She looked up from the floor with a dazed look on her face, "Where is what, Miss Beardsley?"

"Your mind. Where is it? What's wrong?" I pry as I try and take my mind away from the messy situation Marcus had created for me.

"Not for me to say," she said with her usual heavy accent and turned abruptly to leave with the tray in hand.

"Conchita, tell me this instant!" I bark, as I brace myself for whatever bad news was about to come out of her mouth.

"My daughter heard something in town and told me about it, because she knew you and Mr. Mikaelson are courting." she started slowly with her head down.

"I didn't know you had a daughter," I was surprised because Conchita had never mentioned a daughter, from what I gathered the only family she had was her mother.

"Yes, I do. She's sixteen, I didn't raise her because I was a slut and her father could afford to raise her, I wanted her to have the best things in life and a slut mother wasn't one of them."

"Conchita, do you mean to say you were a prostitute?!" I asked incredulously.

"Hay dios mio no! They are demons who drag sinners to hell! No, I had sex with her father out of wedlock and got pregnant so when her father's family offered to get me a great job here if I let them raise her I agreed."

"But why didn't he just offer to marry you?"

"Because like I said, I was a slut." she looked exasperated.

"So you had sex with many other men before him?" somehow I doubted that.

"No, he was my first. Although Carrie's father had many many women in bed before I."

"I see, but YOU"RE the slut?" I was starting to really hate this whole century and the way women were brought up.

"ANY woman who has sex before she is married is a slut." she stated matter-of-factly. I bit my lip hoping she'd never seen Klaus sneak out of here.

"Ummm.... anyway, what did your daughter see?" I asked awkwardly.

"First, she saw Mr. Mikaelson watching that new girl Carmine Wentworth enter into a dress shop, Carrie says he was staring and then he was watching her later as she went into the post office. Then my daughter told me that that little town Mr. Mikaelson said he went to was quarantined with the measles so no one was allowed in."

"Conchita, maybe he turned around and came home." I offered as my heart sunk a little in my chest.

"Wasn't he gone overnight?" she asked quietly.

"What are you saying Conchita?" I snapped. I saw her face frown a little as she looked at her reflection in the tray.

"I'm saying Carmine Wentworth is a slut, and you probably should say bye bye to Mr. Mikaelson."