𝚂𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍 ✔

Chapter Twelve

After the rather tense dance with Thomas, which left me feeling tingly all over and mind slightly foggy, had come to an end, I decided to sit out the rest of the evening and avoid any more attention being drawn to myself.

I should have been overjoyed that he had danced with me, even flirted with me, but our interaction had left my mind a jumbled mess. I was unsure of how to process everything that had happened, let why it had. What I did know, however, was that a yearning, deep inside me, had started to awaken. One that I was not yet aware of, nor knew exactly what it was for. But I was sure the more time I spent with Thomas, the more I'd come to understand it since it was he who had unlocked it.

I did my best to think of anything other than those dangerously handsome brothers. But the longer I sat there waiting for the night to be over, the more I thought about my dance with Thomas, and the time I had spent with Henry.

Thomas was the man I was sent for, yet for some reason I could not help but also think of his kind, older brother. The last thing I needed was to have been distracted by not one prince, but two. And this had started to make me become frustrated with myself. The longer I thought about it the more enveloped I had come by my own thoughts. That was, however, until I had caught sight of mother, who had begun to approach me. My stomach fell as I watched her make her way across the yard from where she had been conversing with another lady, eyes blazing despite the neutral look on her face.

She took the empty seat next to me, brow raised as she turned to whisper, "What is it, exactly, that you think you are doing?"

"M-my Lady. . ." I was shaken by her tone. The last time she had spoken to me as such was the night that she had nearly choked me to death with her own hands. "I have only done as you and Lord Beckett have asked of me."

"Is that so?" She hissed, yet the look on her face was quite the opposite. She maintained a cheerful expression, as if she were having a loving exchange with one of her precious daughters. However, the hate radiating from her was palpable. "Do you think I, and everyone else in the room did not see your desperate attempt for attention? You practically screamed it across the yard by forcing the heir to dance with you. And it was as clear as day, to any one with eyes, that you used him to get Prince Thomas to look at you." She tried to keep from rolling her eyes as she carefully managed her tone, "You and your blatant whoring have made a fool of us all." She reached over and took my hand in hers, then proceeded to squeeze. "How dare you embarrass me in front of the King and Queen by compelling their son to participate in such an obscene display."

I did my best to fight the tears that had started to form from the pain that shot up my arm, "It was not my intentions, My Lady, I swear. I do not know why either of them chose to dance with me, nor did I want them to."

"I care not for your lies and grow tired of this pathetic show." She snapped through her teeth, "You are a worthless, ungrateful child, and the prince will never choose the likes of you. Neither of them will. And if you continue down this path that you are on, I swear to you that when they have used you and thrown you away, I will send you to a brothel to live out the rest of your days with the whores you belong with."

She clamped down on my hand even harder before she let go, as if to get her point across, then stood up and walked away with a smile on her retched face. I sat there, staring at the floor wishing to dissolve into nothing, wondering if I had really done the things that she had accused me of and had just not been aware of it.

My hand throbbed as I was unable to ball it into a fist and it hurt to move my fingers. The little cuts she had left behind from digging her nails into my skin stung.

Her warning nearly shattered any and all the confidence that I had gathered after arriving at the Palace. My resolve, almost obliterated. "How," I thought, "am I supposed to keep anyone from standing in the way of me winning the prince's affections and ridding myself of my family, when I can hardly survive one unpleasant interaction with my own mother?"