✔ Mrs Mandray

1. Bouquet

Isabella

Feyre had been gone for months. Father and Elain remain oblivious to the dark truth behind her visit. I thought it was a blessing at first, that I kept my memories where my family had forgotten. Then I started questioning everything. If what I saw was real, if it was a nightmare born of a reader's imagination. If it weren't for Nesta stepping in when I got particularly hysterical one day then I think I might have truly driven myself insane.

My sister is perched on the bench beside me, eyes closed as she takes in the morning sun. Elain's garden has truly come into bloom. She has me over at least once a week to see it, often suggesting that I tend to my own garden back home.

Like I would have the time. I smile sadly at the thought, twisting the wedding band on my finger. My sisters have all but forgotten that while they escape the constraints of our former life I have most certainly been left behind.

Married in a love match, Elain had sung. Prancing about the cottage when our father had announced my engagement. Neither had any care for my own thoughts on the matter. Nesta, my ever protective twin, had raged and screamed and did everything in her power to stop the marriage but the deal had been made.

They needed one less mouth to feed and Tomas Mandray had promised father that he would look after me. It was only when Nesta saw no possible way out of it that she had finally confessed what had happened between the two years prior.

"How have you been, sister?" Nesta murmurs, her voice so soft and delicate as she peers at me.

"Well. Tomas has begun learning to carve wood, so that he can sell chairs and tables as well." The irony of being handed from father to this man was certainly not lost on my sister.

"How much does he expect that to bring in?"

"I told him of father's attempts but he seemed determined." It wasn't worth the argument and if it kept him busy and out the house then I was all for it. "Besides, it keeps him out of the kitchen. Gives me more time with my practice."

Nesta smiled at that. Healing has been a passion of mine. An obsession almost during our darker youth. It had been a way to care for Father and later Feyre when she would come home with cuts and scrapes. A useful coping mechanism. Nesta had sarcastically praised me one evening but had admitted she was grateful and proud of me in private.

"You could leave him."

"You know I can't."

The conversation drops after that. Both of us just content to be in the other's presence after the hectic catch up at lunch. With father away it has been an easy excuse to tell Tomas that I needed to check up on my sisters. He was astounded at Father leaving Nesta in charge of the home during his absence. And though he had snidely suggested I would be of little use to them he still allowed me to visit more often to 'care for them' where my twin's hedonistic ways failed.

"Mama?" I pause, smiling down at the little curly haired hellion peering up at me.

"Oliver?" I answer in the same curious tone only to have a clenched hand thrust before my face. I reel back, expecting to be hit by an overexcited child only to find three wilting daising in my son's hand.

"For you." He giggles, face lighting up when I make a dramatic wow and smile, sliding of the bench to kneel down at his height. Nesta coos her own praise, playfulling asking where her own bouquet had disappeared to. The look of horror and upset on his face was enough to have me laughing but Nes had frozen, fearful that she had upset the boy.

"I'll make you a bouquet." His voice was determined, his little pout forcing me to hide my laughter behind a hand. "With lots of the pretty lavenders you like."