I couldn’t risk it, not even a glass. I couldn’t risk the loosening of my tongue to anyone in the world.
Harriet was trying to take hold of me and guide me to the edges of the garden party whenever she got the chance, but I didn’t let her. I couldn’t stand a string of her questions, not that day, not with Stephen Cannon’s blood still fresh in my mind and on my hands to match.
Not with my ass still burning sore from Lucian Morelli’s dick, and my heart still burning sore from his touch.
I felt an instinctive shudder as I reached for a token cupcake from the buffet. I knew it. I felt it. I sensed in one single flutter that it was Uncle Lionel stepping up behind me and pressing tight.
I hated his body. I’d always hated his body.
I hated him with every part of my soul.
“Your mother is after you,” he whispered, and his voice had that sheen of venom and filth I’d come to know so well.
I couldn’t hold back my tongue. “Yeah, well maybe I don’t want to speak with her.”
His fingers jabbed my ribs before clasping my arm. “If you have any sense in that ditzy skull of yours, you’ll go and speak with your mother. She’s losing her patience with you.”
I turned to face him, hating his breath in my face. My eyes must have been bristling with hate, and my heart was overflowing to match. It would have been my greatest pleasure to take a knife from the buffet table and stab him deep in his stomach, just like I’d seen Lucian do to Stephen. It would have sent my soul soaring to the sky to watch his pain.
He wasted no time before speaking again.
“She knows you’ve been socialising with druggie downtown losers again, Elaine. She knows you’re fresh from another round of bail outs.” He tutted. “Cheapening the family name. Silly little girl you are. Such a silly little girl. If you have any sense, you’ll take her offer when you hear it.”
“Offer?” I asked, with no idea what he was talking about.
“Yes,” he said. “An offer. She has an offer for you. One I’ve created. You can thank me later.”
“An offer to bail me out of bailing out people downtown? I’m such a criminal, aren’t I?”
I found I was smiling, laughing to myself at the crazy disparity between my real crimes and their imagined ones. If only they knew the truth.
It seemed they’d heard fuck all about me fraternizing with the Morelli bloodline. Not yet.
“You’re right, you know,” I told him. “Yes, I have been saving people again. I enjoy the company of druggie downtown losers a lot more than the idiots at these kinds of shit shows. So many sick, selfish pricks.”
“Watch your fucking mouth,” he hissed under his breath, and even though my gut was twisting scared, I didn’t let myself back away from him. Not that day. Not anymore.
“You know something, Uncle,” I whispered. “Can you imagine what would happen if I shouted out your sins right here and now for all the idiots to hear?”
His breath caught, but he didn’t move, just stayed pressed tight to me.
“I can imagine,” he told me. “I can imagine just how everyone would condemn you as mad and laugh in your face for your vile fantasies, little girl.”
He ran his fingers down my spine, and I tensed as they reached my ass crack through the fabric of my dress. If only he knew who’d been inside me.
“I can teach you some more lessons about behavior whenever I choose, little girl,” he said. “Be very aware who you are speaking with. I still have a whole host of teachers ready to instruct you.”
“There is nothing you can teach me,” I hissed at him. “I’m long done with your lessons and your filth. You disgust me.”
“You are always so keen to lie,” he replied. “You were never long done with your lessons, darling. If that were so, you wouldn’t have kept being such a naughty girl for more. I still remember just how keen you were when your teachers came calling.”
I should’ve rushed away from him, but I didn’t. My whole body was rooted to the spot.
His mouth leaned right into my ear, and I shuddered but didn’t flinch.
“Can you remember how wet you were as a naughty little girl, Elaine?” he asked me. “I’ve told you before, good girls don’t get wet when they are trying to learn their lessons. I had plenty of men to teach you yours, but still you didn’t listen.”
“Stop,” I said, but he didn’t stop. He never did.
He tipped his head at the garden party around us, and I felt everything spinning, the world unsteady under my feet.
“Colonel Hardwick is joining us shortly,” he said. “So is Baron Rawlings. Shall I tell them how naughty you’ve been, cheapening our family, downtown with the fools who don’t know what prestige means in this world? Or maybe we could call up Reverend Lynch. I’m sure he has a whole load of new lessons for you. So many lessons.”