Chapter 14 Selfish ways
2137 Words
Alissa's POV
I was woken from my dreams by someone shaking my shoulder. I opened my eyes only to see the maid giving me a warm smile.
"Sorry to wake my lady, but it is unladylike sleep until noon." She says apologetically. Noon huh, I guess I must have been more tired than I thought.
"Where is Julia?" I ask stifling a yawn.
"She left this morning."
I see Alvern is wasting no time. I got up using to sheet to cover myself since I was completely nacked.
"I have prepaid a bath for you." She says humbly. I quietly followed to a door attached to my room, when she opened it I stepped inside.
It was the same color as the room, and a bathtub sat on the corner close to a self stocked with different containers. I assume they must be shampoo.
I dropped the sheet and stepped into the scolding hot water, but I didn't mind. I slowly sat in the tub letting hot water burn my sink. After awhile it wasn't unbearable.
She came over to me with what looked a wash rag and dipped it into the water.
"What are you doing?" I ask standing up abruptly.
"I- I- I'm sorry m-my lady, I was going to wash your body." She stuttered as she spoke.
"I will do it myself."
"But the master told me to wash and dress you for lunch."
"You can wait in the bedroom to get me dressed, I can handle this part on my own."
Why the hell would I want a grown woman to bathe me, I don't even like being touched at the damn spa.
I know she looks young but we are in a different dimension or universe or whatever. She could be thirty for all I know.
I quickly give myself a bath, washing my hair in the process, using the best smelling stuff I could find.
When I got out of the bathe I grabbed two towels and rapped one around my body while using the other to dry my hair.
I entered to bedroom only to find the bed made and a dress, corset and I werid looking thing was laid across it.
She was standing by a dresser waiting for me.
I finish drying myself before acknowledging her.
"You may dress me now." I command her the words sounded weird to my ears.
She held out what looked similar to a panty and I stepped into it and she slowly pulled them up. This felt so wrong and weird.
"Could you hurry up please." I say trying to hide my embarrassment.
"Yes my lady." She answered then quickly put the weird thing over my head.
"What is this called?"
"The petticoat you mean?" She asks looking at me straingly. Like I was crazy for not knowing what it was.
"Yes." I say rolling my eyes at her and she giggled a bit.
The dress she chose for me was blue and simple, as she put it on me I realized that I'd probably look like a Cinderella.
When she was done I walked over to the mirror and I was right. I looked like Cinderella, blonde hair? Check. Blue dress? Check.
Only thing missing was a god damn tiara.
I sat on the stool infont of the dresser and she brushed then oiled my hair. When she was done she let me downstairs to where we had dinner last night.
Lord Alvern was sitting at the table with with Alison and two boys. I assumed they were his songs.
"Good morning." I say not sure if I was to bow or curtsy to him.
"Good morning, you may be seated." Alvern tells me.
"Wow, so there's two of them?" The bronze haired one asks his father, and I could clearly see the resemblance.
"Father I know we are at the age of consent but I never expected you to chose our wives for us." The golden brown haired one says with a cocky smirk.
"Forgive their behavior, it seems my son's of forgotten how to ask in the presence of two young ladies."
"Sorry sir." They both say.
"This is Alissa, Alison's twin sister. They will be staying with us for a few days, both of you are in charge of watching over them for the next two days."
"Dad you can't be serious. I have plans." The older looking one says.
"Zain, I would ask this of you if it wasn't important." Alvern says his tone getting serious by the second.
"Are they in danger?" The bronze haired one asked with a sad look on his face.
"Not yet, but they might be. And two are the only ones I trust enough to protect them." The tone he spoke with left no room for rebellion.
He motioned to the maids to begin serving.
"Now I will be leaving for the castle that is the reason why I will not be here for the next three days at most. I don't have the time to to tell you full story but I will when I get back. But for now i need tou to trust me and protect them."
"We understand." The older one says in a more serious tone, I think his name was Zian.
We ate in silence and when we were finished the maids cleared the table.
I was about to speak when Zian cleared his throat.
"On behalf of my brother and I, I'd like to formally apologize for what we said earlier and I hope the both of you can find it in your hearts to accept this humble apology and forgive us."
"Of course." Alison says politely.
"We accept your apology." I say with a small smile then bow my head slightly.
"Thank you." They say in unison.
"Well it is time I take my leave. Alison I've left you to the care of Mira, and Alissa under the care of Becky. They are close to your age so I'm assuming you'll get along." He says to us gesturing to the maids as he spoke.
"They have received their orders to teach the both of you how to act like real ladies of the court." Lord Alvern explains before says goodbye and wishing us luck.
