Katherine
A soft tap on my thigh roused me from my sleep. My mind still threatened to go under the tide of sleep only to have a palm tougher than I was used to cradle my chin.
"Who is? Who are you?" I asked drowsily trying to pee open my eyes that felt swollen and puffy from all the crying.
"It is I, Cillian."
even in my sleep drunken state, I knew to shriek and pull myself away from his reach.
"Cillian?" I called cautiously as my sanity began to return to me.
I watched the stranger lean on his knee in his squaring position before rising to his full height. He towered over me like a dangerous omen.
"It is lord Stratford to you Miss WestCliff," he corrected with an air of authority.
A scoff escaped my lips of its own free will. An imposter with rights to the earldom exercising his Earl rights on me.
"Well Lord Stratford," I spoke gathering my skirt and rising to my feet which felt like rubber. "What are you doing in my room?"
Underneath the volume of my skirt, my knee threatened to give out, but I forced them still, looking up at the new Earl and hiding away all the signs of my nervousness.
Cillian was very tall up close. Very tall and very handsome.
I swallowed at my findings. Father hadn't realized that Cillian was the wrong person to take his place. He had the air of a libertine about him and a snarl permanently etched to his face.
"I have come to fetch you for dinner and hoped to buy a little time before we go downstairs and have you agree to the rest of your family to marry me." He explained, in a voice so calm that one would think we were discussing what colour to paint the guest rooms.
I pretended to straighten my dress, tugging at its nonexistent creases while I spoke to him.
"We shall not be announcing a thing my lord," I replied boldly, holding his stare.
One of his eyebrows quirked up in disbelief as if doubting my sensibilities.
"I believe your father spoke some sensible things to you in his letter."
"Oh, of course. He wrote of how we both were the hero's in his story of rebuilding the WestCliff family. A stupid dream considering you do not answer WestCliff in your names and I'd have to change mine the moment I marry you." I turned and walked away to my bed, eager to relief my legs of the stress of standing.
Cillian followed behind me, maintaining a respectable distance. "I believe your father was more interested in bloodlines than the actual names."
The way he sounded so sure that it was fathers wish made me sigh with heartache. He sounded exactly like father would when trying to convince you of his plans, he…
"Do come down now, your mother would be getting worried."
The gall on this man to pretend to care about more than his stolen inheritance. Why had father chosen him?Why had he come?
Tired of my delays, Cillian turned on his heel and made for the door.
"Lord Stratford, why?"
He paused, few inches away from the door and stared right ahead.
"Why what?"
"Why would you marry a total stranger?"
"Miss WestCliff, remove all delusions from your mind when you think of why I am agreeing to this. Your father singlehandedly made the last ten years of my life as tough as it needed to be just to shape me into the man of his choice. Your father ruined my life, just so I can serve a purpose to him. I'm merely here to marry you and close the loop, returning a favour to you that your father had bestowed on me." The steel in his voice told me that he had ulterior motives for the marriage.
"Whatever you say about father isn't true, I wouldn't not tolerate you speaking about my father in such a way again."
In one swift motion, Cillian turned around and stalked towards me, grabbing my arm like he had done in fathers study and yanked me to my feet.
"Listen to me now Katherine. You would seize your childish thinking and stupid praises of the late Earl in this house. He might have been a god to you but be rest assured that he was a monster to most. Take lady Aurelia for example and Shirley, they know a side to your father that you do not know, as do I. Now I won't repeat myself again. Get up immediately and let us head to dinner, your mother is waiting."
With a solemn nod and a tightened fist, I forced myself into a temporary submission.
"Yes my lord."
Cillian led me to the dining table where what remained of my family sat. I looked dispassionately about to find that mother hadn't assumed her regular spot, the chair reserved for the lady of the house and gulped loudly as Collins pulled me to the dining area.
"Lady Aurelia, I did not wish for you to be usurped so please assume your seat."
"No, the seat officially belongs to another. I shall not be sitting there."
Mother whom had always bowed to any form of authority had suddenly grown vocal overnight, albeit in a soft manner. Where had this gut been when father was alive?
"The seat shall remain vacant then, there's no one to assume the position."
With a scoff, I withdraw my arms from his and walked around the table to my personal private spot.
As soon as I sat, the servants started serving dinner.
"Do you find the property to your liking lord Stratford?" Mother asked, trying to make small talk.
"The late Earl had a rather unique taste in things and had spoon fed me to like things of the same fashion and so I find myself happy with the current placement of things."
"I'd have you know, sir, that I helped my father with design pickings and even arrangement of most of the things here," I inputed.
"I fail to see why that matters."
"Oh, it could buy me at least a few years after the two weeks have elapsed to find my feet before you kick me out."
A dry laugh rose in his throat and he shook his head.
"Be rest assured that once the two weeks are over you'd be personal booted out Miss WestCliff. As of today, all that your father owned has been handed over to me and you? Nothing. You have yet to give me a sound reason to let you remain."
My heart sank. How cruel did he have to be to the daughter of the man he constantly claimed raised him to be the caliber of man he had turned out to be? A good one, if I am to take father's endorsement of him as a sign.
"Cillian, you have spoken so fondly of my father but seem to…"
"Katherine, I have been spoken of no fondness about your father. Despite what angelic mental paintings you have of him, your father had been a wicked man in his time on earth and you shall cease to sing his praises in my home."
"But…"
"Katherine," it was mother who called my name with warning this time. "Listen to the new lord and do as he says."
Opening and closing my mouth multiple times like a fish out of water, I focused on my meal. Wondering if I was the only one whom father had truest been good too and if Cillian's evil intentions could be justified.
My heart ached terribly to think of my father as anything but good, but he was now too far away to shield me from the evil husband he had sent my way.
"I've decided, Lord Stratford. I shall marry you," I proclaimed, killing whatever was left of my joy.