Chapter 20 A Father’s Wrath
“Juliet, this chest is completely empty!” Brielle’s brow furrowed deeply as she jumped to her feet and hurried back out to find the old nursemaid.
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She helped the slow-moving Juliet over to the wardrobe and when the old woman leaned in and saw the gaping hollow inside the oak chest, her face went white with shock. “Empty? How can that be?
“Who on earth would have taken your mother’s things?” Juliet fretted, twisting her gnarled hands together in worry.
Brielle pressed her lips into a tight line, thinking back. The keepsakes hadn’t vanished that very day- someone had gotten to them long before. Neither the original Brielle nor the bedridden Juliet had ever checked the locked chest, so the theft had gone unnoticed for who knew how long.
After a beat, her eyes sharpened. “Donna.”
She turned on her heel and marched straight out of the chamber. Only Donna and her maids had free run of this wing of the house, back when Brielle had still naively believed the girl was her beloved younger sister and never thought to lock her out. Who else would have had any reason to dig through her dead mother’s belongings?
Brielle had never cared much for the old trinkets before but after seeing the intricate ley energy layout woven through the entire Whitmore Manor, a hundred unanswered questions were burning a hole in her chest. She needed to know who Brielle’s mother really was-was she a ley energy master from Persandria, just like her?
If that were true, there was a chance she had been someone Brielle had known in her past life. That urgent need drove her faster, her boots thudding against the stone flagstones as she cut across the garden toward the private courtyard Donna had claimed as her own: Rosary Chamber. She had to get her mother’s things back, no matter what.
When she reached the arched entryway of Rosary Chamber, she pushed straight past the gawking maids and stormed inside. “Donna!”
Donna emerged from her solar at a leisurely pace, one hand resting on the carved oak doorframe, and stared at Brielle with cold, open hostility. “What do you want, Brielle?”
“Did you take the keepsakes out of my mother’s chest?” Brielle demanded, stepping closer until there was barely a yard between them.
Donna let out a sharp, mocking laugh, no longer bothering to keep up the sweet, gentle act she’d been forced to maintain at Clarke Estate. She’d hated Brielle er whole life-why would she keep pretending to be nice to her under her own roof? “What if I did?”
“Give them back!” A hot flush of anger rose up Brielle’s chest and into her cheeks.
“And what are you going to do if I don’t? This is Whitmere Manor, after all. You’re not going to start a brawl in my courtyard, are you?” Donna sneered, walking slowly down the stone steps from the solar, her chin tilted up in arrogant defiance.
Brielle’s fists clenched so tight her nails bit into her palres. “They belong to my mother. Give them back.”
“Your mother? Anything that belonged to her still belongs to the Whitmore family. That good-for-nothing woman of yours came into this family with next to no money and still got to be the legal lady of the house. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be stuck as an illegitimate daughter my whole life. Everything she owned was
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Chapter 20 A Father’s Wrath
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paid for by my father-what right do you have to hoard it as your mother’s keepsakes? I’m just taking back what’s mine.” Donna’s nose lifted in a cold, haughty snort.
Seeing Donna finally drop her mask and bare her true fangs, Brielle itched to scratch that smug expression right off her face. When Donna called her mother a worthless good-for-nothing, that was the last straw.
A wild fire of rage blazed up in her chest, and before she could think twice, she drew back her hand and slapped Donna hard across the cheek. “Everyone in this house knows who the real worthless woman is.”
Donna never saw it coming. For years, Brielle had been beaten dog in this house, cowed and quiet-did she really still think she was the all-powerful legitimate daughter who could do whatever she wanted?
The slap made stars burst behind Donna’s eyes, her check stinging like it had been burned with a hot iron. Furious, she screamed, “Tyra!”
Before Brielle could even brace herself, a solid black shape lunged out from behind the pillar. A hard, heavy kick crashed straight into her sternum. A searing, crushing pain exploded through her chest, and she was thrown backward like a sack of grain, slamming into the packed earth of the courtyard hard enough to knock the breath out of her lungs.
“Lady Brielle!” Violet came scrambling over, throwing her shoulder under Brielle’s arm to haul her upright.
Brielle struggled to get her feet under her, coughing up a mouthful of blood. Her chest throbbed so bad it was hard to breathe. She lifted her head to look at the female bodyguard standing in front of Donna-Tyra Johnson, broad-shouldered and sharp-eyed, her fists already clenched and ready for another round.
Violet shrank back a little, intimidated by Tyra’s imposing frame. She squeezed Brielle’s clenched hand and shook her head, whispering urgently, “Lady Brielle, pick your battles. We can’t win this.”
