Chapter 2 The Stranger
Seraphina
“Whore.”
“A barn slut…”
“A total disgrace…”
Anthony flung me down from the horse like I was nothing more than a sack of dishonor. I staggered as I landed, catching myself on bleeding palms. I hadn’t been allowed to ride alone. The reins were no longer mine to hold. Not anymore.
My eyes, swollen from tears and the sharp sting of wind, scanned the space before me through blurred lashes. This was the Everleigh courtyard—the very one where I once danced beneath the harvest moon. Where I had skipped barefoot among garlands and laughing doves. Where nobles toasted me with admiration in their eyes.
Now it was a pit.
A ring of vultures dressed in cloaks and pearls.
Servants, guards, and aristocrats crowded close, their boots pressing against frost-bitten stone.
I felt their stares, sticky and suffocating.
“Step aside!” Anthony barked, asking the sea of people almost crowding me, reading to swallow me whole.
They didn’t.
If anything, they leaned in, greedy for spectacle. Their eyes devoured me. Their whispers struck harder than fists.
“She drugged the young Lord.”
“Did you see how she always smiled at him? I know they're betrothed, but how badly could she want it to not wait? Their wedding is just fourteen days away!”
“She’ll be lucky to survive this. Oh poor Young Lord Ferdinand.”
What are these allegations? Why am I the only one being blamed?
Gregory yanked me forward. I stumbled, and the stone scraped raw across my knees. The thin silk of my dress offered no protection. My feet were bare—a deliberate shame. Bare feet were the sign of filth. Of a woman stripped of dignity.
“Hold her still,” Gregory muttered.
Rough hands tied my wrists to the wooden post. The hemp bit deep, already rubbing against bruises I obtained from being dragged from the Barn. The whipping post stank of rot, of blood long dried and never washed away. The wood groaned beneath the tension.
This was never in the garden…
I never imagined I would be whipped here, disgraced even.
I shivered.
The courtyard hushed like a church before a sacrifice.
Father emerged atop the marble steps, cloaked in black and gold like a sovereign presiding over a trial. His hands were behind his back, his posture regal, righteous. He didn’t look at me.
His voice rose like iron through air.
“This is what becomes of women who disgrace the Everleigh name. This is what becomes of liars, of whores. No matter how high their rank. No matter how beloved they once were.”
He descended slowly, deliberately.
Who in the universe is this man?
Father has never spoken so strangely to me before. He's referring to me as a total stranger, one he is happy discarding.
“For every lie, one lash. For every sin of flesh, one lash. For every drop of shame poured upon this house…”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
He simply nodded.
Gregory picked up the whip. Its leather tip curled like a serpent ready to strike.
I clenched my jaw, braced.
The first lash tore across my back.
Pain bloomed like fire. It raced down my spine, hot and wet and alive. I gasped, then a scream tore through my lungs. My eyes were filled with painful tears while I silently muttered stop countless times.
The second lash came before I caught my breath. My knees buckled, but the ropes held me upright. The silk of my dress split open.
The third—I bit down on my lip so hard that blood filled my mouth. It dripped, slow and warm, down my chin. My hair clung to my cheeks, soaked in tears and sweat.
I lost count after the sixth stroke. Time blurred into red and black. My body trembled uncontrollably, but I couldn’t fall. The ropes wouldn’t let me.
Admit my struggles to be free from the bondage and find my way out, I felt something that sent cold shivers down my spine.
A gaze.
Not like the others. This one didn’t leer or judge. It burned. I opened my eyes, squinting through tears as I let my body surrender to the pain.
Across the crowd, half-shrouded by shadows and silk-lined cloaks, stood a man.
Still and unmoving while he watched.
His eyes, dark and extremely expressionless, were fixed on me. They didn’t leer like the rest. They didn't hunger. They just watched. Yet the feeling it gave me…
His stares carved into my bones, colder than the air, deeper than the lashes. I couldn’t look away. I wanted to. I tried. But his eyes held me.
It was almost a mercy, the way his stare drowned out the pain of the whip. I forgot the crowd, I forgot the wounds. I saw only him.
Tears filled my eyes, begging to be set free and so I blinked. The moment I opened, he was gone, like he was never there in the first place.
The space where he stood was empty, as if he’d never existed. The only thing I remembered as I shuddered involuntarily were his dark intense gaze. I was too caught up in them to see what his whole face, hidden behind a black cloak, looked like.
The crowd’s laughter returned like a wave.
The final twenty lashes came harder. The whip split skin already broken. I cried out, no longer able to hold it back. The cheers rose with every scream.
Finally, Father raised his hand. Gregory stopped.
But the pain did not.
“Untie her,” Father said coldly. “Throw her back into her room. No food, nothing. Not until I say otherwise.”
The ropes gave way and I collapsed.
Gregory hauled me up again like a rag doll. The world tilted sideways. Blood ran down my back, soaking my gown. My legs dragged behind me, limp, useless.
They threw me into my chambers like garbage. The door slammed shut and the lock turned.
I crawled toward my bed, my sobs broken and dry. My arms gave out before I reached it. I lay on the cold floor, curled in on myself, blood drying on my skin. No one came. Not Anne, my friend and personal maid, not another maid. No one, my mother, brother and father included.
I don't know which hurt more. The silence or the pain surging through my body.
Ferdinand hadn’t come, Not even to speak or explain what happened. I wondered if he was also being judged.
But then, why did he do that to me? Why did he defile me? Why did he make a mockery of lying with me when it's not time yet? He had never attempted for once since we're together. Ferdinand never asked. So what happened?
I thought he loved me. He’d promised to wait. He’d said he would never take advantage of me.
Why wasn’t he here? Why was I taking the blame alone?
“She drugged the young Lord…”
The words burned through me. How am I the one being blamed? I buried my face into my arms and sobbed until my body gave up. Sleep stole me like death.
