Yours Truly

Chapter One

Adelaide stills as a loud creak sounds from the floorboard. She waits to hear the rustle of bedsheets, the creak of a door, but no one appears. Her heart thuds as she clutches her ink and paper to her chest. Trying to walk as lightly as possible, she creeps out of the house. Adelaide hurries in the direction of the shed, the one her father built her many years ago. Before she grew old enough to challenge him and before she realized that he would stop at nothing to mould her into the perfect wife for a man he would choose. Adelaide was glad that her father hadn't yet found the man he would deem perfect, but she knew exactly what he would be looking for. A man with connections, money, a title...but who was also weak-willed enough that her father would be able to influence this, control his life and Adelaide's. But she had a plan.

She had done drawings for some of the people in her village. Slowly, she had assembled enough money to run, to a city where her father could never find her. Never control her again. She trailed her fingers across the leaves of a nearby tree, feeling its velvety softness on the pads of her fingers. She would miss this place, the rolling hills and kind villagers. She would even miss her mother...and feel sorry for her that she was leaving her behind with her father. But she couldn't take her with her. Finally, she swung the door of the shed open to find it was already illuminated with light. By a candle, that sat on the stained wooden table, with her father beside it.

"Father, I-" she began but trailed off. Belatedly hiding the ink and paper behind her back, as if he had not already seen them. Seen the drawings and that filled every spare space of the shed.

"No, no, my dear, please continue with whatever it was that you were going to say. I am most interested in whatever explanation you can offer for defying my orders."

She shrank back from the harsh tone of his words, curling her shoulders and folding into herself like she always did. She had never managed to stand up to her father, or anyone really, not since the unruly temper tantrums of childhood.

He had forbidden her from drawing six months ago, saying it drew her away from her other studies and that she needed to focus on being able to run a household. That had been the closest she'd ever gotten to yelling. Inside she had raged and stamped her foot, reached out and struck him. But outside, she had just nodded quietly and agreed.

She remained quiet, hoping that a lack of response would dull the edge of his anger.

He retrieved an object from the floor and placed it on the table, away from the reach of the light. When he slid it into view, Adelaide stiffened. It was the tin with all her saved money in it. The money that could take her away from her father's influence.

"And this, my dear? Well, I hope this would be going towards a new dress..."

She watched him in silence, saw the shadows and flickering of the light play in the craggy folds of his face.

He slammed his hand on the table, a loud noise that shocked Adelaide.

"Answer me!"

"Yes, Father. It was for a dress."

He smiled cruelly and took the money from the tin, tucking it into his pants' pocket.

"Not to worry, my dear. I can keep it safe for you."

She bit her lip, hard enough that she idly wondered if she would draw blood. Then, she nodded mutely.

Drawing and painting had always been her passion. She had once declared that she wanted to run away to Paris and become an artist. Her parents had humoured her childish whimsies but became increasingly angry with her when they understand that her interest wasn't going away. Her parents had pushed her into helping with the parish, of which her father was the rector. The last two years since she had turned seventeen had been the worst, filled with her mother and father pushing her to devote her time to studying how to be the mistress of a grand house. When she had shown up to a ball with ink-stained hands, her father had been enraged and decreed that she wouldn't be allowed to paint or draw anymore. She had hidden some of her supplies in the shed when her father had taken them away from her. For six months, she had snuck out at night to draw in secret, but now it seemed her luck had run out.

"Why don't we make our way back to the house now?" Her father asked, the anger dispelled from his face.

She nodded mutely and took his proffered arm. He paused as they stood outside the shed.

"We won't have this issue again, will we?"

Adelaide quickly shook her head, but he tsked.

"That's what you said last time, my dear, remember?"

She stiffened, the malicious gleam in his eyes making her clench her free hand.

"I think we should make sure, don't you?"

He took a pack of matches from his pocket and struck it. The flame burned brightly in the pre-dawn darkness. She made a jerky moment towards the lit match, to take it away from him even though she knew he had many others. He just gripped her arm tightly and looked at her coldly. She froze in place. There was a split second before he tossed the match when she was racked with pain. She had been so close to realizing her dreams, to be free of her father's control. Then, she had lost it all.

The shed burned quickly. It was old and constructed from the same type of wood they burned in their fireplace. It already falling apart too, a pile of wooden boards barely held together by nails while it housed her most important dreams and ambitions. As it burned in front of Adelaide, she mourned the half-finished drawings and the ones she would now never complete.

"Back to the house, my dear. It's been an eventful night."

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Adelaide had fallen asleep with the memory of her father's anger and the acrid smell of woodsmoke in her nose. When she finally rose in the morning, she would've thought it was a terrible dream if there wasn't a mark on her forearm where her father had gripped her tightly. Now that her money was taken away and her art materials burned, Adelaide believed that fleeing her father's house would now be impossible. There would be no escape from her dreary future of a spineless husband controlled by her father.

She had just pulled out a plain grey gown when she heard a knock on her bedroom door.

"Just a minute," She called out before draping her dressing gown over her nightgown.

When she hurried to the door and opened it, she was glad to see her mother. Compared to Adelaide's father, her mother was like a washed-out watercolour painting that nobody had bothered to finish.

Her mother smiled wanly and Adelaide realized she was blocking the entrance to her room.

"Please come in, Mother," Adelaide said hurriedly, wondering what she had come to stay. Her mother had never been the instigator of Adelaide's admonishments, just the quiet spectator. To have come the morning after her father had burned the shed down...

"You are being sent to London, Adelaide."

She lost her composure for a moment. She had never been to London. Her father said he objected because of the lack of morality among those who lived there. However, Adelaide always believed he was too afraid of comparing himself to the true men of power and influence that he could encounter there.

"When do I leave?"

"This afternoon. I sent word to my sister Margaret asking if she would be willing to take you in for a year and she agreed," She paused and looked harshly at Adelaide. "Do not mistake this for a vacation or a reward, child. You are there for one purpose: to find a husband. If you do not within the year, you will return home and your father will select a suitable man from here. Do you understand?"

Adelaide nodded sharply. A whole year away from home in London. It would surely be easier to disappear in a city like London with hundreds of thousands of people than tiny Codford-St Mary. If she found a way to make money and was able to run away, her father might never find her and she could be free. She reined in her excitement, carefully guarding how she reacted to the news around her mother.

"I understand, Mother. I should begin to pack if I am to leave soon."

Her mother nodded silently and left the room.