Page 137 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
But she could not move.
The Duke advanced towards her. Dimitri lay on the floor, wheezing, coughing.
Adeline could do nothing but tremble as the Duke tore the jewels from her neck, the chain burning as it ripped through the skin. His hands were back at her shoulders before the necklace could even hit the floor, wrenching her sleeves, tearing at her bodice and skirt, until the dress hung from her in tatters.
“Stop, stop, please!” she screamed, wondering why no one was coming, but of course, they wouldn’t. Even if she could be heard over the blasting of the music, it was the Duke that was doing this. No one would prevent him.
Except Dimitri, who grabbed him from behind and wrestled him to the ground, cursing and spitting. “Do. Not. Touch. Her.”
Adeline picked herself up and fled.
She didn’t think about him. She didn’t think about the Duke. She didn’t think about anyone but herself, and getting away from it all, and crawling away somewhere into the dark. She ran through the corridors, sobbing, scrambling for hidden servants’ entrance, and bolted down the steps until she was swallowed up by darkness.
Posey found her sometime later. Adeline could not be certain how much time had passed. Her heart rate had slowed, but everything else had dribbled away, too. All sensation and feeling, all colour.
She remembered that Posey struggled to move her, but somehow, eventually, she had tugged her back to her room and slowly went about the task of removing the shredded dress.
She remembered beads pinging against the floor, and Posey diligently picking them up and taking the whole frothy monster away with her while Adeline stepped into her nightclothes and unbound her hair completely, letting it fall like a curtain around her.
“I tried to warn you,” Posey said, raising a hot cloth to Adeline’s neck. “Nothing good ever comes of being so friendly with a noble.”
She spoke of someone with experience, but there was no way Dimitri could ever have done something like this, and Posey would have been too young for anything to happen between her and the Duke before he quit the manor years earlier.
“Posey… why do you hate him?” she whispered. It was easier than addressing her statement, easier than agreeing.
No good can come of this. I should have known, should have been more careful...
Posey paused. “I don’t,” she said quietly. “I never hated him. For a moment, when we were children, we were friends, you know. Then his father told us we should stay away from him, that it wasn’t right for him to mix with commoners…” She shook her head. “I wanted to ignore him, at first. I felt sorry for him, you see. So I tried to keep inviting him to things, only one day his father caught me asking and hit me for it afterwards. Said if I asked again, he’d have my whole family dismissed. So I didn’t ask. But then the curse happened, and the Duke left, and I felt worse than ever for how alone he was, so much so that…”
She sighed, and tugged at her sleeve, rolling it up to the elbow.
Three pink scars permeated the flesh on her upper arm.
“He doesn’t remember,” she said flatly. “It was not long after the curse was twisted. He lashed out during a transformation. It wasn’t too bad, but I scar easily. Mrs Minton paid me handsomely not to tell him. Fed my family for a month.”
Adeline stared.
“I don’t blame him. I blame his father. I blame power and wealth and privilege. I hated you, just for a little while, for being better than me. For separating the curse from the boy. For not knowing the sort of person his father was—”
“Posey—”
“We don’t belong in their world, Adeline. A fish may stare up at the sky, but it’s still prey for the bird.”
“We’re not fish,” Adeline responded. “They aren’t predators.”
“Are they not?” Posey responded. “Then why do we cower in their presence?”
Someone knocked loudly on the door, making them both jump.
“Adeline,” said Dimitri, his voice wretched, “let me in, please.”
Posey moved towards the door.
“Don’t,” Adeline begged, clutching at her sleeve. “Don’t let him in. I don’t want to see him, Ican’t.Tell him I’m sleeping.”
Posey sighed, nodding, and got up to answer the door.
It was only as her hand reached the doorknob that Adeline recalled Dimitri’s hearing, and realised he would have heard everything she just said.
