What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(11)
“And what of Miss Barlowe?” another man asked, stepping up beside me and dropping his hand to my shoulder. His fingers toyed with the end of my tangled braid, pulling the tie free and working my hair loose until it hung about my shoulders. I froze solid, my bottom lip twitching as I fought for the composure to remain still.
This was what I was supposed to want.
“She continues to have no dowry to offer,” the Priest said, something in his voice sounding tight and reserved. “That is unlikely to change given her situation,” he added, referencing the fact that I was fatherless, and that we’d long since spent the meager compensation they’d provided when they’d killed him in the name of Mistfell’s security.
“I inquired after her hand last year, though nothing ever came of it. The dowry matters little to me, but she kneels so prettily, I think I should like to see her do it elsewhere,” the man at my side said with a chuckle. I sank my teeth into my cheek so deeply the coppery tang of blood covered my tongue.
“I’m afraid The Father has plans for Miss Barlowe now,” the High Priest said, halting my breath in my lungs. I glanced up at the High Priest at the front of the room, and the look of confusion written onto Lord Byron’s face as he snapped his attention to the robed man beside him.
The cane cracked against the back of my neck, toppling me forward from the force of it. I barely had time to catch myself, my cheek just glancing off the stone floor rather than cracking against it with all my weight. My back throbbed, the pain radiating down my neck as I stayed bowed in submission. I squeezed my eyes closed, waiting for the next strike, which never came.
“Enough, Bernice. I think Miss Barlowe has remembered her manners, haven’t you, my dear?” Lord Byron asked, the slime of his voice sliding between us.
“Yes, my Lord,” I murmured, my cheek rubbing against the stone as I turned my head to the side and nodded. Bernice’s glare met mine, her hatred of who she believed was an ungrateful swine, undeserving of Lord Byron’s kindness, glimmering in her eyes.
She claimed I hadn’t deserved his wandering hands or ministrations after her canings. Hadn’t deserved his attention or the lessons he gave me out of pity for the loss of my father and for my crippled mother who couldn’t care for me properly.
I’d have given it all up in a heartbeat to never have known what his hands felt like as they pressed into the welts she’d left on my skin, so perhaps it was true I was ungrateful.
I would remain that way until I returned every moment of suffering they’d caused me.
Lord Byron stepped forward, moving through the rows of women that remained. The men who browsed their potential wives moved out of the way as he closed the distance between us and drew a ragged gasp from my lungs when he stopped in front of me. His shoes filled my vision, the brown leather of them far too clean and shiny when I considered how worn and filthy mine were.
My eyes shifted to Brann where he stood with the women, his hands clenched into fists and his jaw tight. There was nothing he could do to save me from the coming storm, from the wrath I’d incur from Bernice if I so much as twitched a muscle.
I held perfectly still as I shifted my eyes up to meet Lord Byron’s where he stood over me, and watched as something passed over his face. He lifted his hand from his side, holding it palm-up and turning his focus to Bernice. She smirked as she glowered at me, setting the wood of the cane in his open palm.
“I need a few moments with Miss Barlowe,” he said, curling his fingers around the instrument of my pain.
“But my Lord, Temple is still—” the Priestess interjected as the people around us paused, waiting with bated breath to see who would be the victor in the power struggle that might follow. The High Priest was an extension of The Father himself.
“In honor of the coming celebration, The Father releases you all from Temple early so that you may have more time to enjoy the weekly market,” the High Priest said, a chill spreading through my body with the words.
My fingers scrabbled for purchase along the stone as I turned my face to it, the cool press of the surface under my forehead grounding me against the dread rising within me. Against my slowing heartbeat as I drew in deep breaths to prevent the trembling in my limbs.
I didn’t watch as the women around me rose to their feet, fleeing the uncomfortable scene without so much as a moment’s hesitation. They left me alone to the married man who shouldn’t have even known my name; such was the way of a lowly harvester who was so far beneath the Lord of Mistfell.
I braced against the coming pain—against the blow that I expected to land across my back or the tops of my thighs at any moment. My throat closed, saliva filling my mouth when I couldn’t swallow.
He made me wait, his torment of me well-rehearsed. Lord Byron understood the pain itself was only one of the tools he wielded against me, and the dread of what was yet to come was an even greater torment.
“Kneel,” he ordered, his voice sliding over my skin; an insidious menace, tangible and grimy as I rose slowly to my knees. Keeping my head bowed in submission, I fought back the burning in my nose and the threat of tears at the back of my eyes. Time seemed to slow as I waited for the next instruction, narrowing to the rhythmic sound of his breathing.
The cane touched the front of my throat, pressing firmly as I bit the inside of my cheek to quell the urge to flinch. He slid it over my delicate skin, hooking it under my chin and lifting until I raised my eyes to his finally. “You didn’t come to the Manor last night, and yet you look as though you haven’t slept a wink. Do I need to worry that you’ve found companionship elsewhere?” he asked, quirking his brow as I swallowed.