-Chapter 53.5-
Penelope.
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Part two.
-Six months later-
It didn’t make sense. Why was life and fate so cruel to her? After everything Penelope sacrificed, after she carved out a future path for herself, all her plans were for naught.
Her mother, who was supposed to recover from her stroke all those years ago with the money they paid for treatment, had passed away instead.
Slowly. Sickly. Silently, in her bed, with no one by her side, in the middle of the night.Penelope was informed by the doctors and nurses in the morning.
Now, she sat before her mother, clutching her fading, cold hands, wailing her heart out.
How could this have happened?
She mysteriously did not recover, despite all their best efforts of what was supposed to be an easily recoverable affliction. The doctors could find no diagnosis as to reason why.
With no way to resist, her mother’s heart simply slowed and eventually stopped beating entirely. Penelope could not even say goodbye.
As she cried by the bed, she felt the warm hand on her shoulder lift. Sniffling, the fifteen year old orphan glanced up at her husband, who gave her a heart-broken gaze.
“I’ll allow you a moment alone with her.”
Penelope’s lip trembled as she softly nodded, and watched as her husband quietly slipped out the room. Now alone, the fifteen year old turned her head back to her mother.
Sniffling, her choking voice left her raspy throat on its own.
“M-ma… I hope it’s warm, the place you’ve gone to. If you can hear me… I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that for years, all you ever got to have was this empty room. And then, without anyone, you died all alone.” Tears dripped down from Penelope’s eyes, hitting the back of her hand as her entire body shook.
“And tell father for me that I miss him. Please… please be happy, wherever you are now. And I’ll try my best to live a good life… without you… I’m so sorry…” she wept.
Her cries filling the room, Penelope’s blurry, teary eyes obstructed her vision. But through her blurry sight, she caught a glimpse of a glimmer in the corner of her eye.
Wiping her tears away, Penelope sniffled and reached across the bedside drawer, finding a small opening up against the wall. And upon peering in, she saw the source of the gleam.
Reaching down, Penelope’s fingers came upon something cold and solid. After wrapping her hands around it and pulling it out, Penelope looked down in bewilderment at what turned out to be an empty glass vile. Only a single drip of substance remained in the bottom of it.
“This is…?” It did not appear to be medicinal. Penelope herself had worked in herbalism before. Inspecting it at first, it appeared unmarked. But then, she found a small symbol engraved on the bottom, hidden from first sight,
Taking in the symbol, Penelope felt her breath catch in her throat. From the circular shape, to the sharp corners drawn, it was the shape of a black skull.
No way… Penelope rose to her feet, her hands shaking, clutching onto the vial tightly. She has to tell someone. She knew it. She knew all along… something didn’t seem right about her mother’s state. This could be the proof! Where’s the doctor!?
In a stumbling mess, Penelope lunged out of the room and sped down the corridor. She was coming up past a smoke room, but gradually began to slow down when she heard her husband’s merry laughter from within, behind the smoke-proof door.
W-what in the…? Silencing her breathing, shakily, Penelope approached the door and glanced in the glass window, finding her husband conversing with a figure, casually puffing cigar smoke from his lips. She could not see who it was, for her husband’s back blocked the view.
Curious to hear their conversation, Penelope slipped the door open by an inch, and remained deathly quiet as she poked her ear in.
“So you’re sure the mother’s dealt with?” The figure asked.
“She’s been dead for a whole night, what do you think? The meds finally took their toll,” her husband answered.
Penelope felt her fingers tighten around the glass vial, as she heard the figure click their tongue in disapproval.
“Look at you… murdering your bedridden, sickly mother-in-law behind the back of your wife. Heheheh!” The two men began to laugh. “And how is she? The daughter? Have you done what her Majesty asked of you?”
“Of course. I’ve performed this task brilliantly. No one will ever know it was me. For the sheer amount of money the Queen offered, of course I had to put up my best act,” her husband spoke and Penelope felt her heart sink.
W-what? This can’t be… No…
“Alright. Don’t speak of this to anyone. The Queen wants everyone involved with the former Archduke silenced, and for good measure, you have to make sure she can’t have kids. We don’t want their lineage continuing. The father, the mother, the brother, are all done for.”
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“Oh, she’s already been rendered infertile. I’ve been feeding her poison everyday to make sure of it,” the husband answered and Penelope reached down, clutching her stomach, at the sudden revelation.
So that’s why… Now it all made sense, why Penelope’s urine had been turning red ever since getting married. She thought it was just a normal side effect of their nightly activities in bed together, but it turns out… this was not normal after all.
For a moment, her arms hopelessly fell to her sides, at the shocking truth. Her very own husband she had let into her life… was the one who killed her mother.
Sudden, just like the shocking revelation, guilt, despair, regret and self-loathing all overcame her. The fact that her mother’s death was her’s to blame. The fact that she had been so blind to his true intentions. The fact that she lost her body to such a manipulative man.
