Offered to the Lord

Chapter 2

“Lady Kendall, you are aware it’s unhealthy to not eat your afternoon meal? I let it slide for the first few times, but you really will need the energy to keep going.”

Katherine took a grape, plopped it in her mouth and chewed slowly, staring down the well-mannered tutor. Tim was easily likable and he was willing to follow her into hell as her personal valet, or he would until Lord Valente sent him away to a dungeon somewhere to torture him for his kind hearted nature. Tim deserved better than that, he was known for helping to teach the servants and their children how to read and write. Not everyone had grown up in a village that had an eccentric priest that thought it was important to know how to read and write like Katherine did. 

“Please call me Kat like you always do. At least until we have to leave. Who says I want the energy to keep going? What if the Lord is as bad as everyone says?”

“True, but you still need to at least make it to his court, what if you kill over before you even make it to your husband’s home? Then, wouldn’t everything that you’ve been struggling for become pointless?”

“I’m not gonna faint and swoon like one of Kendall’s cousins. I swear, their corsets are laced so tight that air goes straight to their heads.”

“I can’t argue with that. Seriously though, Kat, when was the last time you had an actual meal where you finished something?”

“If you are going to lecture me, dear tutor, maybe you should teach me something interesting to keep me alive under that villian.”

Tim sighed in defeat and went back to his sandwich. Katherine always felt a little tinge in her heart when she was with Tim. He was smart, kind and pretty handsome. He had warm chocolate eyes and sandy blonde hair that always seemed to find its way into his face. The way he spoke about boring topics like history or ballroom etiquette almost made her believe that they were indeed some of the most fascinating things on the planet. 

If things could have been different, Katherine thinks that she could have loved him immensely. She loved his laugh and the way he always looked out for others, often sacrificing sleep to help anyone who was struggling with their lessons. He had a smile that could make her knees turn weak and his laugh was infectious. No, she was definitely sure that he would have made a wonderful partner and father, but it was too late for what ifs. Her life wasn’t her own and she was thankful that he was a kind enough friend to follow her into enemy territory.    

“So, do you think I can really pull this off?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure.”

“You’ve never pulled punches with me before. Tim, as your friend, do you think that I have a chance in hell of being a proper Lady like Lady Kendall?”

Tim looked down at his half eaten sandwich, not wanting to reply.

“You have got to start eating Kat. You have always been smaller than other girls, you need to start eating the meals you are brought if you want any chance of fighting off the people in that man’s household. Not everyone is nice like they are here. How are you going to be able to handle that if you are starving yourself?”

Katherine got up and started walking to the door. She hated to see the fear in his eyes because she couldn’t force herself to eat. Not when she would just throw it up in the end. She would try though because she cared enough about Tim’s opinion, but even she didn’t think that was enough to choke down a full meal.

“Kat, please, I don’t want to see you fade away...”

She smiled sadly at him before closing the door behind her.

“God dammit,” Tim whispered under his breath as he slammed his fist down into the table.

What is he supposed to do?  He swears, if he thinks that Katherine would abandon Kendall to her fate, he would take her anywhere. Instead he can only stand by and watch her suffer. He doesn’t even care that accompanying her is signing his own death warrant if she’s found out. Death doesn’t seem to hurt nearly as bad as the knot in his stomach. She deserves someone better than someone who is going to use and break her. 

Tim can’t help but think that if he had been a few minutes faster to pull out the young Master from the fire then Kat wouldn’t have to throw away her life to make amends. It wasn’t her fault that he had run into the servant’s quarters to make sure that everyone was able to get out. It wasn’t her fault that she had been one of the people he warned. It wasn’t her fault that a beam had fallen on him while she had already been outside. It definitely wasn’t her fault that he died.

Not like that was something you could explain to Kat. She would bear this curse to save the Montespan household from losing another child. Even if no one else would do the same because it wasn’t their concern. It made Tim angry but if she had walked away without offering, would she really have been the woman he respected.

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Katherine had to force herself to walk down the hallway at a normal pace. The maids that she passed by smiled at her with pity in her eyes, but she smiled back anyway. Seeing the pity in her eyes made her feel even worse. She wasn’t dead yet, but everyone looked as though they would soon be ready for a funeral.

She wasn’t just going to curl up and die. 

Katherine opened the nearest door and quickly swept her way inside. Her head thudded against the door as she slowly slid down the door. She can’t lose sight of why she was doing this. She dug her nails deep into her hair, trying to force her breathing to calm down.She could feel the tears threatening to spill. Katherine wasn’t a crier. She didn’t even cry when she broke her arm after falling off of the blacksmith’s horse when she was nine. 

It was time to cut ties with her old life and embrace her new one. She was pretty sure that a Lady of the Court wouldn't be sitting in a storage closet crying. They would smile through everything and be cold like ice to freeze the weak emotions. She would always be that village maid underneath all the petticoats, but it was time to evolve into something even better.

Still, she let a few tears slip in the memories of what could never be.