Chapter 9 - The Slap and the Threat
Beatrice stepped into the doorway.
“Miss Kensington,” she said, her voice trembling. “I can clean it up.”
Victoria turned slowly. The look on her face was almost pleased.
“Did I ask you to speak?”
Beatrice’s palms went damp. “No, ma’am. I just thought—”
“That’s your first mistake.” Victoria walked toward her. “You are paid to clean. Not to think.”
Lily sobbed softly behind her.
Beatrice looked at the little girl and forgot, for one dangerous second, to be afraid.
“She’s only six,” Beatrice said.
Victoria’s expression went flat. Then she slapped Beatrice.
The blow landed hard across Beatrice’s face. Victoria’s diamond ring cut into her cheek, and blood warmed her skin immediately.
Lily screamed.
Beatrice lifted a hand to her face, stunned less by the pain than by the sudden quiet inside her. All the little humiliations of her life seemed to gather in that cut.
Victoria stepped close enough for Beatrice to smell perfume and wine.
“Listen carefully,” she whispered. “If you ever correct me again, I will tell Leo you stole from his private safe. Do you know what happens to thieves in this house?”
Beatrice said nothing.
Victoria smiled. “No. Of course you don’t. You’re lucky no one explains important things to women like you.”
Lily ran to Beatrice and wrapped both arms around her waist.
Victoria’s eyes went cold.
“Go to your room,” she snapped at the child. “No lunch. No dinner. Maybe hunger will make you grateful.”
“Please,” Lily whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Room. Now.”
Lily looked up at Beatrice, pleading.
Beatrice wanted to pick her up and carry her straight out of the mansion. Past the guards, past the gates, past every shadow Leo Rossi had built around his life.
But where would she go? The guards would stop her. Victoria would lie.
Leo would believe the woman he had chosen to marry.
So Beatrice bowed her head, because survival sometimes looked like cowardice from the outside.
May you like
“Yes, ma’am,” she whispered.
Victoria laughed.
