Chapter 48
Millicent worked with care as she cleaned my wounded hand. Despite her gentleness, pain still seared through my limb. Once she had dressed my wound in clean bandages, her hands moved with uncharacteristic haste, gathering the supplies and strapping them back against her thighs as though she feared discovery.
Only then did I notice that her gown was unusually voluminous. She had always favored sleek, effortless fabrics. Yet here she was, adorned in layers of puffed-up silk.
Once everything was hidden, she hesitated before reaching for the discarded, blood-soaked bandages. And then, wrapped the filthy cloth back over the pristine dressing.
"Why are you reusing the old bandages?" My words trembled out.
She stilled, her hands tightening ever so slightly. Guilt, sorrow and hesitation flickered across her face. But instead of answering, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to my lips.
I searched her face, seeking answers in the crimson depths of her eyes. "You are here to get me out of this place, are you not?" My weak voice carried urgency. This was Millicent. My Millicent. Surely she had come to set things right.
But she hesitated. And then she looked away. A cold, suffocating silence settled between us.
My chest tightened. "Do not tell me… you ordered this?"
She stiffened, her lips parting, but no words came. No reassurance. No denial.
A slow, creeping horror clawed its way up my spine. "You ordered this?" My voice cracked. "All of it? You let them-" I paused, unable to utter the truth aloud.
"Florence, there is evidence," she said at last in a broken voice. "It names you as the master of one hundred slaves. Is it true?"
I recoiled. "It is not true! I know nothing of it! I am a victim, not a criminal!"
"Then prove it," she implored, her voice raw with emotion, desperation threading through every word. "Please, Florence. Prove your innocence."
My lips quivered. "Tell me, how exactly would you have me do that?"
"Where have you been for the past decade?"
I went still.
The truth hovered at the tip of my tongue, but I could not, would not, say it. Not with Cecilia's life hanging in the balance. My lips pressed into a thin line, my silence deafening.
Millicent's expression faltered. And I saw it. The moment my silence became my confession in her eyes. Something inside me shattered.
The echo of approaching footsteps cascaded down the corridor. She tensed, withdrawing so swiftly it was as though she had torn herself from my very being. The warmth that had barely begun to take root vanished in an instant. Her spine straightened, her expression smoothing into that distant, impenetrable mask of indifference, it was as if the tenderness she had shown mere moments ago had never existed at all.
A soldier strode in. His gaze flickered over Millicent. "Your Grace-" he began, only to falter as his gaze swept downward, taking in the crimson stains marring the pristine fabric of her dress. His features darkened.
He strode toward me, seized my arms, rolled me to my front and yanked my arms behind my back with an unforgiving force. A choked gasp escaped my lips as pain lanced through my ravaged hand, the wound throbbing with unbearable agony. My body folded beneath his grip, my sobs escaping.
Millicent did not move.
The soldier sneered as his fingers tightened around my mutilated hand, pressing cruelly against the swollen, tender wound. I screamed. Millicent did not stop him. She did not flinch.
"You dare harm the Duchess, you wretched filth," the soldier spat.
"Lock the gate. We are leaving," she said, her voice frighteningly composed.
With those words, she turned. Each click of her heels against the stone was another step away from me, another nail driven into whatever foolish hope I still harbored. The iron bars groaned as the cell door slammed shut. My ragged cries echoed down the corridor.
As each day bled into the next, my body drifted further into the abyss of suffering. I was dragged to the interrogation chamber every few days, where fresh wounds were carved into my flesh before the old ones had even begun to close. The cycle was ceaseless, merciless pain layered upon pain until I could no longer distinguish where one torment ended and the next began.
When Gonestone had tired of his fruitless efforts, when my silence proved more stubborn than his patience, I was granted what I now call freedom. Freedom was him leaving me to rot upon the cold stone floor of my cell. It was absurd, truly, that I had come to name these moments of wretched solitude as such.
My tattered gown clung to my withering frame, soaked with sweat and blood, its fabric stiffened by the filth that now claimed me. I could no longer recall what it felt like to be clean.
In the corners of my prison, the rats stirred. The scent of my dying flesh had emboldened them. I felt their sharp teeth sink into my legs, my feet. A laughable banquet, and I, the unwilling offering. The sting of their bites barely registered amidst the tide of greater suffering. I lacked the strength to fend them off. My will was crumbling.
I wished for the end. I longed for it, prayed for it, pleaded with whatever cruel force had left me to suffer so. Let death come swiftly, let it be merciful, anything to silence the torment that had consumed me whole.
But worse than the rats, worse than the stench, was the ache festering in my chest. Millicent. The name alone sent a searing pain through my already battered soul. I had believed in her, trusted her, and foolishly loved her. Those stolen moments, the whispered affections, the tenderness she had shown me, all of it now felt like a cruel jest, an elaborate deception to lure me into a fate worse than death.
Hatred coiled within me, tightening like a viper ready to strike. Millicent had cast me aside, had left me to wither away in filth and despair. She did not believe me, did not see me as the victim I was. Instead, she had become my executioner, watching as I suffered beneath the hands of men who cared not if I lived or died. My agony was of no consequence to her.
But even amid my seething rage, another thought gnawed at the edges of my mind. Cecilia. My dear Cecilia, my steadfast companion. Fear for her clawed at me with an even greater ferocity than my own suffering. Was she enduring the same horrors? Was she cold, hungry, or worse, hurt? The mere thought sent fresh tears spilling from my swollen eyes.
Darkness pressed in, creeping at the edges of my vision, and at last, I succumbed. My broken body could fight no longer. The rats continued their feast, the cell grew colder, yet none of it mattered. My breathing slowed, my mind drifted, and I surrendered to the only mercy left to me.