Tyra was a trained fighter, and Brielle was still recovering from being poisoned. Picking a fight would only get her hurt worse. Brielle heard her, but she didn’t move to back down.
She didn’t strike first, but Donna walked over cooly, brushed a finger over her already swelling cheek, and fixed Brielle with a hateful glare. She turned to Tyra and ordered, “Hold her down. I’m going to give that slap back.”
Tyra gave a short nod and stepped toward Brielle. Violet grabbed nervously at Brielle’s arm, then summoned all her courage to step between Brielle and he bodyguard.
Brielle’s eyes went cold. She shoved Violet gently behind her back, ready to face Tyra herself.
Tyra grabbed Brielle’s shoulder without an ounce of mercy. Brielle gritted her teeth, pouring every bit of strength she had left into her arm, and caught Tyra’s wrist mid-motion, twisting it hard.
She pulled the move off cleanly, but Tyra was no ordinary serving woman. She didn’t even stagger. She retaliated instantly, driving another fist straight into Brille’s injured chest.
Another crushing blow. Brielle went flying backward in the courtyard stone wall, and another mouthful of blood bubbled up from her throat.
“Lady Brielle!” Violet was crying now. She couldn’t understand it-this was Brielle’s own childhood home. Why was she being treated like a trespasser, like an enemy?
“Stay back,” Brielle gasped, holding her aching chest with one hand and lifting the other to stop Violet from rushing in.
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She could only curse the clumsy, overweight body she was trapped in. None of her old speed, none of her old strength was working right. She couldn’t even take down one single bodyguard.
Tyra walked toward her easily, reaching out to grab her second time. This time, Brielle moved first. She charged low, right at Tyra’s center of gravity.
Even if she couldn’t win with skill, she wasn’t going to stand there and let herself be held down for Donna to slap. She couldn’t use strength, so she’d use the weight of this body.
She crashed into Tyra’s midsection with all her momentum, and the impact was hard enough to send Tyra tumbling backward onto the ground. Before Tyra could roll away, Brielle threw her whole weight down, pinning Tyra under her body and holding her arms trapped at her sides.
Donna saw what was happening and flew into a rage. She stepped forward and grabbed a handful of Brielle’s hair, yanking as hard as she could. “You bitch! Can’t win fair so you have to fight dirty? Get off her this instant!”
The pain in her scalp was agonizing-for a second, Brielle thought her whole scalp was being ripped right off her head.
“Lady Brielle!” Violet panicked and rushed forward, throwing her whole weight against Donna to shove her
away.
Donna ended up grappling with Violet, and had to let go of Brielle’s hair to shove the maid back.
But the distraction gave Tyra time to twist free. She flipped over, shoving Brielle off and pinning her to the ground under her instead. She threw a hard, brutal punch straight into Brielle’s nose. White-hot pain exploded across Brielle’s face, and blood came pouring out.
Brielle gritted her teeth, refusing to make a sound or give up, and wrestled to get free, clinging tight to Tyra so she couldn’t get a clean shot at her head.
To break free, Tyra just kept punching, brutal and unrelenting. After just a few blows, Brielle’s face was already a mass of bruises, one eye swollen shut.
While the three women and the maid brawled wildly in the middle of the courtyard-hurried, firm footsteps sounded from the entry path outside. Then a deep, furious voice roared out over the noise of the struggle.
“Stop all of this, right now!”
But no one stopped, no one pulled back. They were too caught up in the fight.
When Chancellor Vincent Whitmore stepped into the courtyard and saw what was happening, his face turned as dark and hard as forged iron. His own daughters-noble ladies of one of the most prominent families in the kingdom-fighting like common tavern rawlers in his private inner courtyard. It was a disgrace, an insult to the entire Whitmore name.
“Guards! Pull them apart this instant!”
Several of the household guards came rushing in, and aer a minute of tussling, they finally managed to pry Tyra and Brielle apart. Brielle’s whole body ached from head to toe, her vision swimming. She pushed herself up on one knee, struggling to get her balance, and managed to get to her feet.
She just barely got out one word, breathless and shaking “Father…”
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Chapter 10
I had saved the Chloe in the book.
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The next second, a huge shadow fell over her. A hard, stinging slap crashed into her uninjured cheek.
The blow sent her sprawling straight back onto the ground, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. Stars exploded behind her eyes, and the pain was so bad she could barely think.
Vincent’s furious voice boomed down at her from above, sharp as a knife. “You still remember that I’m your father?”
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༨ ཛཱ 82%ཟླ
Fate Binds Me to Lord Clarke
