Devrim's Discipline - Brianna Hale Page 0,13

the abandoned palace. After, Mama took me to a part of town where I’d never been before, a place of wide streets and elegant houses.

“Here,” she whispered to me. “This is where we shall live soon, in Rugova House. Our rightful home. I wish your father were still alive, so he could be here with us.”

It’s an eighteenth-century townhouse, painted cream, with a glossy black front door and enormous white columns out the front. Mama stood at the gates with a huge smile and tears running down her face. I’d never seen her so happy, and I’ve watched that happiness ebb from her eyes, day after day, since then.

If we don’t get our home back, I think she’ll die of a broken heart.

As I get into bed that night, my mind drifts back to the Archduke. Seeing him in the ballroom, stiff and at attention in his uniform, as he strode about having people curtsy to him. I bet he just loves that, I think huffily, turning over. In the split second before his expression became one of pure hatred, I thought he seemed handsome. He’s well-groomed and fit for a man in his early fifties. His steel gray hair is thick and touchable and his eyes are striking. He’s strong, too. I remember that from the way he lifted me off the ground.

I make a face in the dark. He’s old enough to be my father, and then some. Worse, he’s a domineering bully and treated me abominably. I shouldn’t be lying here, savoring the memory of his good looks.

Eventually, I fall asleep, and I’m swept away by a dream.

I’m wearing Aubrey’s beautiful pink ball gown, and I’m being whirled in the arms of a man whom I can’t quite see. I can feel him, though. He’s strong and warm beneath my fingers, and he holds me like I’m the most precious treasure.

My mystery man dips his head to inhale the scent behind my ear, sending ripples of sensation down my body. I press myself against his scarlet uniform, as his strong arms tighten around me.

His deep voice curls through me, and his warm lips move against my ear. “Meet me in the room down the hall.”

A languorous feeling fills my body. I’m about to do something forbidden but delicious. I walk out of the ballroom and down the hall. The music and voices recede behind me. The room is richly furnished with sofas clustered around an ornate gold fireplace.

In the darkness, a strong arm encircles my waist and draws my back against a hard chest.

“Good girl,” he breathes, and my lips part in a pant. “Now, bend over the sofa and take your punishment.”

I reach back and cup the nape of his neck, just below the short curls of his steel gray hair. “Yes, Daddy.”

I wake with a start, my eyes springing open. The room is flooded with morning light. I can still feel the sensation of a man holding me against him.

I shudder and swing my legs out of bed. Was I dreaming I was Aubrey? I heard her call the Archduke, Daddy, yesterday, but there wasn’t anything remotely fatherly about his invitation in my dream, and nothing daughterly about the way I was accepting it.

“Thanks, brain,” I mutter, as I scoop my phone up and head to the bathroom. “I really needed more drama and confusion right now.”

I have a text message from Aubrey. I’m so so so so sorry. I can’t believe he did that to you. I want to strangle him.

Yesterday’s humiliation washes over me again. I quickly type a reply. It’s fine. What happened isn’t your fault. Prison probably messed with him.

I sit and think about it for a moment, imagining a cold, proud man like Archduke Levanter locked up in a cell for twenty-seven years. The loneliness. The psychological torture of spending day after day, year after year, locked away, with only your failure to keep you company.

I push these thoughts away. I have no desire to feel sorry for him, and he’s definitely not sitting around this morning feeling sorry for me.

At breakfast, I’m groggy and out of sorts, and Mama won’t stop talking.

“The next stage of our plan is vital,” she says, sorting through her handwritten who’s who at Court and sketches of family trees. I half-listen as she talks me through the next events on the social calendar. “Once our property has been restored, we should think about taking a little holiday. Perhaps to Spain. You father loved Spain.”

Out