BLUE BLOOD

26 | in love and war

x

[entry]

Gloria, Gloria, Gloria.

You didn't really think I would fall for your half-truths and lies, did you?

I guess you didn't lie when you said you were pregnant. After all, you already gave birth to your child.

x

Pierre quietly opened the door for the fifth time today. "Ms. Du Sang?"

Just as I had done so the last five times, I pretended I was asleep. Even though my back faced the door, I could still hear even the slightest change in noise. You could detect who it was based on the pacing of their footsteps.

Pierre wasn't fooled by my 'I'm sick' act. "If you don't wake up, I will be forced to tell your stepmother about your sudden illness. She's left you alone for the time being but she will leave her chambers sooner or later to bother you."

Damn it. He pulled the stepmother card. Sighing, I shifted to a sitting position against my bedframe. "I was wondering when you'd blackmail me. I promise I'm fine, Pierre. And I told you to call me Vesper."

"Propriety is a must, Young Mistress."

"Pierre, don't call me that either," I made a face of distaste. "It makes me sound like a literal mistress to some married rich man."

Pierre clucked his tongue disapprovingly. "Society these days. Sexualizing everything. It wouldn't sound strange if someone was called Young Master."

"Yeah, well, only Alfred calls Bruce Wayne that," I muttered. 

Pierre was too worried about me to even chuckle. Guilt pierced at my gut. I hated making him worry, especially about me. "You came home early in the morning two days ago. Yesterday you were in bed all day, unmoving. You said you were sick and needed rest yet you refuse to tell me what sickness it is."

I didn't want to lie to him but I also didn't know what to say. "I guess it's just one of those days, Pierre."

"Either you don't know what sickness you have," Pierre raised an eyebrow, setting a tray of breakfast on my nightstand. "Or you aren't sick at all."

Sometimes I wondered if Pierre knew. If he knew things about me I never told anyone. He never said anything aloud but it was the way he treated me after my mother and brother died. As if I wouldn't be there the next day to hug him.

"Maybe," I agreed, grudgingly taking the warm mug of coffee into my hands. I barely had an appetite to eat but I could take a sip. 

Before Pierre could respond, the door pushed open and a woman slithered into my bedroom the way she slithered into my father's bed.

Her neck, not at all graceful like my mother's, was adorned with obnoxiously large gems. Silk gloves rode up to her elbows. Her right hand was gilded with several jeweled rings but her left hand had a single, unmistakable diamond ring. A ring she bought for herself.

Why did she want all the attention on that single ring?

 To hide the fact that my father never bothered to buy her a wedding ring. 

"Vesper, darling," my stepmother purred with that condescending voice of hers. "I heard you were sick so I came to check up on you."

Pierre shot me a look that told me he didn't tell her a word. I made sure to look completely unimpressed by the woman standing at my feet. "Really? Did you tell my father the same thing when you-"