“My heart is dying, of so much sorrow, but he can’t see it, as he can't see the desert of my heart”.

  That day, Eva had cried a lot. Closed in her unfamiliar room, thrown on her strange bed, she gave into despair. Her body was trembling in bursts of tears and her weeping was heard all over the house, but nobody entered her room or tried to calm her down. She was just left alone as she should have learned how things are done in that house, and that life is unfair. At least these were the words Christine said when she had been told that Eva was crying and that Mister Beneath had left.

  Emily was out of the city that afternoon. Christine had sent her to check their business with loans there and she had to return the next morning, so nobody was there to help Eva.

  Even if Emily would have been home that day, she probably wouldn’t have climbed those stairs and entered the room, because she was convinced that Brian Beneath will bring only sorrow in Eva’s heart, and the sooner she forgets those feelings, the better it will be for her.

  This was the first time Emily and Christine had different opinions about something. Before Emily had been listening to all of Christine’s demands as she succeeded in many things and a lot of important men had passed through her bed also, bringing her too high in that society, but this time Miss Davis felt that Christine is doing this not due to businesses, but due to own gains and that interest had only one name - Brian Beneath.

  Emily knew all the things Christine did to Brian to try to convince him to join her, but Beneath was a man difficult to subdue and this made Miss Bircham feel that he is her personal enemy and not her cousin. She dreamt about forcing him to listen to her, over and over again, but she always failed. But when Brian revealed his interest in Miss Stonebridge, Christine’s harrier nose felt something strange floating in the air and where there is romance, there has always been somebody easy to control. And that was Christine Bircham’s best trick: attack when her prey is weak and never let him go. And her future prey was Brian this time.

  But she hadn’t the slightest idea about what he was planning to do and it was also Christine’s worst mistake. She was never thinking that the prey could revolt and the chaser will be in the end the one chased. And this was exactly what Brian was planning to do: to chase Christine till she would take off her fangs from Eva’s throat letting her breathe.

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  Instead, Eva didn't think the same. She felt betrayed and abandoned and she decided that it was time to abandon herself too, at least for a while, and after losing herself in an ocean of tears, she fell asleep in the end, but her sleep wasn’t sweet and calm. She had had nightmares, she had been tossing in her sleep and feeling that everybody who surrounds her will abandon her in the end.

  It was already half-past six when she finally got out of bed. Her eyes were red from so much crying, and big dark marks were visibly drawn under her eyes.

  Sitting in front of the mirror, Eva saw a different person in front of her. Somebody she never met before and this thing made her feel scared. It wasn’t the first time Eva had cried, but it definitely had been the first time when she cried so much. And she also felt regret in her chest when she remembered the fact that she didn’t say goodbye to Brian when he left. She just ran up the stairs and said nothing to him. Eva thought then that this way she would make him stay and wait for her, but soon after she saw his carriage leaving the property and she understood that such tricks don’t work with Beneath.

  Later, when Anna knocked on the door telling her about the dinner, Eva just said she isn’t hungry and that she will go to bed early and she was left alone. But Eva didn’t go to bed. She started to walk around the room, trying to calm the anxiety she had in her heart this way. If she would have had a mother, she probably would have taught her not to despair, but she didn't have one. Nobody told her that men are weak when it is related to beautiful women and they won’t give up easily without a prize. It was a law of nature, but Eva didn’t know it. Nobody told her about it and nobody ever tried, at least, to whisper to her about such things. She read something about it in books, but there were just words written in a certain way. There wasn’t anything worthy to mention when it came to real life. From books you will never learn how to manage your soul, you can just use it as a balm against pain. And Eva decided to use it.

  She took a book from the bookshelf, but she put it back down right away. She couldn’t concentrate since the anxiety born inside her was increasing in volume and it had started right after she had read the words: “she finally felt that she was loved. The man next to her not only is caring about her, but also he is trying to make her happy…”

  “To make her happy…” It was something that Eva wasn’t sure of anymore. She dreamt about it when she met Brian and she understood that he had some interest in her, but after that day she didn’t know what to think about it. She was sad and happy at the same time, but also the uncertainty that was surrounding her at that moment was something scary and she didn’t know what to do or if she should talk to somebody about this, but not everything was lost. Her feelings were real and being young was giving her time to fight…

..and the smell of that day, something with the scent of the rose of love, made her smile.