Page 2 of A Lie so Pretty and Poisonous

“Yes, Mother.”

She folded her hands properly on her lap. “Cora is to take lessons and be educated on how to be of nobility. You will not impede any of it.”

I clenched my teeth. “Yes, Mother.”

Her grey eyes sparked. “You will be the ever-proper lady I have always expected you to be, attending events, balls, and outings as a representative of your bloodline. If you even once embarrass me, as you are so inclined to do, I will throw you out of this manor.”

Heat rose inside me, and I inhaled a deep breath. The burning desire to exert defiance, woven into the fabric of who I was, must be doused. “Of course, Mother. I will make you proud.”

She scoffed and eyed me. “Doubtful, Aurora. It would take an act of the gods for you to even impress me, much less make me proud.”

I cast my eyes to the overly glossed floor. After twenty-five years of hearing such vitriolic rhetoric, I thought I would have grown numb to it. It stung just as much as it did when she spat such things at me when I was barely out of diapers.

“I should have had another child. Maybe that one would not have turned out so disappointing.” She sighed dramatically before taking another dainty sip of her tea. “You and Cora shall remain under my roof. To show you that I still have your best interests at heart, I have arranged a gesture of goodwill.”

This can’t be good.

I flicked my eyes up at her, and she disingenuously smiled. “Upon your unexpected arrival yesterday, I went to work to find you a suitor. Not an easy task to find someone willing to court someone like,” her eyes moved up and down my frame as she wrinkled her nose, “you.”

My breath hitched. I was mourning the life Cora and I had settled into, having it violently torn from my grasp, and the beast wanted me to fill the cavernous hole in my chest with the shallow commitment of another man. It was punishment poised as a gift—a favored way for her to deliver cruelty.

“You may remember him from your youth. He has grown into a fine gentleman and comes from a good lineage. I am unsure why he has not made a match with any worthy noblewomen, but I did not want to question why he is willing to consider a woman who has sullied herself by producing offspring with a filthy commoner. Especially after said commoner didn’t even want her.” Her words were venom, dripping with disgust.

I worked to control my breathing, unwilling to reveal any apprehension or disapproval. My eyes wandered to Cora, held in the arms of a stranger.

She raised her chin again and continued. “You are lucky to have a mother who went out of her way to find such a good match for you after everything you did to me.”

I forced a stiff nod. “Yes, Mother. Thank you for doing this for me. May I ask the name of the noble you have graciously set me up with?”

My mother grinned. “Lord Jairus Grimaldi.”

The color drained from my face, and my eyes widened. Oh, goddess, no. Not him.

I was born into a world that wanted me to drown in my own blood from biting my tongue and swallowing my disdain. For years, my teeth gnashed against the injustices and expectations thrust upon me at the behest of my mother. I was marked as “defiant,” shunned by people who never held my admiration or respect. I stopped fighting against what was demanded of me for the sake of my daughter, nearly choking on the pieces of who I was as a sacrifice to become who I was told I must be.

Not anymore.

Cora was six when we left Alwine Manor. My mother began her persistent need to control her, as she had done with me. Her hair. Her clothes. Her mannerisms. Cora became withdrawn and anxious. It hit me all at once that my mother was in the beginning stages of trying to turn her into the perfection that I could not meet. So, I left with Cora in the middle of the night on a stolen horse with nothing but a small satchel of clothes and personal items that wouldn’t slow us down in our escape. Our departure was a desperate attempt to run from the clawing grasp of inherited trauma, so I could become the type of mother to my child that I had always coveted for myself.

Once I had found the stability and quiet solace I craved in the village of Olinbury, a place that allowed me and my daughter to shed the expectations of nobility, we thrived and grew into the people we were meant to be. The wounds I suffered still lingered like a specter, being haunted by people who were still alive. But with each passing quiet year away from my old life and its binds, the ghosts of my past faded and were now mere wisps of passing memories.

“Have a good day at school, sweet girl!” I called to Cora as she smiled and waved, slipping out the front door of the apothecary, schoolbooks in tow. Her dimpled smile, one of the few contributions I made to her beauty, was my favorite thing to look at. I used to hate my own dimples, but watching her perfectly wear the same ones made me love my own, too.

Cora skipped down the street to her schooling, as my attention was drawn to an out-of-place figure walking toward the same door that Cora had just left through. I stiffened, drawing in a breath.

Shit. She found me.

My stomach lurched, and a weight pressed against my chest as I watched Terren’s distressing figure through the shop window stalk toward the apothecary. My mother’s favorite aristocratic messenger was here to either collect me or deliver a message, neither of which was going to be pleasant. He was vindictive and cruel—the exact reasons my mother favored him.

I scanned the shop, quickly calculating my chances of escape, but my daughter was too far out of my reach, and I resigned myself to accept what fate was in store for me. I shifted back and forth on my feet and wrung my fingers, the floorboards creaking beneath me, as Terren opened the front door of the apothecary. No amount of calming herbs wafting through the air would be able to soothe what he was about to inflict upon me. A venomous smile slithered across his face as he stepped through the threshold onto our dark, wooden floor. A place of healing infiltrated by a man who administered pain in various forms.

Terren’s dark brown eyes sparkled at the sight of me. His clothes exemplified wealth and status, finely made and nary a wrinkle on them. Clothes of nobility, so unlike what most men in the village would wear, made him stand out, delivering an expertly crafted message: He was better than everyone else who lived here. I could only hope a pickpocket lifted his coin purse off him due to his arrogance.

He let out a huff. “Well, well. I shouldn’t be surprised to find you working as some lowly clerk in a rustic shop, but I am.” His hubris was ever-present in his biting words. “I thought I would find you selling yourself for scraps of bread in a brothel. Your mother will be pleased you haven’t fully lowered yourself to that level…yet.”

I narrowed my eyes at his repulsive insinuation. “You would know all about brothels, wouldn’t you, Terren? The only reason a woman would want anything to do with you is if you pay her.”

He rounded the counter, snatching my arm and pulling me toward him. His lip curled, and his brow pulled together as his hold tightened in a bruising grip. “You bitch!” Flecks of spit landed on my cheek as I winced in his grasp.