To Love, Once Again

Chapter 79

"Husband! Husband! Where are you!!"

A woman's high pitched voice echoed all throughout the dungeons, the tone rough and jagged like a torn piece of paper. She'd been crying out all night, the thick golden rings on her hand clanging against the cold iron bars. All night, groups of men, familiar men had been brought in chains and jailed here. Frantic eyes roved over the dimly lit faces of each man that passed their cell, unable to find what they sought.

"Stop fretting and making a fool of yourself, Mother. Father shall come for us soon!" Another voice snaps from the back of the cell. There, a disheveled Lady Amelia sat on a cot, arms wrapped around herself.

"Now Amelia, you must not address me in that tone!" Whirling around, her mother admonished. ..But Amelia only laughed scornfully at her response.

She'd thought that King Lucien's heart had already been hers.

"It's your fault that we're in this place, Mother."

"Well, I never!" Dame Gertrude harrumphed in indignation. Turning to admonish her, her mouth opens, then closes again, like a fish. Her sweet lovely daughter, the perfect child, obedient child, was staring back at her with angry green eyes, lips knit tightly together.

Her baby girl just needed some time. Reconsidering her angry retort, Dame Gertrude relaxes her upturned brows "His Majesty truly was going to make you his Queen. Sweet child, your father promised me..." she trails off as her daughter's blazing eyes grew brighter.

If only her Mother hadn't deceived her. She'd grown too confident with the excuses her Mother whispered in her ears.

When King Lucien refused to meet her fluttering eyes, "he was just being shy." At the balls, when he completely ignored her quite obvious signals to invite her to dance, he was "preoccupied with diplomatic affairs." When Lady Amelia accompanied her father on his work trips to the castle, but was unable to catch even a glimpse of red hair, "he was having a man's talk with her father".

Mother had an excuse for everything.

And she'd accepted it, because in the 5 years after that filthy extra's departure, he hadn't gone near any of the other girls. All were met with a cold silence.

That included the bold widows, mature and gorgeous women who adorned themselves to perfection, using their late husband's funds. They wanted a taste of the Red King, see what kind of fiery passion the monster could bring to their bed. But when the most beautiful woman of the group bravely knocked at the King's bedroom door...she'd quickly found herself escorted out and then married off to a country noble. With the King's blessings. Of course, no woman bothered him after that.

Lady Amelia had laughed then, at the widows for thinking they could steal a man that was obviously smitten with her, young, beautiful, noble Amelia Norwood..

If only she'd known King Lucien didn't care for her. Biting her thumb, she glares at the withered flowers atop her mother's hat. The once-vibrant flowers shook as Dame Gertrude continued to swivel her head, peering out into the halls of the dungeon.

Then Amelia could have used other methods to make the King hers. Amelia always got what she want. And she wasn't afraid of doing the work necessary to obtain him. If she'd known, she could have played the gentle maiden, created more opportunities for them to meet, and seduced him, even. No man could withstand her willful beauty. Except for that one youth that had been stolen by that fake whore at the ball, every man Amelia desired became hers.

Footsteps resound in the underground corridor. Click. Clack. Lady Amelia's looks behind her mother, her face expectant. There was no sound of the jangling chains heralding the arrival of a new prisoner. Only the tapping sound of footsteps descending the hewn stone stairs.