Chapter 200: Lord Elrod
Lady Delphine kept her head bent as her husband’s son spouted foul words at her. She stood completely rooted to the spot; her mind was surprisingly clear, which only made it clearer how terrible she felt. His presence knocked the wine out of her system and she was no longer feeling the drowsiness of being drunk.
She had noticed him sitting with the rest of the important lords and had done her best to make sure her eyes didn’t drift there again. Lord Elrod was only a marquis, but he was highly respected in the castle and the council because he was distantly related to the royal family.
Her late husband, Hendrix, didn’t like to talk much about their family history, and Delphine was never one to poke her head where she wasn’t supposed to—it was the reason she had survived this long. She could take a hint.
However, Lord Elrod’s power in the castle was not why she froze. It was for a completely different reason. He had never liked her, not from the moment her father introduced her to his two children. His younger sister was married to some faraway lord and barely made the journey to the castle.
The current Marquis of Haiyes’ hatred for her only seemed to grow with time, and when their father died, he quickly stripped her of all the benefits of being married to a nobleman. She had not been allowed any money and, more importantly, she could not use the family name.
The manor was the only thing left, and it was not because his father left it for her that he didn’t take that away too. Rather, it was because he was too disgusted to live there. Lady Delphine’s brows furrowed as though she were in pain. The memory was not one she liked to remember.
It wasn’t easy to keep up a manor without any money, and she knew she couldn’t sell it and get a smaller house that would be easier to manage. Perhaps even remarry—but the Marquis of Haiyes made that exceedingly difficult for her.
With nothing else to do, she had turned to this, but it only made his hatred for her even stronger. At least she could pay her bills, that was the only good thing. She had feared he would one day chase her out of the manor, or perhaps set the manor ablaze with her in it, but he never did that.
However, he did show up at her manor one odd night, drunk to his boots, spouting curses as he was now—calling her a whore and demanding her service. Lady Delphine knew he was just trying to belittle her.
It was also shocking, as the lord never addressed her directly. Not once had he ever spoken to her, even when his father was alive. But whenever he was drunk, as he was now, he would do this.
What stopped Lady Delphine from doing anything about it—what had also stopped her from chasing him away from the manor that night, and instead made her hide in the manor until he left—was that he looked exactly like his father.
Even in Hendrix’s old age, the resemblance between them was uncanny, and right now, it felt like she was in the presence of her dead husband. He was looking at her with those eyes, and she couldn’t take it.