At the same time Francis had much more important tasks and in carrying out this task he wore his own small knife neatly closed between his trousers and the heavy leather belt that surrounded his abdomen.
The marquis was confident, determined, never so much in his life.
That was the great day he had been waiting for for a long time now, the day when he would finally take his revenge for what his father had done to him and his mother.
He carried a light silver torch tightly in his hand, the candle wax of which was now almost melted, grouped at the bottom of it.
It was dark, cold, but he was no longer afraid of his father.
Moreover, Francis was already twenty years old, he was no longer a child and did not need and deserved the strict control and command of his father.
He remembered when he was little and that situation never changed.
On the other hand, Francis was only an illegitimate son that Edward Hoover had by mistake with one of his lovers, he had never wanted nor desired him.
The young man had been told that it was his mother who protested to continue the pregnancy while his father had decidedly proposed an immediate abortion.
His mother was seventeen then, and his father was forty and he was a noble who already had a wife in his care.
Now the time had come to make him pay for everything he had done to him, to his mother, to his family.
Francis arrived at the door of the room, moved a lock of his own wavy hair behind one of his ears and placed it on the surface of the woody door.
He heard nothing, not a noise nor a voice, nothing, most likely his father must already be sleeping.
He touched the doorknob, pushed it, it was closed, locked by something or just padlocked.
The young man had prepared himself for this eventuality and so, with agility he took off the small knife that he carried with him and worked with his hands to open the door.
He put the blade inside the latch, turned it, forced it, turned and turned the handle several times and it took about ten minutes before the lock broke.
Francis easily entered the dark room, slowly closing the door behind him.
He still carried the torch in his hand, which in the circumstances came out quite useful as the room was in total darkness, not a light, not even that of the stars or the moon, which used to illuminate the night.
The young marquis walked over to the big bed without making a sound, without letting the floor creak and pushed the faint candlelight closer to his father's body.
He slept as he suspected and he wore no clothes.
Next to his body there was a smaller, younger and weaker one, Francis also brought the lamp close to it.
It was a girl who did not show more than fifteen years, she had wavy and long brown auburn hair and big closed eyes.
She was beautiful, young and most likely she was a virgin before then, as the young man could see by observing some small bloodstains that had formed on the white blankets.
His father must have been really evil and selfish, in fact he was already sixty years old, he had a face full of wrinkles and white hair, yet he seemed never to have lost his disgusting passion for beautiful younger girls.
He looked better at the young woman, at her sweet and harmonious face and imagined if after that night she too could possibly have become pregnant with an illegitimate child from his father, just like him.
In any case Francis would not have killed her, she had not committed any fault, apart from being there that evening.
He wanted his father to be awake, to see with his own eyes who would lead him to death but Francis also wanted to do it in a cunning way.
So the son briefly decided to climb onto the body of his father, almost astride him, looking directly his father's face.
The young man looked his father in the face for one last time thinking about how despicable that man's life was, how he deserved death.
He thought about what he had done to his mother: abandoning her at seventeen with his son in her belly, Francis thought about what he had done to him, how hard he had beaten him and forbade him to love pointing a rifle at his forehead when he was only fifteen.
Marquis Edward Hoover deserved a long and painful death.
Francis began to take out his knife, brought it closer to the man's throat, pushed it closer and closer until the cold blade touched his throat, letting the father open his eyes.
The young man didn't gave him time to scream, to call for help, letting the blade quickly and forcefully pass on his throat severing every vital vein.
The blood darted out of his body until it wetted half of the freckled face of his son who was still on top of him and half of the profile of his young lover who was still asleep.
The man squeezed his throat with one of his hands barely breathing and with the other he squeezed his son's white shirt full of blood.
At the end of his breaths, the marquis brought his son's head close to his face, squeezing his brown and wavy hair until his lips touched his ear.
-You bastard...- was his last word, before collapsing with his throat open in two on his pillow.
His father was right, on the other hand that was what Francis was, a bastard, an illegitimate son, this was his nature.
But when he lifted his face from the father's body, in the darkness he noticed the girl was awake and observing him with her blue eyes full of terror.
She didn't cry out, didn't protest, just looked at him and covered her breasts with part of the blanket stained with fresh and red blood.
-Please- came out almost as a frightened whisper from her lips -I beg you, don't hurt me...-.
The girl had a sweet, frightened voice and with her terrified eyes she looked at him and implored him.
-What is your name?- Francis asked throwing the small and sharp knife on the bloody blankets and looking at the young woman.
-My name is Leanna Watson, I'm fifteen, but please don't hurt me...I...really have not done anything bad...- the girl prayed covering her body more with the bloody blankets and observing how the young man slipped the bloody shirt from his body and dried his own face before leaving it on the blankets.
Francis smiled at the girl, she was young and had no experience so he took two large silver coins out of his pocket and placed them in her small hands.
- Listen up- he explained briefly before leaving the room -get out of here, get away as soon as possible if you don't want to be accused of murder by the guards and don't tell anyone that I was here ... do you understand?-.
The girl seemed cunning and intelligent in every way, so she shyly nodded and as quickly as possible put on her body some clothes that were still there on the cold and marble floor.
The guards arrived in the room half an hour later, alarmed by an attendant of the death of the marquis and foreign minister of the economy, Edward Hoover.
But no one could do anything as when they arrived the man had already bled to death.