Each item hurled into worn leather satchels, their weight crushing as though we carried the remnants of a life severed by force.
“Be quick, Mary,” I whispered, the panic climbing in my throat.
My heart pounded like a trapped bird, frantic and helpless, its wings slamming against my ribs.
The house—once my sanctuary—now felt like a tomb.
Every creak of the floorboards screamed danger.
Every breath, every whispered instruction, felt like a spark in a room full of powder.
Outside the door, the mansion stirred, muffled voices and footsteps unaware of the exile unfolding behind these walls.
We moved like shadows, our steps cautious but propelled by the ticking clock of my father’s threat.
The corridors, once familiar, felt alien now—cold, vast, and merciless.
The mansion that had cradled my entire existence was now hostile ground, its grandeur a mockery of the life we’d been forced to abandon.
With our satchels slung over our shoulders, we carried not just possessions, but the weight of survival, loss, and beginnings forged from ruin.
“Stay close,” I whispered to Mary—my anchor, my only constant in a world that had turned its back on me.
Together, we fled the place I once called home, our shadows fleeting and forlorn.
Behind us, the door clicked shut—a soft, merciless, full stop to everything that had been.
It was over.
Ahead lay only the unknown, wrapped in morning mist and fear, as we hastened away from the crumbling edifice of my past.
The stables loomed—a rough sanctuary in our escape, smelling of hay, sweat, and freedom.
We burst through the wide double doors, our breaths ragged, desperate.
“Harry!”I called, my voice urgent, echoing off beams and rafters.
From the shadows, the stable hand emerged.His face was smudged with dirt and sweat, and his eyes narrowed as he took us in.
“Lady Alexander?”
Suspicion coiled in his tone, his gaze darting between our disheveled appearances.
A flicker of insolence gleamed in his eyes, and a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“What’s the meaning of this?”
“Prepare a carriage.Now.”
The command cracked through the air like a whip, my voice leaving no room for defiance.
His expression didn’t falter, but I saw the shift behind his eyes.
The calculation.The hesitation.The thrill of power, if only for a moment.
“Seems the high and mighty can fall after all,” he quipped, leaning lazily against a wooden post, dirt-streaked fingers toying with a bit of straw.
I stepped closer, my gaze hard.