Alison and I stand inside the living room of the mansion, watching as Lord Alvern Alvern son's send him off in a carriage with a crest on it.
The maids he assigned to us were busy washing the dishes so they asked us to wait here.
I noticed how quite Alison has been ever since I woke up at Suna's house the yesterday. And she's been acting noticeably cold to me ever since.
I knew she hasn't spoken much since we met, but this was different. She does speak at at all.
"Did I do something to you?" I ask her straight up, I don't have time to beat around the bush.
"What?" She asks spotting a fake confused look.
A scoff turning to face her. "Drop the act your fooling anybody." I tell her with a blank expression.
"I have no idea what your talking about."
"Oh please Alison, I can see right through you. You've been avoiding me ever since I woke up yesterday!" I whisper yell at her.
"I am not." She lies not able to meet my eyes.
"Oh yeah?" I ask her in disbelief, "Look me in the eyes and tell me that." I demand.
"I don't have time for this." She scoffs while turning away from me.
"I knew it!" I yell at her stopping her in her tracks. Then the boys walked in.
"Are we interrupting something?" Zian asked.
"No"
"Yes"
She and I spoke at the same time.
"We'll come back later." The younger one says and quickly left the room.
"Stop making things worse." She says through gritted teeth.
"How am I making things worse." I ask with shock.
"By doing this!" She yells.
I just stare at her blankly, not understand her. What did I do, why is she angry at me?
I take a deep breath calming myself.
"Alison." I say softly, "I don't get it."
"Get what?"
"Why are you acting like this towards me?" I pause to think about it. " I don't know what I did. We both went through the same thing. We attacked, our lives got turned upside down, tturns out our bestfriends weren't even really our bestfriend and then we were forced to come here." As I spoke a tear slipped down my face.
"I expected a lot of things to happen, but you avoiding me isn't one of them."
"I...." She start to speak but stops. "I can't get close to you." She spoke as if she was in pain.
"What."
"You almost died." She says as a tear slips down her face she quickly wiped it away. " I'm feel physical pain every time I think about the fact that she died to make sure I got here. And you almost did the same thing." She paused to catch her breath, "if we got close and you died the same way she did. I would never forgive myself, I would never ever get over it."
"I don't know you yet, but I never expected you to be selfish. I put my life on the line to save you and Julia, and you never even thanked me, you didn't show a ounce of gratitude towards me and your excuse is that you'd never forgive yourself?" A say in disbelief. "You it would have made more sense if you said you'd never forgive me for leaving you alone to go through all this s**t. But what you just said was even worse. If this is the person you really are I don't think I want to know you"
With that I stormed out of the room angrily.
I didn't remember where my room was but I just walked and I didn't stop until my feet were tired.
I leaned against the wall for support as I catch my breath. I started walking back in the direction I came until I found my way downstairs.
"Lady Alissa there you are. I've been looking for you." The maid assigned to me said.
"I was upstairs."
"Its time for you lessons please follow me, you are behind since your sister has already started." He explains whole leading me somewhere.
We seen came to a large library, Alison and her maid was already inside, and just as Becky said, Mira was already teaching her how to walk probably.
"This way, I don't want you to get distracted by your sister." Becky tells me.
She leads me to a different part of the library where we couldn't hear Mira and Alison.
And she wasted no time in teaching me.
The rest of the day was spent teaching me proper posture, how to stand, how to walk how to sit. Then we moved on to to greeting. I learned how to bow, who to bow to and when to bow to them. How to curtsy, and who to curtsy to. And lastly we worked on how table manners. I had already had some of these down so she only had to polish them.
Before we knew it, dinner time had already came so my lessons came to a stop.
"Practice everything you've learned tonight before bed because I will be testing you tomorrow. Please enjoy your dinner m'lady."
"Thank you miss Becky." Say bowing slightly to show my gratitude.
She smile at me then nods in approval before she led me to the table.
Alison, and the brothers where already waiting for me when I got there. Instead of sitting next to her like this morning I say one seat away.
The boys looked at us tensely before telling the maids to serve dinner. We ate in silence and the tension in the air got thicker and thicker.
I could feel her eyes on me but I never once glanced her way. When I was finished, usings the lessons I learnt today I excused myself from the table.
When I got to my room the same maid looked after me this morning came in and laid out a nightgown for me then prepared a bathe for me. Just as she did this morning.
After she undressed me I told her that would be all and she left. I washed myself then got dressed and laid in the bed just looking.
I don't know how long I was laying there for but I couldn't fall asleep so I decided to go to the library.
What I didn't expect to see was Alvern's eldest son reading a book.
He looked at me then smiled mischievously.
"Well isn't this a pleasant surprise."
- Writer
