Chapter 03~ Under his Roof

ALVINA

I woke to silence at first, that kind of still silence that comes only in big houses after midnight.

For a long time I lay there, listening to my own breath and the sound of rain on the window. Then I realized the room smelled differently from my room, like roses and something mixed from nature. The bed was soft, and the sheets smelled faintly of soap.

For a second I almost forgot the church, and everything that had happened.

I stepped out of the bed, walking straight to the door. Then my hand went to the doorknob only to discover it was locked from the outside.

"Shit," I cursed under my breath.

My heart dropped so fast I felt sick. I twisted the knob again, harder this time. It didn’t move. I pulled at the handle, yet nothing. “Let me out,” I whispered, but there was no answer.

All night I lay there with my back pressed to the cool wooden door, listening for footsteps, for voices, for anything. At one point I heard a door close far away, like they were shutting part of the house off from me.

I tried to tell myself he was protecting me. I tried to tell myself he had locked the door so the men outside couldn’t get to me. But the truth felt different. The house felt like it was keeping me, and not saving me.

Morning came slowly. Light pierced through the curtains making its way into the room. When the door finally opened, I nearly jumped out of my skin. A maid stood there with a tray and a polite, scared look on her face.

“The master wants you downstairs,” she said softly, like she was afraid the walls might hear. “Please, come down now.”

“Why was I locked in?” I asked before I could stop myself.

She blinked and then hurried out without answering. “The master said it’s for your own good,” she said over her shoulder.

I wrapped my shawl around me and followed, my legs were shaking terribly. The corridor was wider than any I have ever seen, and smelled like lemon and dust. Servants that passed me would lower their eyes, like they were dodging from something I had no idea of.

No one smiled. No one looked at me the way people looked at a guest. They looked at me the way people look at something dangerous, or something that had caused damage.

At the bottom of the main staircase the house opened into a room bigger than my whole flat back home. The morning sun shone through the tall windows, bouncing off a grand piano and paintings of people who must have been family for a long time.

I could hear voices of people shouting, like any second from now there'd be a serious war. I froze at the top step and listened. It had something to do with the wedding.

"Heavenly Lord, I never signed up for this."

“…how could you do that? You promised her, she trusted you!” a man was saying. He sounded like he was trying not to shout, but he was failing.

Another voice answered. “I made my choice. No one will question me. Not mother, not you, not the family, not the whole damn town.”

The woman’s scream made my name disappear from my throat. “You can’t just break an engagement like that. Not after everything, after the arrangements, after the invitations. What about her? The humiliation—”

“She will be taken care of,” Ethan’s voice interrupted. “There is no humiliation in what happened.”

I felt sick hearing this, and I have no idea why I was shaking this much. I had always thought I was the only one whose life was being thrown away tonight. But this was other people’s lives too.

I didn't intend to walk down there, but I found my legs betraying me. Their eyes snapped at me at the same time. The woman, whom I assumed to be his mother, looked at me with rage and so much disdain in her eyes. For one heartbeat, I thought this was my end.

“That’s because of you,” she spat, pointing her first finger straight at me. “If you hadn’t come in here, if you hadn’t caused him to... what do you think you are doing in my house?”

My heart lurched. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” I tried to explain, but the words sounded unbelievable. I felt their eyes on me, like they were measuring my fate.

Before I could say anything else she stormed towards me, landing a heavy slap on my face. The sound of her hand hitting my cheek was loud enough that I saw stars, every part of my face screaming in pain.

I touched my burning skin and stared at her in shock. Everyone went quiet. The maid behind me stepped forward with shock on her face, but no one stopped the woman. They were frozen, as if afraid to breathe.

From somewhere near the piano someone hissed, “Don’t speak. Not a word.” I knew it was the man who’d been angry before, perhaps the same man who had questioned Ethan.

I didn’t know if they were my tears or if my whole body was inviting tears because it was tired and scared.

“One word from you and you'll hate what I'm going to do to you,” Ethan's mother said, the anger on her face not fading a bit.

I staggered back, clutching my cheek. I could feel the warm blood glistening where her ring had caught me. “I swear, I don’t know him,” I managed to say. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

“You lie.” The woman’s eyes were wild. “You think you can come here and make us look like fools?” She pointed again to the open doorway, to where the world would see them humiliated. “You bribe him? You planned this? Do you know what you’ve ruined?”

I felt small as a mouse, cornered on a table. My hands were shaking on my cheeks. “I swear I didn’t do any of this. I ran in because men were chasing me. I came in to hide. I—”

Her face twisted. “Don't dare me, young lady. One further word, and I promise to kill you right here, and right now,” she hissed into my face. “I’ll make sure everyone remembers you as the woman who ruined my son’s life.”

My eyes shifted to him, surprised at how calm he was while his parents pointed accusing fingers at me. He didn't say anything, rather watching everything with that same unreadable face, like this was another phase of pain he enjoyed.

Then he stepped forward, his expression clearly showing he was done with the whole drama. “That's enough!”

They all stared at him like a flock of birds suddenly without wind. He walked straight to where I stood, close enough that I smelled his cologne. He didn’t touch me. He only looked at the woman who had slapped me.

“This will be the last time you lay a finger on her. And she will not be harmed in my house,” he said coldly, and the room seemed to shrink around those words. "Understood?"

The woman’s eyes flashed with fury and something else... fear. She opened her mouth to argue, but then closed it. She looked at Ethan like someone asking a question she’d never been brave enough to speak.

He touched my cheeks and asked. "Are you alright?" I nodded. “Get her something to clean that wound,” he said to one of the servants, and he looked back at me. “Sit down,” he told me quietly. I felt like I had been told to sit on a verdict.

The maid guided me to a chair. My cheek burned where the slap had landed, I could still hear the reverberating sound ringing in my ears.

As she fixed a wet cloth to my cheek, moving things around me, I couldn't help but believe fate had played a cruel game on me.

"So, you're going to have this bitch from the slump be your wife, while Vivienne accepts her fate?" His mother questioned.

I could tell from his facial expression that he wasn't ready to have more of this conversation. "Alvina is my wife." He gritted, his face stained with anger. "And you dare not call her a bitch! Whether or not any of you approve this marriage, I don't give a damn. And as for Vivienne, if she can't accept her fate, then I am sorry, there's nothing I can do.”