Still caressing her cheek, I looked at her secret spot that housed a box filled with piles upon piles of pictures of Abigail. Alone, the pictures were mundane, but by the hundreds, they were downright sinister.
I stepped back, fiddled with the notes in my pocket, thinking of the disgusting promises that asshole had made.
That he’d nearly been able to make good on.
This was my fault.
I let her run. I let the shit between us come before her safety.
Never again. Nothing would come before Abigail, not even my heart.
A few hours later, when dawn was just breaking gray in the sky, there was a knock on the door to Abigail’s wing. I stood off the wingback, stiff from watching Abigail for hours.
I left one of the double doors open so I could still see her.
Tansy Crowne stood in the doorway, as if she didn’t even want to step one foot in the wing. One perfectly plucked brow arched. “I assume this is important.”
“Abigail needs more security,” I said, getting straight to the point.
She laughed, closemouthed. “Abigail needs a lot of things. More attention isn’t one of them.”
I eyed the box I’d set on a gold-and-glass coffee table, preparing for Tansy’s arrival. I’d had a bereft hope when I called for Tansy that maybe I could convince her with a simple plea. Abigail kept her secrets in a box for a reason. She acted like she doesn’t want her mother’s approval, but it’s the one thing she wants above all else. If I told Tansy, I was betraying her.
I lifted the box for Tansy, filling her in on everything as Tansy flipped through it with bored disinterest. It was a betrayal, and I hoped it was worth it. The thought of what would have happened to Abigail had I not been there…
Tansy was quiet after she reached the bottom, her eyes ever calculating; then she spoke. “Did you tell anyone else?”
“No.”
Tansy nodded. “We can hardly afford any more bad press.”
It was moments like these I was reminded with a dousing of ice cold water to my spine how different I was. You could almost think you were like them, and then they said shit like this. I told her her daughter had been drugged, almost carted off to God knows where, and her mind was on shit like the press.
“Abigail needs more security,” I said again, trying to keep the venom out of my voice.
She flipped back through the photos. “Mmm…”
“You can afford a small army for your other children, but I’m here telling you someone wants to harm your youngest, and you don’t care?”
“Where were you when all of this supposed drama was happening?” She lifted her head, pinning me with her gray eyes, taking in the dried blood on my shirt, the bruise forming around my eye.
Tansy had never liked me.
She glared when I didn’t immediately avert my eyes. I exhaled, looking away. You’re not supposed to look a Crowne in the eye. It was the rule all servants followed on threat of punishment, being fired—or worse. Me? I’ve always been in the gray.
I wasn’t a servant when Abigail picked me up. Now… now I’m something in between.
Even Beryl Crowne didn’t always have me follow the rule.
Tansy smiled and went back to photos she’d already seen.
I should’ve ended it there.
“Are you going to be so calm when your daughter is raped and left for dead?”
She cut herself on the corner of a photo with a barely audible hiss.
Slowly her eyes landed on mine.