Married To The Mad Vampire Lord

She couldn't believe she could feel any more pained at the realization after what had gone on in the study, but she did. She felt it deep, so deep it cut through her heart and tightened her throat until breathing became a struggle.

Blindly, Belle found her way towards her old room. She walked without truly seeing her path, allowing instinct and memory to guide her steps to the door she had once opened so many times before. When she reached it, she pushed it open and stepped inside, only to stop short in her tracks as her eyes took in the sight before her.

Belle let out a hollowed laughter. What had she expected from people who had been so eager to erase her from their family? Had she foolishly thought they would cherish her room when they had not cherished anything of hers, not even her portraits?

She looked around, her gaze sweeping over the space. The room looked just as it had on the very day she left it to be married. Everything had been left untouched, every single detail frozen in place, as though time had stopped and waited for her return.

Even the shoe she had removed from her foot to slip into the new pair brought for her wedding still lay abandoned at the side of the bed, now covered in dust and cobwebs. She remembered that moment so vividly because she had turned back that day, just before leaving, to take one last look at her room and put it to memory.

The sheets still bore the faint crease where she had once sat at its edge that day, though now the sheet and everything upon it were layered in thick dust, untouched by any hand. Nothing had been moved. Nothing. The same small bed she had used since she was five still stood there, unchanged. The windows were left open, bird droppings staining the frames, and the golden rays of the setting sun streamed in, highlighting the neglected, unkempt space in a way that made it look even sadder.

Swallowing down the rising knot of emotions, Belle fought against any weakness that threatened to break her apart. She would not let them shatter her again. She would not shed tears for any of them, no matter how much her throat ached with the weight of it. Slowly, she turned and left the room, only to return moments later with a broom and a mop in hand.

Without thinking, she began to clean and arrange the room as though it were the most natural thing to do. She dusted and swept every corner, carrying the sheets and curtains out herself before placing them in the arms of a passing unfamiliar maid, who looked at her startled.

Then, in a calm yet firm tone that carried authority, she instructed, "I want new sheets and curtains brought to the room. And bring my bathing water as well."

She was a guest in this house now, and as a guest, she had the right to ask for anything. Belle did not care in the slightest for the maid's reaction. She went back to her room, bare and freshly cleaned, and sat waiting for what she had ordered.

She was suddenly overtaken by the overwhelming weight of homesickness for her little family, who were in the same house as she was, yet she couldn't seek them out. She missed them already.

Many times, she had thought she did not feel like she belonged anywhere the way she had in the cottage, but lately she had come to realize that where Rohan was, there her home would always be, and there she would always belong. Wherever those two she loved with her whole heart were, she belonged.

Now, as she faced the fact of having to remain in Aragonia for weeks without them being constantly by her side, she knew she had to steel herself against the lonely feeling of being left out.

She was prepared for it. She would endure it. And she would do anything necessary to protect herself and her family from the wrath of the Aragonian king. But still, she missed her son already. She missed his little smiles and sweet giggles, and her heart ached at the thought. Belatedly, she wondered where they had been placed in this part of the mansion.

Belle was still seated there, wondering where Evenly and Rav had been given rooms, because she knew without doubt her mother would never allow them to stay near the main halls, when a soft knock came at the door.

A familiar maid entered through the door, carrying a bucket of bathwater in one hand and fresh sheets in the other arm, her smile warming the space instantly as she saw Belle, who had once been her mistress when she was a little girl, but whom Lady Louisiana had later dismissed to work in the house like the rest, no longer serving the elder Dawson daughter directly.

"Anna!" Belle exclaimed with joy, recognizing her childhood maidservant who had worked in the Dawson household since they were little girls, and who had been kind to her when all the other workers made things hard for her in the house, even though she no longer served her.

She rushed forward and threw her arms around the young woman, nearly making her spill the hot water. The young woman laughed softly, quickly set down the bucket of hot water, and hugged her back with one arm.

