"You imply that I am a money hoarding whore but when I do not have a single source to spend it. Look at my clothes and the jewel I wear, do you still feel I am a woman dying for wealth?" no, she looked like a crazy woman who had lost all her senses.
She looked so lost that he wanted to hold her in his arms and tell her that she need not worry. He would handle everything. But what was there to handle? What trouble was she facing? She was living as a monique with a lot of wealth. She could have had anything if she wanted.
Yet her truth and the truth world speak about her hold so much disparity. He told himself that he had nothing to do with it. Her presence had nothing to do with him.
He was here for his duty. She should not concern him but yet, when he was looking for the papers, his eyes searched for her more than her husband.
He had read every single parchment related to her yet a pile of documents that might help his cause was still waiting for a glimpse from him.
"Then what do you desire, Elara? Why did you not meet your family? Your friends in the count's manor, the daughter of the baron and the young girl from the barn, why have you never visited them?" did they stop benefiting you like i had?" he wanted to add but he bit his tongue and looked at her with a desperate gaze.
He would accept any truth she offered. How she had no idea how much he had tried to justify her actions for so long. He had thought the time had worked enough, that the feelings had faded but no! How he burnt everyone second she spared a glance at him.
How he struggled to control his body from touching her. She was the fire and he was the moth. She would not care but he would be burnt to death.
Even now, touching a married woman.. He wanted to commit the sin and she was here to make him a sinner.
"Come with me and I promise I will tell you everything." she offered, pausing him.
His eyes flickered and narrowed at her face.
"Leave!" The word moved all the knights and servants at once like puppets waiting for the command of their master.
The last one was wise enough to close the door behind them. She sat there alone with him as she wanted, yet her heart was beyond any rest.
It knocked so hard against its cage, that she was sure it would explode.
"Tell me what promise you wanted to make this time." He stopped up from his seat and sat on the table in front of her. When she did not speak, his hands reached for her hair and yanked them hard so that her eyes met his.
She winced at the pain but it did not affect her much. It was nothing more than a tickle in front of what she had faced in a long time.
He was not going to bang her head on the table. Even when she would whisper the truth, he would not kick her on the stomach. She told herself that he was not Philip, yet her body did not listen to her.
It started to recoil. Her knees lifted from the ground and came to protect the weak part of her body, covering her stomach and her chest and her hands holding them tightly in their place.
His eyes widened when she recoiled like a baby in his mother's womb. A look matching the mortification of his heart.
"I did not mean to beat you." how could she even think that he would do something so derogatory to anyone. To her out of anyone? "You have lost your mind.'' The comment was meant to hurt but she only laughed instead.
Her eyes brimming with unshed tears as she whispered to him.
"Not you! You never will." The words meant more for herself than for him. "But that did not mean your hands were white. You have a hand in my condition." her words startled her more than him.
She came to realize that even when she never accepted, her heart knew that he had a hand in her demise. If he had not left her alone to earn wealth first, if he had taken her when she had pleaded, then their reality would have been completely different. Then she would have… she gulped the thoughts back and locked them in the deepest part of her mind where they should rot till she forgot them.
Blaming him would bring her nothing. She needed his forgiveness and his truth to live. Live! That was her only aim and reason. Live… for what? Her mind had asked her logically. There Was nothing in the world that meant anything to her.
What was the use of life then? The death seemed tempting, it was peaceful and full of freedom. She did not need to live for the expectations for her family or the pain that comes to her every night like a lover hiding in the dark.
It embraces her to never leave alone. Death would be her salvation, her freedom from the obsession pain had offered her.
"Elara.. What nonsense are you spouting?' she blinked and the clouds of thoughts slowly started to clear. She almost felt drunk on her thoughts. The thought of liberation from death had intoxicated her mind.
But for now, she needed a different kind of drug.
"You left that night. It is your mistake." it must not be her voice for it came much bolder than she had thought. "It was your mistake that I have lost everything. And to compensate me, you must come with me. If you don't want to come to my room, come to my estate. There is an orchid behind these shallow fields. We have grown apples this year. Would you not need them for your men?"