The Bargain Revealed Part 3

 

The next morning arrived gray and cold, matching my mood perfectly. I sat at the kitchen table, mechanically eating porridge that tasted like ash while Father bustled around with the same manic energy he'd displayed the night before. Mother moved through her morning routine with mechanical precision, but I caught her glancing at me when she thought I wasn't looking.

They were both waiting for me to ask questions they didn't want to answer.

"Father," I said finally, setting down my spoon with deliberate care. "I think we need to discuss your bargain."

The bustling stopped immediately. Father's shoulders went rigid, and Mother's hands stilled on the teacup she'd been washing.

"Catherine—" Father began.

"No," I interrupted, surprised by the steadiness in my own voice. "No more careful words and half-truths. I heard you talking last night. I know this involves me specifically, and I know you're planning to... deliver me to someone in a month or two."

Deliver. The word tasted bitter, but it was honest in a way Father's euphemisms weren't.

Father sank into his chair like a man who'd been carrying too heavy a load for too long. "You don't understand the situation we were in," he said quietly. "The debts, the threats... we were facing debtors' prison, Catherine. Or worse."

"So you sold me instead."

"I saved us all!" The words exploded out of him with desperate force. "Do you think it was easy? Do you think I wanted to—" He stopped, running his hands through his hair. "It's not what you think. He's not... he's a gentleman. Educated, well-mannered. You'll be treated well."

Treated well. Like a favored pet or a valuable possession.

"What exactly does he expect from me?" I asked.

Father's mouth opened and closed several times before any words emerged. "Companionship," he said finally. "Nothing improper, nothing that would compromise your virtue. He's been... alone for a long time. He simply wants someone to talk to, someone to share his home."

The explanation was so obviously incomplete that it might as well have been a fairy tale. Men didn't purchase companions with fortunes, especially not from desperate families they'd never met. And they certainly didn't require month-long delays before claiming what they'd bought.

"And if I refuse?" I asked.

The question hung in the air like a blade. Father's face went pale, and I saw something flicker in his eyes that might have been terror.

"You can't refuse," he whispered. "He made it very clear what would happen if I failed to honor our agreement."

What would happen. Not embarrassment or financial consequence, but something that could drain the color from Father's face and put that haunted look in his eyes.

"He threatened you."

"He didn't need to threaten," Father said. "Some things are simply... understood."

I felt Mother's hand settle on my shoulder, warm and trembling slightly. "What kind of man is he?" she asked quietly.

Father was quiet for a long moment, staring at his hands. "The kind," he said finally, "who lives in a castle that shouldn't exist, tends gardens that bloom out of season, and speaks of bargains like they're ancient law."

Ancient law. The phrase sent chills down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold morning air.

"You're frightened of him," I said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes," Father admitted. "I'm terrified of him. But I'm more terrified of what happens to all of us if I break my word."

I looked around the kitchen—at Mother's carefully controlled expression, at Jamie's abandoned toys scattered on the floor, at Father's hands that still hadn't stopped trembling. This was my family. Broken, desperate, probably doomed in a dozen different ways, but mine.

And if my sacrifice could save them...

"When?" I asked.

"Catherine, no," Mother said immediately. "There has to be another way. We can't just—"

"When?" I repeated, looking directly at Father.

"Soon," he said quietly. "He'll send word when he's ready for you to come."

Ready for you to come. As if I were a package to be delivered at his convenience.

I stood up slowly, surprised to find my legs steady beneath me. "Then I suppose I should prepare myself."

That night, after Mother had finally stopped crying and Father had retreated to his study with a bottle of brandy, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and trying to imagine what my future held. The mysterious lord of an impossible castle who bought women with gifts and spoke of bargains like divine commandments.

Sleep, when it finally came, brought dreams that felt more like memories.

I stood in a vast garden where roses bloomed in impossible colors, their perfume so intense it made my head spin. Shadows moved between the flower beds, too large and fluid to be human, and somewhere in the darkness I could hear breathing that didn't match any rhythm I recognized.

Catherine.

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, deep and rough like wind through winter trees. I turned toward the sound and saw him—a figure that seemed to shift between man and shadow, his eyes the gold of predator's hunger in the darkness.

You're coming to me, he said, and his voice carried satisfaction that felt almost possessive. The bargain is made. The debt will be paid.

I tried to speak, tried to ask who he was and what he wanted from me, but my voice wouldn't work. I could only stand there in the impossible garden while he watched me with those golden eyes that seemed to see straight through to my soul.

Soon, he whispered, and I woke with the taste of roses on my tongue and the certainty that somewhere in the darkness, something was waiting for me.

Something that already considered me his.