Breaking Mr Ambrose

3.) The Emotional Turmoil

I was drowning.

My breath escaped me everytime I attempted to drag one in. Sounds became muffled when they reached my ears. My heart beat a staccato rhythm against my chest as waves of pain, grief, and rage crashed over me. Only one thought stubbornly echoed in my mind no matter how much I tried to deny it.

This is real. This is real. This is real.

I couldn't tear my eyes away from the lifeless gaze of the only woman I've ever been in love with. The fire I loved to see blazing in her eyes had been extinguished, leaving me reeling with immense sorrow at the emptiness I found in them.

This is all my fault.

Lord Dalgliesh stepped up to me, intruding upon my guilt-ridden thoughts and breaking me from my morbid stare at Lilly's blood-covered corpse. I looked up with contempt to find a triumphant grin plastered to his face.

"I have to say, I am both thoroughly entertained and amused," he chuckled delightedly. "The ridiculous display you just put on, confessing your love to that silly girl was something Shakespeare would have been proud of. It is still hard for me to believe that the cold Lord Ambrose was affected so strongly by a mere gentry girl," he smirked, his eyes glinting maliciously as he talked.

His smile grew when he turned to look at Lilly's body on the floor. He walked towards her and bent down to brush a lock of hair from her pale cheek. I stiffened in the chair, my hands balling up into angry fists at his boldness in touching her like that in front of me.

"Such a stupid and naive girl. How foolish for her to think she could have worked and have an affair with you in secret." His voice was condescending as he patted her cheek disdainfully, sparing a glance at me to observe my reaction.

A rush of heated wrath overtook my previous agony. I gritted my teeth, feeling my hands shake violently as I helplessly watched him touch her still body.

He leered at my reaction and then rose from his position. He glanced at the men behind me, who still had their guns diligently pointing at me.

"Release his restraints and bring him back to his cell." Two of the men set their guns by their sides and made quick work of opening the cuffs at my wrists and ankles, sharply dragging me up from the chair.

Lord Dalgliesh ordered for another soldier to dispose of Lilly's body and turned to walk away. I watched as the same soldier who had tied her arms flip her body onto her stomach with his foot and then carelessly grip her bound arms with his hands. With the same attitude one would give when throwing away garbage, he hauled her limp body upright and started to walk toward the door. Blood from her bullet wound fell in little red droplets to the floor.

Observing how mistreated Lilly's body was after death unleashed a dark haze in front of my eyes. The anger I felt watching Dalgliesh touch her grew to the point where I lost all control of myself. Seeing her murdered before my eyes and then disrespected after death was too much. I forgot about my still aching body. Forgot about how outnumbered I was in the room. Forgot about everything except that soon-to-be-dead soldier treating her body as if she were a measly scumbag from the East End.

I smashed my head into the side of the soldier's​ to my right, catching him off-guard. He cried out and stumbled back in pain, releasing me. I swiftly turned and​ kicked the back of the other soldier's knee in, roughly grabbing his gun as he freed me of his grip and tumbled to the ground.