11

I glanced around Francois’s bedroom. The place he wanted to bring me. The dread festering in the pit of my stomach tasted bitter.

But this room was clean and dust free, with touches of modernity that were incongruous with the rest of the house, and also incongruous to how Francois presented with his hairstyle and the clothes he favored.

The maid threw open another door. “This is the bathroom. Once you’re finished in the shower, I’ll bring the dress the master has selected.”

Another wave of longing for Nicolas passed through me. I missed him. But once I escaped here, I didn’t intend to see him or Francois ever again—no matter how much I yearned to be in Nicolas’s arms, kissing him, fucking grinding against him as he roamed his hands over my body.

“Go in.” The maid waved her hands forward and I entered the bathroom, where I expected to find the same clunky plumbing as in my bathroom at home, but my mouth dropped open at the modern luxury.

The shower was an altar to cleanliness, with a big rain head on the ceiling, and numerous other smaller showerheads at intervals down the wall. The controls looked like a NASA display panel.

“Stand still.” The maid was suddenly behind me, her strong hands tugging at the fastenings of my gown.

When it loosened, I pressed my arms over my front to keep it in place.

“Here you go.” She passed me bottles of shower gel and shampoo, both unscented. “The master likes your natural scent, apparently.”

She wrinkled her nose but passed no further comment.

My mind was already swirling with possibilities at the realization that I would probably be left alone to shower. Once the maid left, I’d be able to make my way down the stairs and out the front door. I’d memorized every squeaky floorboard on the way to the tests Francois had escorted me to.

“I’ll wait right outside for you to be finished. Don’t be long.”

My heart sank at her words. I wouldn’t truly be alone after all, not enough to make a break for it, and I already knew she was unreasonably strong. She wasn’t someone I wanted to fight with. My wrist still ached where she’d grabbed it before.

I rushed through the shower and grabbed the only towel I could see before peeping into the bedroom, and damn, the maid had lied. She must have left a room at some point, because now there was an ugly black and red dress lying on Francois’s bed.

As I moved forward, the towel clutched tightly around me, someone stepped from the shadows, and I stiffened, my body warring between fright or flight. But it was okay. It was only the maid. Not Francois.

Not Francois.

The thought echoed through my mind as relief weakened me.

“This is your gown for dinner.” The maid pointed to it, but her words were almost unnecessary.

Of course, I was supposed to wear that hideous thing. The skirt was full and looked heavy, and oversized red beads decorated a black bodice like blood spatter. I’d look like I’d been murdered while attending a Victorian era funeral.

But I was playing along, playing my part, biding my time. Francois had no idea how long I’d spent waiting patiently for my life to change, waiting for the opportunities I could grab and change things. I could wait these few days until an opening came to me.

I tensed my muscles and stepped into the dress, gasping as it tightened at my waist and over my ribs as the maid drew on the laces, tugging them until I almost couldn’t draw breathe.

When she’d finished, she spun me around. “Better,” she murmured as she skimmed her gaze down me. “I just need to do something with that bird’s nest on your head.”

The brush she used was antiquated and snagged on my hair, but I gritted my teeth, using the pain in my scalp to keep my centered and focused on all the reasons I had to escape.

“That’s the best I can do.” She looked at me critically before swiping bright red lipstick across my mouth. Then she led me from the bedroom and down the staircase I was becoming increasingly familiar with.

I made sure to tread on every creaky board—anything to lure the people in this house into a false sense of security over whether I could move around quietly. We passed by the curtain Francois usually swept aside to reveal the antique elevator, and we ventured deeper into the house, to wings I hadn’t been in before.

Back here, several of the doors stood open, revealing rooms in various states of decaying grandeur. The wooden flooring was scratched and scarred where it must have once been resplendent. Various shades of wood were still visible, as though there’d been a pattern when it was first laid.

In the rooms, the carpets were worn and the paths of people’s footsteps over the years were obvious. The color palette would have been luxurious once, deep jewel colors that spoke of wealth, but it was faded now, and the splendor was lost.

I tried to remember my way back to the front door in case I found an opportunity to run now that I wasn’t locked up, but the maid took several turns past rooms that looked so similar, it was hard to recall the path we’d taken. The house was vast and sprawling in a way I hadn’t expected.

We walked into a room with a blazing fire, which was probably unnecessary in the summer or New Orleans, but nothing so far had warmed the chill inside me. A portrait above the fireplace drew my eye, showing Francois and several others in period dress.

Through a partially open set of double doors, I spotted what looked like a fully appointed living room with black leather sofas and top-of-the-line electronics, but as I ventured closer for a better look at the out-of-context room in this museum-like house, the maid coughed a soft warning.