The Duke Loves Me
Apate screamed in pain as Maximilian’s sword pierced her body. He swiftly pulled the sword out, as if to exert maximum pain on Apate’s dying body and Apate began panting at the sight of the glistening maroon blood coating the sword along its length.
‘Theo…Theo, how could you? Theo…I loved…I loved you.’, Apate managed to throw out these words but this did nothing to displace the sheer contempt in Theodore’s eyes but his grip on Amelia became even tighter. Apate’s gaze shifted to Amelia’s face and her heart refilled with the green poison of envy for even in such a time, Amelia’s fair face, frame with her golden locks, scrunched up in anguish, looked as if God himself had adorned her eyes with pearl-like tears rolling down her rosy cheeks. Amelia buried her face into the duke’s chest, and both Maximilian and Apate looked away as if the sight was perhaps too intimate, too painful for them, and Apate closed her eyes shut to welcome death.
She had gone through, what other people would consider, worst instances of pain and humiliation. Growing up as the daughter of the first wife of Baron Dalbright, her 28 years in the kingdom of Beachton were not easy. Tongues had wagged when the blue-eyed, fair-haired first Lady Dalbright had given birth to a mousy, dark-haired, brown-eyed little girl, but she had not lived long enough after childbirth to face the sting of such words whispering about infidelity, or protect Apate from the subsequent abuse the dark-haired, blue-eyed Baron Dalbright would continue to unleash on his daughter. His second wife, a famed former courtesan, Lady Iris Dalbright, picked up the baton of abuse and mistreatment with gusto.
‘Dumpy girls like you shouln’t eat too much. No one shall marry you with that figure, ‘ she would sneer as she ordered the kitchen servants to save table scraps for Apate while Baron Dalbright, her step brother, Damian and her stepsister, Daphne would feast on a lavish assortment of puddings, meats and soups.
By the age of 18, people who came in and out of Baron Dalbright’s estate had almost forgotten that he had three children, not just two fifteen-year-old twins for Apate had fallen into the routine of blending in with the estate staff and the Baron and Baroness were content with maintaining such a ruse. No one that did not remember of Apate was reminded of her by them. Her threadbare, washed-out dresses, unadorned, pulled-back hair, and hands calloused from years of menial household chores of course, did not get in the way of this.
‘Mother! Mother! Apate, that wretched girl has broken my doll!’ an eight-year-old Daphne had yelled once after Apate had failed to glue together a piece of the porcelain doll’s foot that Daphne had dropped and broken. A tight slap on each cheek for Apate.
‘You ugly bitch! That is not for you!, ‘ an eleven-year-old Damian had said while he landed four punches to a heaving Apate’s gut for eating a piece of the stale brioche bun left in the kitchen.
‘Why are your arms uncovered? You seem to have grown up to be a slut just like your mother!’, the Baron had spat out in his drunken rage at a sixteen-year-old Apate before ordering her to be whipped 16 times on her calves.
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A hot iron to her shins in response to childhood acts of defiance, a few more slaps to the face, a lot of burned clothes, one shaved head and more instances of humiliation and pain at the hands of her so-called family members throughout 19 years of Apate’s life had taught her to subdue the pain in her heart and take everything on the chin. By her twentieth year, she dared not hope for a better life. The abuse had trapped her in a cage and defiance only tightened its walls around her.
In her twenty-first year of life, the author sowed the first seed of evil that would drive Apate into being a villainess that would forgo all human morals. But first, he teased her with a little bit of hope, a small chance of happiness in the form of the Marquis of Dalhurst, son of the Duke of Beachton.
This year, the Duke of Beachton had been deliriously happy, for his prodigal son, Theodore, had returned after his final year of military education. He was twenty and two years of age and the Duke thought he should soon start searching for a wife – he had heard too much about his son’s dalliances and did not want his wealth to be squandered over by-blows in the future. The Duchess of Beachton was not too happy either about the rumours for even rumours have some foundation in truth.
On one eve after his return, Baron Dalbright ordered the Baroness to arrange for a splendid feast in honour of the Duke of Beachton and his family for they were friends from Dalbright Academy where both the Baron and the Duke had spent their formative years and despite the nuances of their ranks spoiling some of the camaraderie they had when they were young, decorum still dictated that even as acquaintances and political allies, they both maintain good relations.
On the eve of the feast, in preparation for the guests’ arrival, the Drawing room table had been carefully laid out with various assortments of cakes ranging from honey plum to chocolate. The scent of freshly baked brioche bread and saffron-infused afternoon tea filled the air. The air had rung with the tinkle of laughter as the Duke and Duchess had arrived first and chatted away merrily with the Baron, Baroness, while Damian and Daphne smiled pleasantly but blankly.
‘Oh my, does our Daphne play the pianoforte? What a splendid one you have!’, the Duchess exclaimed.
The Baroness gulped and the Baron lost his smile for a second because the pianoforte had belonged to his late wife and adulteress in his mind, but they soon regained their composure.
‘Why yes, of course, she is quite good, the best amongst her peers even, if I do say so myself. Daphne dear, why don’t you play some Berchoven for Your Grace? I hear he is your favourite up-and-coming composer.‘, beamed the Baroness.
Daphne chuckled nervously and Damian smirked for he knew that his twin sister had not quite been learning music during her music lessons. The music teacher was a smitten old fool and Daphne had him wrapped around his finger.
Daphne got up from the chaise near the window and sat in front of the pianoforte. What followed as she began moving her fingers was best left undescribed for nothing could truly capture the horror of it. The servants in the scullery laughed as the screech of Daphne’s horrid play reverberated throughout the house for she was not quite known as the kindest soul in the house.
Such was the mounting displeasure in the Duchess that she broke decorum and put a stop to Daphne’s playing by a question, and really, no one who had heard the playing faulted her.
‘Lord Dalbright, is your oldest daughter afflicted this evening, for I do not see her in our company? Apathy, was it, her name? I always thought you had chosen such a peculiar name for her.’