XVI. Helpless

Lecia was alone at Martis. Catherine and Lisette had both left, and Vaughan was in London. It was only she and the staff. This was the type of situation a dog would be perfect for. Christ, why had she said all of that stuff about dogs at all? The poor man had been trying to be romantic.

But that didn’t matter anymore.

When she’d gotten the hastily scrawled note, she had politely asked Izzy to leave the room. She read it a few times before she fully absorbed what it meant, and then she crushed it into a ball and threw it across the room. In that moment she became a wave that swept across every surface of the sitting room and cast everything to the ground. A few vases were broken: shards of glass scattered on the floor, the flowers dropped, and the water forming puddles and seeping into the rugs. There were books that had fallen open, their pages folded. If she’d had a fire in the hearth, she would have burned things.

For a while she found herself on the ground, collapsed and sobbing. When she ran out of tears, she got up, brushed herself off, and went off to find the liquor in one of the lounges. There were so many bottles and decanters in the large cabinet that she spent half a day just sampling them to see which ones she liked. Many of them she was inclined to spit out as soon as she tipped them into her mouth, others she enjoyed. After a time they all started to taste just fine, and she’d stopped pouring her sips into a glass before tasting them.

She made her way back to her apartment with five bottles balanced in her hands and under her arms. A few servants had offered to help, but she had quickly dismissed them. Lecia set herself up in the antechamber between her sitting room and bedroom. There was a perfect alcove for her to curl up and rest her head against the wall and window. Four of the bottles were set down; the fifth accompanied her to grab a blanket off of her bed. Wrapping herself up in between swigs, she slumped to the ground and tried to keep breathing. Lecia wanted to rip out her heart, but she settled for the alcohol.

Her father was dead and she’d never apologized for the things she had said; she’d never told him that she was happy; she’d never thanked him.

The guilt was constricting her lungs, so she drank more. It wasn’t helping.

The past few months without him as a comrade had been harder than ever. Lecia had always been closer with her father than her mother, that’s why it had cut so deep for him to pawn her off on the Duke. She expected that kind of thing from the Baroness, not him.

At least he can’t betray me anymore, she thought bitterly, and then instantly felt horrible for it.

Lecia didn’t want to wear black. She didn’t want to mourn. She wanted her father to walk through the door now and say: “Ha! I knew you missed me.”

But he wasn’t coming. She would never see him again.

Zora was probably distraught over the news, crying prettily into the shoulder of her loving husband. Their mother… Their poor mother would be heartbroken, probably catatonic from the shock. Lecia wasn’t sure how her mother would function without her father.

She finished the first bottle and flung it across the room. It bounced with a hollow clunk before rolling and stopping against the wall. The fact that it didn’t break just made her angrier, but not enough to go after it. Eventually, the combination of liquor and tears stole Lecia’s consciousness, and she fell into unsatisfying sleep.

At some point, Izzy had sneaked in to clean up the mess and leave a plate of fresh bread. When Lecia awoke, she didn’t move from her spot. She shoved the bread as far away as she could before starting on the bottle she’d fallen asleep with; she most certainly was still drunk.

Aside from a few stops to the toilet—some to purge the alcohol, others the anxiety—Lecia remained in her little corner for days. She refused to eat, living off of rum, gin, and brandy instead. Izzy had left her with water a few times, but no one was completely sure she swallowed it.

The Duchess had been emotional, erupting in tears at times, but she was also known to scream on occasion. She was so far removed from her usual self that the staff was concerned, but there wasn’t much they could do. So they avoided her, and prayed that His Grace would return quickly.

Vaughan made it from London in record time. He leapt from his horse before it had stopped; the poor creature was covered in frothy sweat and would need to be retired after their journey. Without missing a beat, the Duke sprinted up the steps and entered his palace. The sun was just rising, but there were some servants in the Hall. By the way they appeared relieved to see him, he knew something was amiss, so he jogged through the place until he reached Lecia’s door. Her maid was waiting outside.

“How is she?” he demanded, tempted to just go in, but thinking better of it.

“Your Grace,” the maid sighed her relief. “Her Grace is very unwell.”

“What is it?” he asked. “Tell me,” he snapped when the response wasn’t instantaneous, but he promptly muttered an apology.

“Her Grace hasn’t moved since the note came,” Izzy told him.

“How many days ago?” he murmured, concerned.

“Four now, I believe,” the maid said.

“Jesus,” he swore. “Has she eaten? She’s at least had water, I assume.”

“We’ve brought her food every day, but she will not eat.” Vaughan could see that the maid was affected by the heartache. “She’s been drinking, My Lord, but it hasn’t been water.” Izzy bowed her head in shame.

“Shit,” he cursed to himself. “Izzy, have a bath prepared in my chambers, and double check that the sheets are fresh.” Before the girl could scurry off, he gently took her by the arm. “Take some time for yourself when it’s done; I’ll take care of her,” he promised.

As the girl dashed away, Vaughan prepared himself for what he would find.

He opened the door slowly, peering the sloppy arrangement of items. Vases were missing; the usual order of Lecia’s quarters was off, as if everything had been displaced and put back halfheartedly. Stepping through the sitting room, his boot crunched what he thought might be glass into the rug. His wife wasn’t in there, and when he looked through to her bedroom he didn’t she her there either. When he passed into the antechamber, however, he saw her.

She was wilted in the narrow alcove by the window. There were empty bottles and decanters organized on a small table—Izzy’s doing, he knew. The stench of alcohol wafted into his nose as he kneeled down beside her. He could see she was blinking, awake but maybe not aware of him.

“Lecia,” he said softly. She didn’t look at him. “You poor thing. I’m sorry I wasn’t here; I should have been here.”

Her head rolled around to look him in the eye. The bags under her sockets were so black it looked as though she’d picked a fight, especially with how puffy and red the crying had made her eyes. Her lips were dry and parted so she could breathe, her nose stuffed up. It looked as though she had been enveloped in a blanket, but it had sunken underneath her to exist only as a cushion from the hard wooden floor. She was in a dress that had been soiled from four days’ wear and spilling alcohol everywhere; her hair was falling all over and she certainly was unclean. What disturbed Vaughan the most was how broken she looked, how empty her eyes appeared to be; he wasn’t even sure she recognized him, but once she sobered up he would be able to tell how much of her had actually been depressed because of her father, not the alcohol.

“Cariad,” he said, tucking some hair behind one of her ears. His knuckles moved to caress her sullen cheek. “Let’s take care of you.” Vaughan adjusted his weight so that he could pick her up in his arms. She was limp in his grip, but he held her tightly as he made his way to his own apartment. Cradling her, he knew that what he felt was love, but that only made it that much harder to witness her suffering.

A/N: Tada! And I'm just getting started. In all seriousness, though, I'd just really like to take a second to thank everyone that's read and voted for this story. It means so much. I know the songs are probs a bit jarring, but I figured I would share them with you; it's what I've been listening to, and the Bloodlines songs were an eerily perfect fit for what I was writing.