"I am so glad to see you again, my lady," she said.

"Me too, Anna," Belle replied as she moved away from the hug to look at the only person she could consider a true friend in this house when growing up.

"You look different, my lady, I mean, in a good way!" exclaimed the maid as she admired the elder Dawson daughter. She recalled how Belle used to be so thin it looked as though the wind might blow her away, and so pale that her freckles were the first thing anyone noticed on her face. Yet even then, the maid had never thought of her as less beautiful, for she had always carried the kindest heart in the house.

With the maid's help, the sheets and curtains were soon changed, and her bathwater was poured into the waiting tub behind the screen. Belle welcomed her chatter, just as she had in the past, as the maid helped her remove the heavy layers of her dress, now stained with dust and dirt from her cleaning.

But when Belle slipped into the warm water, she quickly realized something was missing. There was no soap or washing cloth prepared behind the screen or among the things Anna had brought.

It was then she remembered, with a small smile, how thoughtful Rohan had been to buy her a dozen bars of her favorite soap and washing cloths, insisting she bring them along for this journey "just in case." Now she understood. He must have already known that her family had not changed and they wouldn't bother to be hospitable to her.

She asked Anna to check inside her small brown trunk for the bathing things and bring them to her. But when the maid returned around the divider, she wore an uncertain look as she spoke.

"My lady… your trunks are not here."

Belle frowned, suddenly realizing she had not noticed them in the room earlier, even while she cleaned and dusted the space. Because Eve had told her she saw the servants carrying them in, Belle had naturally assumed they had been set in the wardrobe of her room.

"Have you checked the wardrobe?" Belle asked, already naked inside the tub and ready for her bath before dinner.

"It's not there, my lady. Actually, it wasn't brought into this room at all," Anna replied, a hesitating look coming to settle on her face.

Belle's confusion deepened. "Then where were they taken to? Do you mean another room has been prepared for me and my things are there?"

Anna shook her head slowly. "No… it's just that I saw, not too long ago, the trunks being carried into Lady Eve's chamber. I heard her ordering Beth to carry all the female trunks into her closet and arrange the dresses because you had given her everything inside as a gift. And Lady Louisiana… she handed me one of your old dresses, the ones you left behind in the laundry basket before you went away. She said you are to wear them to supper tonight."

Belle blinked, too stunned to speak at first. Slowly, she sank further into the tub, the warm water lapping against her as disbelief and shock overtook her at once.

She did not know whether to laugh bitterly or cry in humiliation at her family's shamelessness. It was not enough that they had removed every trace of her from the house, they had even taken what was hers now, the things brought for her with love by her husband. She never thought her family was this shameless.

"Did you really give all your things to Lady Eve?" Anna asked carefully, though her doubtful look showed she already knew the truth. Lady Eve had always been a spoiled brat who took whatever she wanted without sparing a thought for who it might wound. Just like how she had confidently ordered her maidservant to set the things in her closet like they were hers.

Belle opened her lips to deny it, to say she had given nothing to her sister, when suddenly she stopped short. A memory flashed to her mind. Back in the study, Eve had asked her something. But Belle had been so lost in thought, she had not truly heard and had given an absentminded reply. Had that been what Eve asked? Had she asked for her trunks, and Belle had unknowingly agreed for her to take them?

Hot anger flared in Belle's chest, unlike anything else at the disrespect, but she quickly calmed it down.

If not for the danger of raising suspicion about her character, if not for the risk of bringing attention to herself and causing more problems in their days of visits here, she would have gone into her sister's room that very instant to demand her belongings back.

Patience, she told herself. She had never cared much for material things, but these were different. These were precious because they had been chosen and given to her by Rohan. She could not, would not, let them go so easily. She would reclaim them. But she would have to do it carefully, in a way that did not arouse her family's suspicions about her relationship with her husband.

So Belle bathed that night without soap, rinsing her body with only the warm water, quietly telling herself that she would not let Eve keep what was not hers.