Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
After another countless failed attempt, I gave up. I tried to put it, and him, out of my mind, but it wasn’t happening. I couldn’t stop myself from drawing him. Since that night, I had spent every spare moment of my time in my art studio, that I used to share with my sister.
I spent hours drawing him, painting the colors of his eyes and the lines of his body. Then, absolutely paranoid someone would recognize who it was, I changed each piece to something else.
In the past week, I had done so many paintings that were of him, but not him. I had countless coffee cups filled with galaxies of gold and copper sparkling out of a deep mocha. I had so many landscapes with shadows and lakes that followed the lines of his body.
And one charcoal sketch that I couldn’t bring myself to alter.
It was of him, with his back to me as he waited for me to change clothes. I shaded in the shadows that moved against his skin in the candlelight, but I added a mirror in front of him. I kept his face in shadow, except for that cruel smile.
I tried to convince myself to rip it up. I tried to force myself to destroy it, and I just couldn’t do it. Instead, I removed the page from the sketch pad and rolled it up, securing it with a bloodred ribbon and hiding it in a drawer in my bedroom.
Knowing it was there waiting to be discovered was driving me mad, but not having it close seemed just as bad. If anyone ever found it, if a maid stumbled across it, they would be forced to tell my mother, and I couldn’t even imagine the screaming fit that would happen after she found out that I lusted after a priest.
Or if she had found out what I let him do to me…
I was going to hell. There was no doubt about it. There was so much guilt weighing on me for the way I looked at him, the way I saw him and thought about him before I knew…
Did I feel guilty because I thought maybe I had done something that tempted him into touching me, or because I liked it? Why did he do it? Was it only a sin for him if we had done more or if I had done something to him?
What were the rules?
I considered looking them up online, but I was too scared. What if someone tracked my search history? What if they found out I had opened my legs for a man, a man whose name I didn’t even know? One who turned out to be a priest!
I shook my head, got off my bed, and started pacing around the room. What was I doing? Why was I still thinking about this? I needed to push it from my mind, pretend it never happened. That was the only way to move on. I would just never see him again.
That was for the best. If I didn’t see him or look for him, if I didn’t talk to him or stare at that damn sketch every single night, if I continued not knowing who he was or what his name even was, then eventually he would fade from my memory.
More importantly, right now, there was nothing linking me to him.
When I got home, Mother was at some charity event, and the staff were all taking a much-needed break. So I snuck into my room undetected, bathed, and changed with no one knowing a thing. It was mid fall, so my thighs were covered at all times, and I used makeup to cover the bruise on my face. If anyone asked me about the swelling on my face, I had a story ready to go. I’d say I tripped on some new heels and fell down the stairs.
It was easy to believe because I was fairly clumsy, and by this point, I’d been making up stories like that for years anyway to cover the bruises Mother left on me.
I paced around my room, wondering what I was going to do now. There was so much still up in the air for me, and worse, I knew that soon, Mother would inform me of who she had chosen for me to marry.
I didn’t want that, but I was Mother’s last option to make a beneficial match.
Amelia defied her and chose her own husband. Harrison had actually asked for her help and then dumped his fiancée to marry his paralegal Edwina without really telling anyone. Amelia, Father, and I were present, but there were no formal announcements made in the news. There was no big church wedding, no society events for that marriage at all.
For Harrison, it was absolutely perfect, and with both him and Edwina so focused on their work, I couldn’t see her taking days off to shop for dresses and flowers.