But then, Penelope felt anger. How dare he? Why? For money? Someone paid him? The Queen? Was the Royal Family really out this much to ruin her life?
Penelope grit her teeth in anger and jumped to her feet, storming into the room.
Startled, the men turned around and blinked in surprise, at the sight of her angrily shaking before them.
“I heard everything, you bastards!” she pointed an accusatory finger at them. “You killed my mother! I’m going to the police to get you convicted!” she angrily declared.
For a moment, her husband blinked at her, the man who she had ever only known as sweet and caring. And then, she saw an expression she had never seen before, creep up onto his face.
Eerily, the corners of his mouth twisted into a smile.
“Oh no, Penelope. Whatever will we do, now that you’ve found out the truth?” He cackled, and Penelope felt a stab of frustration at his candidness.
“Is this so funny to you, you slag!?” she spat at him in outrage, as he laughed heartily, clutching his stomach.
“Oh dear, dear Penelope. You have no idea just how much this entire nation wanted your family gone. Allow me to introduce you…” Penelope saw her husband step aside, revealing an older gentleman wearing a familiar uniform. “This is my good friend, the head of the Royal Guard. You may go to the police should you so desire, but those lowly officers answer to my good friend here. So what will you do now?”
Penelope stumbled a step backwards, at the cold glare of the man.
“This can’t be…”
“You will never be able to convict me of any crime. If anything, I did our nation a justice by ridding it of its treasonous traitors.”
“My father was framed!” Penelope shouted in anger.
“Ah, and that’s why we must kill your mother, and silence you as well. We can’t have this information getting out,” her husband smirked.
“As expected, we should kill her too,” the head of the Royal Guard remarked, stepping forward with his sword, but was stopped by a raised hand from his colleague.
“No need. Legally, she is my wife. She cannot leave my manor if I forbid it. Penelope, a wonderful life awaits you,” her husband promised her, donning a horrific smile.
“No… no…!” Penelope cried at the realisation that he was right, and the despair that accompanied it.
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Her husband’s false facade away, and Penelope knew she had to move carefully. On the surface in front of everybody else, including at her mother’s funeral, her husband acted perfectly normal. Penelope knew not to seek help when he had his eyes on her.
Lest he takes her home, where there are no prying eyes, and harms her, Penelope was forced to act like everything was okay.
The very first night, the same day of her mother’s death, when she was still grieving, she had to return home with her husband, unsure of what awaited her.
Penelope tentatively stepped through the large wooden door into their home, trying to keep her breath under control. The source of all her worries, the man who had done all of this to her, was entering through the door right behind her.
Penelope nervously came to a stop, her hands beginning to sweat, as she heard her husband silently close the door behind her.
What now? Was what she asked herself. Though she felt anger towards him, she was also entirely overcome with fear. The anticipation was more frightening than what was actually to come, and Penelope found herself shaking.
She heard his quiet breath, feeling it on the back of her neck, and then flinched as a pair of soft fingertips began to run up her back.
“Shall we go to bed, Penelope?” the man whispered in her ear, and she bit her lip in misery, clenching her fists.
“Do I even have a choice to refuse you?” she asked, her face pointed to the ground, and heard the floor creak as he leaned in.
“No,” he softly spoke.
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-3 months later-
Having spent three months acting docile, wearing a fake smile, and giving her body for him to toy with, the only reason Penelope was able to endure it all was the thought of escaping.
Revenge was probably futile, as her mother’s death was apparently an order that came from the Queen herself. There was nobody Penelope could go to, that was willing to help her.
There were some Nobles that were against the Queen, but why would they take on Penelope, who is the sullied daughter of an Archduke guilty of treason?
The only thing she could settle for now, was to at least escape the clutches of her husband.
Thanks to her performance the last three months, and her desperately trying not to let her true thoughts slip, she made her husband lower his guard. Now, she could even go outside, so long as it was with a guard.
She had hatched a plan to escape. After going to the market, Penelope executed it. Today, there was only one guard, it was the perfect time for her to do it. She lost herself in the crowd and immediately changed clothes in a nearby alleyway, nervously looking over her shoulder as she did so.
She was successful, and quickly took a carriage to the only place she could go. Her former mentor.
As Penelope’s foot tentatively touched the ground, she was flooded with nostalgia at the sight greeting her, fresh off the carriage. The old home she used to live at. The man who took her in.
Biting her lip nervously, feeling tears starting to sting at her eyes, Penelope quickly scuttled up the steps before knocking on the wooden door to the humble villa situated in the commoner’s area of town.
After a few minutes of continued knocking, she saw the door open and her face lit up at the person opposite her.
“P-Penelope, my dear? Is that you?” the older gentleman’s hoarse voice called out, his hands shaky and his hair grey.
“Yes, grandfather,” Penelope answered with a sniffle. “It’s me.”