SONG RECOMMENDATIONS: WHO IS SHE by I MONSTER.
Seeing how she wouldn't win that argument, she changed tactics. With her fan concealing her face, she looked around the room. Her gaze met Lucinda, and she grinned beneath the fan. "Where is Theodore?"
Lucinda popped a cherry into her mouth and said nothing. Annoyed, the woman said, "He needs to continue his lesson in immediate haste," then in a low mumble that anyone nearby could hear, "…Gracious knows he needs it."
Lucinda narrowed her eyes at that. "Careful, Catherine." Using her name instead of her educational title was a warning—one that Catherine didn't take well. She had been Theodore's tutor for long, and though she knew Lucinda only tolerated her, the fact she hadn't been dismissed made her careless in her actions toward both mother and child. Fully aware that no one else would want to work for the infamous lady, she took liberties.
With a sly tone dipped in mock sympathy, she responded, "Why, my lady. Gracious knows I've worked very hard to teach your boy. He's as stubborn as they come. Can't nail anything into his thick skull."
Disgusted, Lucinda declared, "You won't need to nail anything into him! Because we will no longer be needing your services."
The woman was stunned to silence for a moment before she burst into a fit of laughter.
"Dear me," she huffed. "Do you think you can find anyone in the empire to teach Theodore? He can't even attend the school for nobles—wait, it's not like he could. He's a bastard child to a whore of a mother!"
Enraged, Lucinda rose to her feet, intending to do harm that would further damage her name, when the door burst open.
"A guest shall not misplace their mark in a hostess's home," Theodore walked in with a tray holding a tea kettle filled with piping hot water, tea cups, a porcelain container for sugar cubes, and another small container.
The shock of his arrival withheld Lucinda's wrath. The maids followed after him, fussing at the heavy items he held with nimble arms. He had refused to use a trolley, sticking to high-society etiquette. Reaching them, he gave a little bow and said, "Mama, if you would take your seat."
Lucinda, unsure of what plans her son held, gently sat back down with a grace that betrayed her earlier upheaval.
With the composure befitting someone with years of experience, Theodore prepared and served the tea to them. As he placed the teacup and coaster before the governess, his hands shook. You might have mistaken it for weak limbs, but Lucinda knew better. She locked in on his every movement and found his body more tense than what strict etiquette required. One of his fingers twisted the side of his shorts. Something was wrong, but Theodore never met her eyes.
She watched him as his attention was fully locked on the woman as she gracefully took the cup in hand. Theodore held his breath as the woman sipped the tea, and then her face twisted in a distasteful sneer. "Too sweet! I have warned you of this failure multiple times."
Lies. She could have interrupted him at any moment as he prepared it, but she didn't. It had shocked Lucinda, but she knew he had served the governess tea exactly the way she liked it—he had observed her closely during her few meetings in Lucinda's office.
As surprising as it was, Theodore had made no mistakes.
"It seems I have failed at my role as your teacher. I must correct any defect in a student with due haste!" She stood up abruptly and reached into her jacket, bringing out a wooden ruler to strike Theodore.
Theodore froze in fear at the punishment so familiar from his lessons.
"Enough!!" Lucinda's shout stilled the room. The guards, about to react, felt chills up their backs at the fury laced in that word.
"How dare you?!" She took a step toward Theodore and his so-called governess.
"I have been patient with your sullied, sharp words against me. But to learn you raised your hand to inflict harm on my child—how dare you!!" Her fury robbed her of words to express herself. Her gaze flickered to the kettle before them, simmering in heat like her blood. And for the first time, she did something she normally wouldn't do for Theodore to witness—she lost control.
Taking the kettle, ignoring the pain in her side and the indescribable heat, she made a sudden movement and flung the hot water at the governess. The woman screamed bloody murder and had no time to react before Lucinda pounced on her.
Theodore jumped back in fright at his mother's action. Lucinda sank her fingers into the woman's hair, toppling her hat. She had also taken harm from the scalding hot water, but she didn't heed her pain. She gripped the woman's hair and yanked it about to the screams of pain and horror from the governess.
Theodore called for her, but it was like she had gone deaf. No more logic, no more sharp words. She needed to instill the fear of the devil into this woman. Gripping the woman's hair tighter to rip strands from her skull, she pulled her to the table and bashed her head against it.
Pain exploded in the woman's skull as she slammed it hard. Once, twice, three times. She wrenched the governess's hair back to see the trickle of blood running down her broken nose. But it wasn't enough. She threw the woman down to the floor. She landed heavily with a dull thud, holding her head and trying to claw away from the madwoman that was Lucinda.
"You bloody wench!" huffed Lucinda as she dragged her by her hair and threw her back on the ground and climbed on her. Pulling her hair, she delivered hard, loud slap-like blows to the woman's cheeks—her blood smearing Lucinda's hands.
"No one. Touches my child!!" Lucinda shrieked. The woman tried to cover her face from the assault, screaming, "Crazy! She's crazy!!"
Ignoring the blood-curdling screams of the woman, Lucinda went back to pulling and ripping out her hair, raking her nails like claws down her face. she wrapped her hand around the woman's thin neck and squeezed hard. Lucinda only saw red. Red blood, red streaks down the governess face. It filled her with so much satisfaction as the woman's eyes bulged and her face turned red.
"My child is the best of the best! More worthy than the likes of you. You will rue the day you did that to him. You hear me!? Today will be your last!!" Ignoring the crowd of servants hovering around her, trying to calm their lady, she turned and reached for the kettle on the rug, the nozzle broken off.
"My child can and will go to Nobleton Academy!!!"
She pulled it high over her head, holding it with both hands to land a death blow on the woman—
Large arms wrapped around Lucinda to pull her into his chest.
"Don't do this," Silas advised, holding her to him as she thrashed and turned against him.
"Let me go!" she struggled harder, seeing the woman pull away from her. Her hair was a wild mess of curls, long since disheveled in the fight. Her clothes had torn in several places, exposing her more, but no one saw her as a seductive vixen at that moment. They only saw a furious mother. An angel of death.
"Stay with me, love! Stay with me…" he chanted next to her ears. His honeyed words and fierce resolve bathed her. Lucinda continued to shake her head furiously, her green irises ablaze like flames as she stared down at the woman. Silas did not falter, stroking her and whispering words to calm her against her temple. Slowly, Lucinda began to relax, her hand limping to drop the kettle beside her bare feet—her shoe nowhere to be seen.
Lucinda's chest continued to rise and fall, breathing heavily as she held onto his arms that held her. She slowly craned her head to look up at him. As she locked eyes with him, a tear slid down her cheek—and something in him broke. Her tears weren't of weakness, but of pain. Pain that she had let her child suffer at the governess's hand, even if unknowingly.
Her eyes begged a question to him—how could she make this better? Turn back time? Change Theodore's pain? They both turned to look at Theodore and found him on his knees on the floor. His gaze was trained on them, and tears streamed down his face. Lucinda didn't know if it was because of the pain he had gone through or because of her actions—but at that moment, she didn't need to know. She only needed him in her arms.
And so she reached out to him, and he crawled to her, scraping his knees on pieces of porcelain—but he didn't feel it. He only saw her and his papa—his safe haven, their wings open to shield him from all the pain in the world. And so he crawled into them and burrowed in their warmth.
All he wanted was to make his mama proud and not trouble her, so he had said nothing all these years. In their arms, he truly realized how messed up it all was.
But weren't they all just messes that somehow fit together as one?