Enthralled (The Enslaved Duet 1)

Mrs. White might have called him that too, but I had no doubt it was for an entirely different reason than my own.

“Oh, well, he went to Eton with Prince Arthur, though he was a few years above the boy. It’s the king, really, who has a soft spot for our Master Alexander. They hunt together every fall at the Royal estate in Scotland.”

I stared at my bony knees, trying to understand how a man so close to the king of bloody England could be in a position to buy a woman for sex.

Why do it?

“You don’t seem surprised that a man like Lord Thornton would keep a woman shackled to the floor of his ballroom like some beast he snared and dragged back from safari,” I said demurely, my tone such a direct contrast to my accusation that it took a moment for the lovely Mrs. White to understand.

When she did, her round face froze and her right eye twitched.

“Yes, well…” She cleared her throat and pulled me back against the lip of the tub so she could run conditioner through my hair. “Sometimes it is better not to know the details, but to trust in the result. I’ve known Master Alexander since he was a wee one, and if he has you here, it is for reasons known only to him, but reasons still that I have trust in.”

I twisted like an eel through her hands and snatched one of her wrists. “Listen to me, Mrs. White. You seem like a good woman. Whatever reasons Lord Thornton has me here for are not noble or good. He has already pushed me to near starvation, kept me senseless in a dark room, and used me for his sexual gratification. Those are not the actions of a man with a noble quest, but the crimes of a monster no longer masquerading as a man. Please,” I begged, my eyes so wide with beseeching sincerity that I felt they would fall out of my head. “Please, help me.”

“Help you how?” she asked, her voice suddenly sharp against my skin as she wrenched my hand off her arm. “You made an agreement with Master Alexander. It is your choice to be here, and it is up to you how you decide to endure this servitude. If you want to go on being ungrateful, living in a dark and drafty ballroom when you could have access to a home most would call a palace, so be it. But do not pretend for one moment that your destiny is not still firmly planted in your own hands.”

I stared as she stood and moved to a small vanity that had appeared sometime while I was asleep to retrieve a plush towel the colour of crushed poppies.

Her words rang in my ears.

Hadn’t I resolved to make the most of this situation last night when I’d allowed the man to defile my mouth without knowing much more than his name and station?

Clearly, Mrs. White was a devout servant. There would be no luring her to my side of this story, so I needed to adjust my point of view.

I didn’t have to be the victim.

I could endure, survive the way I’d been forced to for the past eighteen years by using my looks and my body to get by.

And each act against me I would add carefully to the heap of kindling growing in my soul until the inevitable day that Lord Thornton, Alexander Davenport, made a mistake, and after however long of learning his ways, of being his perfect little mouse and slave, I could exploit that to my own advantage and set his world on fire.

Then he would be the victim, and I the victor.

Mrs. White returned holding up the towel and I stepped out of the tub so she could dry me carefully with the soft fabric. She led me to the intricate vanity, sitting me in the chair so she could brush out my hair with a silver comb.

“Master Alexander expects you to be presentable when you attend him at dinners. Bathed, made up, and wearing the outfit of his choosing,” Mrs. White lectured me.

I stared at my reflection, taking in the strange golden ocher of my irises and their thick fringe, the way my full mouth tipped down uncharacteristically at the corners and how my skin was more pallid than I’d ever seen it.

I gritted my teeth, straightened my shoulders, and resolved that it would be Master Alexander falling to his feet at the sight of me that night in the dining room.

I hadn’t seen Alexander all day. It was the tattooed bodyguard I remembered from the incident in Milan—Riddick—who appeared behind Mrs. White and me as she was putting the finishing touches on my hair and bent to unshackle me from my chains when it was time to descend to the dining room. A blindfold made of folded over black silk was secured over my eyes so that I couldn’t see my surroundings as he led me firmly by the hand out of my cage and into the greater house beyond.