"What of our families? What will they think?"
"Let us not live for them, let us live for us and our eternal love."
A century-long feud and a forbidden romance.
In which a Sutherland falls
for a Bridgerton, and despite
the cutthroat rivalry between...
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"ARE YOU MAD? HE IS ON THE BRINK OF DEATH!" The words echoed throughout the house, crawling from Montague's study to beneath every bedroom door, as they tore through Moses' throat. She had never heard her brother so angry before. Moses, who was more often than not indifferent and detached, was anything but at the current moment. The two older Sutherland sons had been arguing for the last half hour, each word tearing from their throats louder than the one before. Montague and Moses hardly ever argued. Moses never cared enough and Montague was hardly ever bothered by his brother. Often the two brothers coexisted without friction. To say the morning at hand was a different story was a large understatement.
Maisie let out a soft sigh, pulling her knees closer to her chest as she sat against the arm of the chair by the fireplace. An orange and yellow blaze danced on the logs, emitting warmth to devour her bedroom and caress her skin. She didn't want to listen to their conversation, however, it was difficult not to do so. The screams reached Maisie's ears — and no doubt all else in the house — with great ease, simply slipping through the crack between her door and the floor. She dropped her great grandmother's journal, which she had read thrice since Maude found it the night before, to the cushion next to her. She was unable to read the passages whilst the noise suffocated her within the four walls of her bedroom.
Ever since Moses learnt of the sudden turn of events late yesterday evening, he had been less than impressed. He, like the rest of the family, was not particularly amiable with the Bridgertons. Yet the news of Maisie's relationship with Colin Bridgerton was not what crumbled Moses' neverending apathetic stance to the world. No, what truly broke his disinterested front and caused a rift to arise was the news of Maisie's intended engagement with the Marquess of Hertford reaching his ears. Although he had stated his concerns in the past regarding Hertford, Maisie had never expected her brother to be so passionate about the matter.
Moses' voice carried once again, responding to Montague's muffled words that Maisie failed to hear. "You dare disagree? Hertford is nothing short of foul and, no doubt, far too old for our sister!"
"Oh, do you think she should marry that Bridgerton?" Montague retorted.
"No, of course not, but there are better options than the Marquess of Hertford!" Moses sneered, disgust dripping from his tongue, his words growing louder with each passing syllable. "Options that would not leave her a widow before her twenty-sixth birthday!"
"Well, should she become a widow, then she mustn't worry about Hertford anymore."
"Do you not care for her happiness?"
"She betrayed our family." Montague's tone was drenched in ice, frozen and uncaring, crawling throughout the house and freezing all it touched. He did not care about Maisie's fate, apathetic towards her happiness. Maisie found herself wondering if Montague wished for Maisie to be miserable, forcing her hand in an unwanted marriage as punishment for her actions. Along with their mother, he had taken the news of her secret love affair with Colin the worst, taking it as a personal blow to his chest.
