"H-how can this b-be?" Evie stuttered from sheer astonishment mixed with a sense of bewilderment, clouding her thoughts.
The likeliness of being considered for a job from the Lord's very disposition, was a thought that dared not to cross her mind.
In past times, when Evie sought a job, she had never envisioned working at the lord's service. However, it was rather ironic that such an offer was being brought to her doorstep.
It felt too good to be through, like an illusion of the eyes…a mirage, but the evidence of reality was the fashioned brown piece of note and the black-inked write-up contained in its page glaring at her.
However, the biggest mystery to Evie remained how her name had appeared on the list of potential servants to begin with.
Had perhaps her guardian angel taken pity on her and had fixed her name there?
It stated she was to come to the mansion for a confirmation of the job the next morning, a day she awaited to swiftly come by. For females of lower status as her, far beneath the oppressing feet of the elites, obtaining such a job was a dream come true. It was a knowledgeable fact on how well-paid servants who worked for the lord were. He was the Lord, after all, one who sat on the apex hierarchy of nobility.
A smile bearing satisfaction and contentment stretched through her lip while keeping her eyes glued to the page as though rereading for confirmation.
Drawn to talks and sounds subtly emitting from the living room, her aunt barged out of the kitchen, her apron dusty from the flour sticking to it.
"Who was that?" Aunt Marie's curious gaze swept towards Evie, sighting the steadied piece of paper carefully held by her fingers.
Evie responded, "A mailman,"
"Looks like you would never stop fancying the smell of letters, Evie," saying this, she snatched the piece out of her hand, having Evie purse her lips from her aunt's dramatic character.
Taking it to be the constant countless letters her niece received, each letter as useless and worthless as the other, a flicker of ridicule flashed across Marie's features. However, reality was a stark contrast the moment her eyes of mockery fixated on the content of the letter.
"Oh my goodness!!" A shocked gasp escaped her lips. Her look of derision faded into something of interest, "How on earth did this happen?"
Aunt Marie continued, "Who knew the heavens would finally take kindness on us to repay our thirteen years of suffering? The Lord's Mansion of all places."
However, her aunt's words seemed to have stricken a chord within Evie, as her once gleeful expression grew into a frown, visibly creasing on her forehead. She fought to revert to an unbothered look.
There it was. Another disheartening remark, the one that suddenly triggered the memories of her past.
Thirteen years ago, a horrifyingly tragic incident, an incident that left a seemingly unhealable scar within her heart, had compelled her to move to live with her relatives. It was the death of her parents.
Aunt Marie implied that Evie's presence had been akin to suffering. But ironically, devils loved to paint angels black as they had enough darkness in them.
Marie, who looked unbothered despite knowing she had triggered a chain of emotion within Evie, cautioned, "I know you have a habit of throwing good fortunes away, Evie, but not this time. You have always misused past opportunities and this is a chance to act responsibly."
"I won't throw it away," she mumbled, pursing her lips. She never intended to. On the contrary, this would be her ticket out to freedom.
And just when she thought things wouldn't get more problematic, she heard her Aunt's utterances, "Good, and make yourself very useful there; who knows, you might just catch the eyes of some nobleman who will take a liking to you, and make you his mistress."
"W-what?" Her eyes widened at her aunt's brazen advice.
Did she have such a low opinion of her that she found her more suitable for a mistress than a wife?
"Oh please, Evie," Aunt Marie displayed a dramatic eye roll, "Don't act so innocent like you don't secretly desire to be entangled with a man of high status considering our ordinary background. Or better, getting attention from the lord would be the most useful thing you can achieve."
"The Lord is a celibate," Evie reminded her Aunt. So the rumors had told, but even if he was to become the most heterosexual man alive, she would never fathom such a bad idea her aunt attempted filling into her head.
"That doesn't mean there aren't other noblemen who are almost as powerful and influential as the Lord."
"I just need the work." she bluntly replied, declining her aunt's selfish advice, having her lips pull into a sneer.
"Look at you, Evie. You are twenty-one and barely young anymore. Wasn't Lady Irene a slave, who suddenly caught the Viscount's eyes and is now his second wife? You aren't anything different from her. You should be grateful you are quite attractive to be fancied.'
Comparison, her aunt's favorite dish.
Just because Lady Irene was fortunate in ascending the hierarchy ladder didn't imply Evie wanted the same. Wealth and power were two things she would never be fascinated by. All she desired was a man who would love and cherish her, when the right time came, not becoming a nobleman's second option.
"You shouldn't just throw away such a one-time opportunity into the mud, I'm sure your mother would have told you the same." Her Aunt's prolonged words were like feathers against her uncompromising resolve.
Her mother would certainly have advised her to remain on a path of morality, not getting entangled with nobles and elites harboring dark secrets and dirty pasts, and involved in unfair games of politics against the poor.
The Lord of Velmont was no exception; his infamous reputation of being a villain, cold-hearted and dangerous, whose presence attracted trouble, was well-known by Evie, but that didn't mean she would decline the job offer. As long as she was committed to her duty, avoiding attention, and not getting on his bad side, everything would turn out well.
When Aunt Marie left, Evie enthusiastically returned to her room. Placing the letter on her table, she commenced her morning chores. But the feeling from the past Aunt Marie's words had brewed was unable to die down.
Once upon a time, her life was a bed of roses, a stark contrast to the harsh critics of life she currently faced. Her parents' love had been a shield against the world's cruelty, but reality took a drastic turn the night their blood had soiled the grounds red, with the rest of the victims.
The memories…they were vivid and fresh.
It was a usual serene, moonlit evening in Devonshire until the barbaric noises and thuds of footsteps disrupted the village's state. Then came metallic slashes of swords, accompanied by excruciating screams, throwing the village into utter chaos.
'Evie, dear. Hide, don't let them catch you,' Her mother's tear-filled gaze, held love and simultaneously fear, urging her daughter to hide from the savages.
Her papa had been out of the house when the ordeal began and had been one of the first to be slain. The bangs on their door got louder, and with each second ticking, they closed in with their doom.
'No, mama. I-I don't want to l-leave you here.' In desperation, she clung to her mother, knowing she intended on being the price of her living.
"You have to go, dear. Soon they'll break through the door. They'll find us and kill us."
'I can't live without you, mama,' tears of hopelessness streamed down her cheeks.
'You have to live for me, honey; that's all I ever wish for. I love you…I love you so much' Saying those words, her mother had pushed her to hide in a dented wall, enough to accommodate her tiny body, concealed by a wooden board. Right then, the savages broke into the house.
Evie was forced to hear the dying screams of her mother being brutally pierced by the swords, while she hid helplessly, palming her lips to avoid making a sound.
In exhaustion from crying, she had fainted, been rescued by the villager's guards the next morning along with a few other survivors, and then had been taken to live with her uncle, residing in the neighboring land, Velmont.
Evie couldn't deny Uncle Thomas was a good man, thirteen years of living with him, yet he showed no signs of displeasure nor contempt against her. She would forever be grateful to him.
However, it was Aunt Marie's constant bickering and Simon, her cousin's perverted approach and lewd gazes towards the moment she turned eighteen, that was a bother to Evie, and had made the decision of leaving to thrive within her. Luckily, she had found a way out, and that was all she had hoped for.
But little did Evie realize that accepting the letter of invitation was the very thread that would begin weaving a future she never intended for.