THE COST OF BEING RICH
Chapter Ten
I had breakfast the next morning across the
table from Rose. She was wearing a frilly dress and she was acting as if
nothing out of the usual had occurred last night. She was acting as if I hadn’t
stayed up in my room, waiting to make sure the ruffian didn’t rape and murder
her while my heart broke into a million pieces.
"I was hoping you would come to me last
night." She had finally arrived late at night. The mere way she shuffled
her feet told me that she was still giddy.
"I was tired."
At that moment, a feeling I had never before
felt for her surged up. Hate. How could she sit there so calmly and do this to
me?
"Yes. Your exertions below deck were
clearly tiring."
"I see you had that undertaker of a
manservant follow me."
That’s when I snapped. What right did she
have to be indignant with me? God, I remember the rest as if it were a
fuzzy dream. I yelled some, she yelled back. Then I yelled even more, but I
know they weren’t my own words. They were words my father had used to get my
mother to behave. It didn’t work on Rose, and I felt the anger in me overpower
everything else. I overturned the table and pounced on Rose. She shrank back in
her chair as my arms held her in place. I don’t know what I would have done if
I hadn’t followed Rose’s gaze to her maid standing in the doorway. Above all
else, I knew better than to make a scene in front of other people.
I left in a worse state than ever before.