The Bedroom & the Rules Part 3

The silence that followed stretched between us like a blade. In those two words—you won't—I heard everything he'd been too careful to say directly. This wasn't hospitality. This wasn't even a business arrangement between civilized people.

This was captivity, however elegantly disguised.

Say something, I commanded myself. Challenge him, defy him, make it clear that you won't be cowed by pretty threats.

But what could I say that wouldn't make my situation worse? What argument could I make that would change the fundamental reality of my powerlessness here?

"I understand," I said finally, the words feeling like swallowing glass.

I understand that you're holding me prisoner while pretending to offer me freedom.

I understand that my family's survival depends on my compliance with rules I'm not allowed to question.

I understand that you have the power to enforce your will, and I have none to resist it.

Kieran studied my face with uncomfortable intensity, as if he were trying to read thoughts I was determined to keep hidden. "Do you?" he asked quietly.

The question carried weight beyond its literal meaning. Do you understand what you're agreeing to? Do you understand the consequences of resistance? Do you understand that this arrangement will continue exactly as long as I will it and not a moment longer?

"I understand the parameters," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "Daylight freedom within specified boundaries. Evening confinement for my own safety. And absolute prohibition against leaving the estate."

I understand that I'm trapped, however comfortable the cage.

He nodded, though something in his expression suggested my submission wasn't bringing him the satisfaction he'd expected. If anything, he looked... troubled. As if he'd hoped for different responses, different reactions, different outcomes from this conversation.

Good, I thought with grim satisfaction. If you're going to imprison me, at least have the courtesy to feel guilty about it.

"Your meals will be provided at regular intervals," he continued, his voice taking on the formal cadence of someone eager to conclude an unpleasant task. "Books, music, whatever diversions you might require—you need only ask."

Diversions. As if I were a child to be entertained rather than an adult woman with her own desires and ambitions. As if comfort could substitute for freedom, luxury for autonomy.

"How thoughtful," I said, injecting just enough politeness into my tone to make the words a weapon rather than gratitude.

Kieran rose from his chair with movements that suggested our interview was concluded. But he paused at the threshold, his hand resting on the door handle, and for a moment I thought he might say something else. Might offer some explanation for the restrictions, some insight into what made such measures feel necessary to him.

Tell me, I willed him silently. Tell me why you think this is justified. Give me something to understand, even if I can't forgive it.

But whatever moment of uncertainty had held him passed without revelation. "I hope you'll find your time here... agreeable," he said finally, though the word seemed to stick in his throat.

Agreeable. What a remarkably inadequate term for whatever he thought was going to happen between us.

"I'm sure it will be enlightening," I replied, standing as well.

The door closed behind him with soft finality, leaving me alone in rooms that were beautiful, comfortable, and completely inescapable. I stood motionless for several heartbeats, listening to his footsteps retreat down the corridor, waiting until I was certain he was truly gone.

Then I moved to the tall windows that overlooked the gardens.

If I'm trapped here, I need to understand the nature of my prison.

The view was breathtaking despite my circumstances. Gardens that stretched toward the horizon, laid out in patterns that spoke of centuries of cultivation. Fountains that caught the afternoon light, roses that bloomed in defiance of the season, and beyond it all the forest that had brought me to this place.

The forest that contains the only path I know back to the world.

I pressed my palms against the glass, studying the treeline with the attention of someone who needed to understand every detail of her surroundings. Because whatever Lord MacAllister believed about the certainty of my compliance, he clearly didn't know what desperation could drive a woman to attempt.

I've held my family together through ruin and disgrace, I reminded myself. I'll find a way to survive this too.

But even as I made the mental vow, something about the forest gave me pause. The trees stood too straight, too still, arranged in patterns that seemed almost deliberate. And there was something else—a sense of being observed that had nothing to do with guards or servants or any human presence.

The forest is watching me.

The thought was absurd, completely irrational. Trees didn't watch anything. Forests were collections of plants, not conscious entities capable of observation or interest.

But this place had already proved that normal rules didn't apply. And as I stood at the window, studying the shadowed spaces between ancient trunks, I could swear I caught glimpses of movement that had nothing to do with wind or weather.

What lives in that forest? I wondered. What makes iron bars seem like protection rather than imprisonment?

Because that's what this was really about, wasn't it? Not just control, not just the whims of a man accustomed to absolute authority. There was something beyond those trees that made confinement seem reasonable, made restrictions feel necessary.

Something that hunts.

The certainty hit me like ice water, though I couldn't say why I was so sure. But standing there at the window, feeling the weight of inhuman attention from the shadows beyond the gardens, I finally understood that my captivity might have more to do with protection than punishment.

Which should have been comforting, I realized. But somehow makes everything infinitely more terrifying.

Because if there were things in that forest dangerous enough to require such measures, what did that say about the man who could control them? What did it say about the world I'd stumbled into?

And what did it say about my chances of ever finding my way home again?