Chapter 364: The past (2)
"My engagement was important to my family. To my father and at the time, I didn’t realise how important it was to Travis. He was making his own plans for how my husband could be of use to him. I was too busy trying to force myself to love someone and convince myself that the marriage was something I wanted to think about Travis," said Beatrice.
"I was aware of the life my family gave me. How expensive it must have been to spoil me so I thought it was only fair that I repay them by getting married to whomever they picked. A little after my engagement was announced, I met your father. He was doing work with Nicolas. Just starting as a knight. You should have seen how wonderful he looked then," Beatrice said, smiling, feeling like a young girl in love again.
"Your father didn’t speak much at first. He told me he didn’t want to offend the lady of a good house. I like to think it was fate for us to be together because we would keep running into each other often. He once found me at my lowest when I did not want to go through with the marriage and thought of telling my father."
Beatrice continued to say, "Your father gave me advice and from then on, I found myself seeking him out to talk. I enjoyed spending time with him secretly, away from my family and eventually came to love him. That made me more worried about my marriage and I made the mistake of confiding to Travis, not knowing the plans he had."
"Travis laughed, not believing that I was seriously considering picking your father over a man who shared my status. When I didn’t laugh along with him like it was a joke, I saw that look he used to give our tutors. He grabbed my shoulders and sometimes I think he wanted to grab my neck. I have always been scared easily because I wasn’t used to violence so it wasn’t hard for him to make me fear him."
"The way Travis toyed with our tutors was nothing like what he did in secret. That was when I found out about his love for shooting arrows at servants or throwing any weapon he could get his hands on. The day was the first time Travis threatened me. Warned me not to meet with River anymore and to get used to the fact I was going to marry who my father picked."
It was at that time Beatrice learned how family meant nothing to some people when money and status were involved. She knew Travis wasn’t the kindest person in the world to people outside their family, but she was his sister. His only sibling.
They mostly spent time together only when a tutor was around or spent time with their parents a as family because they had different interests, but to Beatrice, they were close enough to not want to hurt each other.
"I told him that it was my life and I would bear the consequences of my decision. Travis laughed and said he had ways to make me change my mind. That I should change my mind then and there before he made my life hell. I didn’t give him an answer and walked away. There isn’t a day I regret more than confiding in my brother," Beatrice said, always thinking of it as her most foolish moment.
Beatrice never thought she would be on the receiving end of her brother’s anger. They were siblings after all. He was her older brother so she thought if there would have been anyone to help her, it would have been him since her mother would just follow her father’s lead. Travis had some influence in their home so she thought he could change her father’s mind.
He had always told her that like him, she could get whatever she wanted as long as she asked.