The Usurper's Queen | COMPLETED

09 | greed and gluttony

That night I returned home, garbed in marvelous silks and my hair coiffed into an elegant updo. A string of rare black pearls laid against my collarbone, and several attendants followed behind me and Edmund, each carrying boxes full of brocades and hats. The manor was silent, and no trace of the earlier celebration remained. The folks had been sent home, and the only ones left were my family members, the Moreaus, our servants, and the ones I dreaded the most-- the McCarthys.

Edmund held my hand tightly and led me inside. I was looking down anxiously, afraid of what will happen later, and then I felt his fingers seizing my chin and forcing me to look up.

"Don't let them know that you are afraid, Annie," he hissed, and I could only reluctantly nod and uncomfortably hold my head up high.

We heard some mumblings and murmurs coming from the sitting room, followed by an inhuman wailing. I shuddered in fear, but Edmund squeezed my hand tighter and said, "We must go inside, Annie. Act unbothered."

Inside the room, I saw a distraught Benedict crying on the floor, my aunt and uncle with their faces pale, the McCarthys wailing as if they had gone insane, my mother trying to console her nephew, Lisbeth sniggering with Corinne, and my father and Gilbert sitting calmly on their armchairs, as if this had nothing to do with them.

In the middle of the room where we used to set up a table at, a bloody heap covered in a white cloth laid in replacement, and a stiff, white hand flailed out.

"I handed my daughter to you just months ago, alive and well, Lord Benedict! And look! Look! She's dead in a matter of months!" Baroness McCarthy, Leanne's mother screeched at my cousin. She then crumbled onto the floor and began clawing at the corpse, screaming her head off.

"I loved her!" Benny bellowed. "I lost my heir and my wife today! How dare you blame me?"

Then, he finally noticed me and Edmund, and his face morphed into absolute rage. "You! It was you!"

He charged at me, his hands stretched out as if he wanted to strangle me, but before he could reach me, I heard a loud thud, and I subsequently closed my eyes. When I reopened them, I saw Benny sprawled on the ground with a bruised jaw and bloody lip.

"Your Grace! This woman is a murderer, how could you defend her?" Benny shouted and quickly shot up on his feet.

I quickly put on a confused look, and Edmund did the same. "Excuse me?" I scoffed, pretending not to notice the dead body in the middle of the room.

My mother then frantically stepped forward and said, "Anne, your sister-in-law fell down the stairs this afternoon." Her eyes trailed on me suspiciously as she added, "Benny said that you were the last person who had seen her alive."

I glanced at the corpse for a long time, and my mother awaited my answer with baited breath. "That is very unfortunate," I eventually said. "But what does it have to do with me?"

"Don't act as if you know nothing! You were there with her before she died!" Benedict shouted angrily, and I could feel the little bravery I had slowly melt away.

"That's odd," Edmund retorted. "I went to fetch Anne after I finished talking to you, and your wife was still alive and well. I took Anne to town after that, as I am to leave for the capital tomorrow, and I'd like to spend as much time with by betrothed as I could."

Benedict seemed as if he wanted to protest, but he did not have the courage to counter Edmund's words. He withered away cowardly into his mother's embrace, still sobbing softly. My uncle then stepped forward and tried to mediate by saying, "Then, perhaps she fell down the stairs on her own. We should not implicate Anne for what might have been an accident. These cases are very common nowadays, and late Leanne was very unfortunate."