A/N: thank you so much everyone for your amazing support on this book! it truly means the world to me.
i will be using certain french words in this chapter, if anyone would like translations please let me know :) don't forget to vote and comment!
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THE ART OF disguise had always been my most flourished skill. Years of torment meant burying any emotion so deep beneath the bridges of my rib cage that the ocean of my stomach would drown it out forever. Stuck within the confinements of acidic rapids; destined to dissolve to nothing so that I could remain on top. The best. Routinely confined to egregious reminders that I belonged to everybody but myself. But this time, I didn't need the fortune of concealing anything within. My skin's barrier had already opened.
Though sporadic, like the tense beating to a drum, Father chose carefully when each of his feet collided with the disappointment of my being. Sound had been nothing but the inside of a conch shell, entirely muffled and as vague as the distant waves crashing along the shore of my inner torment. I hadn't known where I was anymore when each pound to my body turned my skin from a map of solace to a blanket of the dead.
"I demand you stop! You will kill her!" Cosimo screeched, his voice cracking entirely with fear as he leapt against Father, only to be tossed aside by his strength.
Still, not a single noise escaped through the trap of my lips.
My voice had been too terrified to scream.
"Perhaps that would teach the heathen a lesson!" Father growled, weaving my hair tightly within his spindly fingers.
"You bloody fool, Father! Please — fetch Henry and Francis now!" Cosimo boomed, frantically gripping onto Bash, whose face had been paled with disgust.
I knew Bash had fled the scene within seconds. Though part of me was relieved he had been fetching protection, the other part was almost embarrassed for Henry and Francis to witness me in such a vulnerable state. If the news of this inauthentic display of power had been released to the public, I was certain to be condemned for weakness. But such thinking had no place in this living Hell. It hadn't been uncommon for fathers to beat their property; their unmarried and untamed female heiresses — but as a princess, it was my duty to be strong.
I suddenly eased into a relaxation once I felt Father's hands loosen within my hair, though I hadn't known where I was, even if I had desired to flee. With squinted, blurred vision, I endeavoured to peer upward, catching a glimpse of Father as he shakily glanced down at his own trembling, bruised hands.
