Trapped in Their Manor, Twin Dukes Keep Me Captive

Chapter 8:Caged and Chastised

The main building of Kolleck Manor has three floors, divided into a left wing, a right wing and a rear wing, constructed in a neat pinshaped layout. Enclosed at its centre lies a towering open ballroom, spacious enough for grand banquets and dances. The left wing serves as Count Ian’s private quarters during his temporary residence. Seventeen rooms across the first and second floors are reserved exclusively for his personal use, while the remaining chambers are prepared for visiting nobility.

The count had Eleanor settled in a groundfloor guest room of the left wing, overlooking the blooming garden, directly adjacent to one of his private lounges.

It was not kindness that moved him, nor any intention of treating her like a guest again. He simply wished to watch Eleanor suffer through every wound dressing. The narrow servant quarters could never accommodate the attending crowd, and entering the cramped rooms of lowly servants was far too beneath the count’s dignity.

Those five lashes had fallen with cruel, brutal force. Before that night, the worst injury Eleanor had ever endured was a rough ship cable slicing her palm during a storm—a pain she had once thought unbearable, yet now it felt like gentle mercy in comparison. Worse still, the whip had struck through her thin gown, driving tiny fragments of cloth deep into her lacerated flesh. The manservant tasked with treating her wounds was forced to pry open her raw, torn skin and pick out every thread remnant, lest the injuries fester into fatal sepsis. The procedure was an exquisite torment, sharp enough to make any creature writhe in helpless agony.

After Eleanor finally yielded to him, the count suspended the remaining punishment and ordered her wounds tended. Overwhelmed by the terror of her flesh being pried open and the burning, bonedeep pain, Eleanor broke down completely, weeping uncontrollably. All the noble poise, discipline and restraint she had upheld her entire life crumbled into nothing.

“I have never seen a lady weep so helplessly,” the beautiful priestess mocked softly.

She perched coquettishly on the count’s lap like a graceful serpent, pressing a goblet of bloodred wine to his lips. The count held her lazy, sensual figure in his arms, his blue eyes fixed unblinkingly on Eleanor’s tearstreaked, dishevelled face, savouring her humiliation with blatant, indulgent amusement.

The sadistic count soon grew addicted to watching Eleanor’s helpless, wretched state during each dressing.

Her torn back forced Eleanor to lie prone at all times, her upper body bare. She relied entirely on servants to eat, drink, and tend to every basic need, stripped of every shred of her dignity. To make it worse, every time her wounds were dressed, the small guest room flooded with the count’s attendants. While the count sat surrounded by his grand retinue, Eleanor lay broken and forsaken on the bed, subject to their curious, mocking, pitying stares. Under the crushing pain that twisted her features beyond control, she felt no different from a skinned creature pinned on display for others’ cruel entertainment.

The count revelled in her tears and trembling struggles. Watching Eleanor’s miserable ordeal became his fixed daily pastime. On the fifth day of treatment, the sadist even resolved to tend her wounds himself. He trailed his cold fingernails lightly over her halfhealed back scars, and even with her back turned, Eleanor could feel the sharp, malicious intent in his movements, ready to dig into her fragile healing flesh and tear it open once more.

The strange, crawling, tearing sensation beneath her skin sent icy terror shooting through her veins. Combined with the trauma of his past cruelty, pure fear drowned out even her physical agony. Eleanor let out a frightened cry and tumbled trembling off the edge of the bed.

Her startled reaction enraged the count. He nearly seized his whip to flog her again. Old David, the aged steward who had always shown her quiet kindness, pleaded that another lashing would aggravate her injuries and kill her outright. His interference only worsened the count’s temper. In the end, only Béatrice—the beautiful priestess, his most favoured mistress—managed to distract him with soft smiles and coquettish entreaties. Even so, the count sentenced Eleanor to a full day of solitary confinement as punishment.

This confinement was far crueller than the restraints used on deranged patients. Eleanor’s hands and feet were tightly bound and rendered completely immobile. A leather blindfold covered her eyes, and a custom gag locked her mouth shut. She was left motionless and abandoned in the empty room for an entire day.

It was a torment beyond words. Before this, even through sleepless nights of burning pain, Eleanor could speak broken English to the servants to distract herself, shift her stiff limbs, and adjust her posture to ease numbing paralysis.

But under this strict confinement, all servants vanished. She could not speak, could not move an inch. Her limbs quickly turned numb until she could no longer feel her own body. Plunged in total darkness, she clung desperately to every faint sound within reach, starved for any sensory anchor. Soon the world sank into dead silence. She felt sealed inside a lightless coffin, buried alive in endless, shapeless terror, so detached she could barely tell if she was still breathing.

Every second stretched maddeningly long. She lost all sense of time, unable to distinguish day from night, awake from dreaming. After what felt like an entire century, a faint glimmer of light finally cut through the blackness. The trembling candle flame pierced her longdarkened eyes like sharp blades, forcing fresh tears to spill down her cheeks.

It was Old David who came to release her. The experienced old steward knew well the cruelty of the count’s punishments. He placed the candle on the farthest candlestick to avoid startling her overexposed eyes. He removed her gag, untied every binding rope, and gently massaged her stiff, lifeless limbs back to feeling.

At first her hands and feet felt alien, completely numb, as if they no longer belonged to her body. Then a sharp, boneprickling tingling burst through every nerve. Eleanor gasped aloud, her chest heaving violently as she involuntarily rolled onto her back. The sudden movement split her fragile back wounds open again, and the familiar scorching agony crashed over her once more.

Yet this unbearable pain became her only proof that she was still alive. A helpless, morbid relief washed over her, and Eleanor broke down in fresh tears.

Old David stood silently beside the bed, sighing softly at her broken, undignified state.

As her sight and pain returned, her hearing slowly cleared. Faint, distant music drifted from far away, telling her the count and his retinue were feasting and revelling far beyond her chamber. She knew better than anyone that no one in this manor could restrain Ian William Haiges’ madness—and yet the fragile, foolish thought that the madman was far away still comforted her shattered heart.

Maids brought water and meals, but Eleanor had no appetite at all. Terrified of falling back into utter darkness, she stared unblinkingly at the candle flame, afraid to blink, afraid the wind would snuff it out or someone would take it away. Tormented by the fear of being abandoned again, she clung tightly to Old David’s sleeve, rambling broken, disjointed English, her grammar chaotic and incoherent, scarcely knowing what she herself was saying.

Old David soothed her patiently, repeatedly promising that a manservant would stand guard outside her room all night, answering her every call, and that the candle would never be extinguished. Even so, the terror of returning to that suffocating void clung to her, and she refused to let him leave.

At last Old David spoke softly in French, helpless to calm her further. “I cannot stay. My master may summon me at any hour. If he finds me lingering here, he will turn his attention back to you.”

His words struck Eleanor like a death sentence. She curled into a trembling ball, trying to hide beneath the bed curtains, and the sharp movement tore her reopened wounds raw, sending fresh waves of fire across her back.

Old David hesitated, uncomfortable speaking of his master’s flaws, yet his kindness compelled him to comfort her quietly. “This is simply his nature. He has not yet thought to brand you as a slave, and I will do what I can to protect you. Do not provoke him, do not defy his orders. You still have hope if Lord Elvis intervenes. He will soon return to Frigu Manor, and my master will depart as well. Lord Elvis is nothing like his brother.”

Like a drowning woman grasping a floating branch, Eleanor suddenly saw a faint ray of hope in her despair.

The Haiges family’s generation was ruled by twin brothers.