CHAPTER 25: CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Marissa’s carriage, though grander than Carlos and Ashlyn’s carriage and pulled by four perfectly matched horses, was a silent, solitary bubble moving through the countryside. She did not mind. The silence gave her time to think, to steel herself for the inevitable confrontation. Lily silent opposite her.

As her processions rolled up the long, familiar driveway of her childhood home, she saw the main doors were wide open.

Ashlyn and Carlos’s carriage had already arrived and Carlos was instructing the footman on the gifts. "Wait here and count to thirty then you come in. Can you do that for?" She asked and received a nod. Marissa smiled and got down with Lily.

The moment she stepped out of her carriage and onto the gravel, before her foot even touched the first step of the grand entrance, it happened.

SMASH!!!

A porcelain teacup, thrown with vicious force from the doorway, shattered on the stone steps just in front of her. Hot, brown tea and sharp, white shards of porcelain sprayed outwards, narrowly missing the hem of her violet gown.

"My lady!" Lily cried out, instinctively pulling Marissa back a step. "Are you hurt?" she asked, her voice trembling with shock and fear.

"I’m fine, Lily," Marissa said, her voice a calm, steady island in the sudden storm. She looked up from the mess at her feet to the figure of rage standing in the foyer. It was her father, Lord Malone, his face a blotchy, furious purple. "How dare you return?" he roared, his voice echoing in the chilly entrance hall.

Beyond him, a pathetic scene of domestic tragedy was being played out. Ashlyn, her face a mask of feigned sorrow, was weeping dramatically in the arms of her doting mother, Lady Anita. She was being pampered and soothed, the perfect, heartbroken victim.

Marissa calmly ascended the steps, her gaze fixed on her father. "I am, after all, the Grand Duchess of Denver," she stated, her voice cool and clear. "What do you mean by that, Father? Am I not welcomed into my home anymore?" She was not asking a question; she was issuing a reminder of the power dynamics that had irrevocably shifted.

At the sound of her voice, Ashlyn’s sobs grew louder. "I yielded to Marissa, she threatened me," she wailed, her words muffled against her mother’s shoulder. "I gave her the Grand Duchess’s title, and how does she repay me? She bullies me with her new power! She doesn’t waste a single chance to hit or humiliate me!"

Lord Malone’s gaze, filled with a furious, biased fire, snapped back to Marissa. "You beat and scold your own sister at will?" he thundered. "You let outsiders, the Thompson family’s own servants, see your discord, making the Austen family a joke! Is this how you act as an elder sister? Have you no shame?"

"Father," Marissa spoke, her own expression unreadable, a calm lake hiding unknowable depths. "Why didn’t you bother to ask what Ashlyn did to me first?"

The question, so logical and fair, only fueled his irrational rage. "You dare talk back to me!" he bellowed. "I will teach you a lesson today! I will punish you by the family rules, lest you forget that you are an Austen first and that you will not bring shame to this family!" He turned to a pale-faced servant cowering by the wall. "Bring me my whip."

The servant bowed low and scurried away.

Marissa stood there, utterly unshaken. She did not plead. She did not argue. She simply watched, her mind a calculating machine. He still sees me as the unwanted daughter he can beat into submission, she thought. He has forgotten, or chosen to forget, who I am now. Let’s see if he has the guts to harm someone with power.

The servant returned, his hands trembling as he presented a long, coiled leather whip to Lord Malone. Its handle was worn smooth from use, its tail split into cruel, stinging strands. As her father took the whip, a venomous, triumphant smile bloomed on Ashlyn’s face, hidden in the folds of her mother’s embrace as she continued to sob. She was about to witness the moment she hadn’t seen in a while.

Malone raised the whip high, the leather hissing as it cut through the air.

In that heart-stopping moment, there was a blur of motion from the courtyard, followed by a sharp, resonant CRACK!

A small, grey stone, thrown with surprising force and accuracy, struck Lord Malone’s wrist. He cried out in pain and shock, his grip faltering. The whip dropped from his nerveless fingers, slithering onto the marble floor like a dead snake. The same stone ricocheted off his hand and shattered a large, ornate vase on a pedestal behind him, adding to the scene of destruction.

Before anyone could comprehend what had just happened, a tiny, furious figure ran up the steps and into the foyer. It was Ryan. He ran straight to Marissa’s side, planting his small feet firmly and turning to face the stunned adults.

"Who dares touch my mother?" he shouted, his tiny voice ringing with an authority that belied his size. "The Grand Duchess of Denver!"

He glared at Lord Malone, his small face a mask of fierce, protective anger. The smug, victorious smile on Ashlyn’s face vanished as if it had been wiped clean, replaced by a look of utter, slack-jawed disbelief.

Lady Anita, her arms still wrapped around her now-silent daughter, let out a nervous chuckle. "Why, it’s the young master, Ryan," she said, her voice suddenly strained and overly sweet. "What a surprise. Is... is your father, the Grand Duke, here as well?"

Ryan’s glare did not waver. "You know my father isn’t here," he said, his words a sharp, childishly honest accusation. "So you dare to bully my mother?"

He turned to Marissa, his anger melting away, replaced by a protective love. He reached out and wrapped his tiny hands around one of hers, holding on tight as if to shield her from the entire world.