MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 40 - Forty: The Letter

//CLARA//

Hattie was already there the moment we opened the door.

Her face went from relief to horror in the span of a heartbeat. Her eyes darted from my torn dress to my wild hair to the bruises already darkening at my throat, and her hands flew to her mouth.

"Oh, Miss Eleanor! God in heavens! What happened?"

"I found her in the creek," Casimir spoke first, sounding flat and clinical. "She fell."

Hattie looked like she might faint. Her hands fluttered at her sides, unsure whether to reach for me or call for help or simply collapse.

Before she could decide, a voice cut through the hallway.

"What in the devil happened here?"

Aunt Cornelia stood at the end of the hall, her arms crossed, her face a mask of cold disdain. She wasn’t looking at me. Of course she wasn’t. She was looking at Casimir.

I watched her sweep toward us, her skirts rustling against the floor.

So, the she-devil has finally emerged from her lair.

"I fell in the creek," I said, chin high. "Good thing Casimir was there. He pulled me out."

Her eyes flicked to me, finally, and I watched her take in my current state. Something ugly flickered in her expression. Not concern. Not worry. Just skeptical.

"What were you two doing in that wilderness? At this hour?"

"Really? Is that your question?" The venom in my veins finally boiled over. "Don’t you even realize just for a minute that maybe, just maybe you’ve become so toxic that we just needed a moment outside to avoid breathing the same air as you? Or are you too deep in your own little bubble to process that?"

Aunt Cornelia’s eyes twitched. She looked like she wanted to bludgeon my head in right there on the Persian rug. But then she looked at Casimir. He was staring at her with a dark, silent intensity that made it very clear, if she did anything, he would make her regret it for the rest of her life.

The old bat let out a sharp sigh. "You think very low of me, Eleanor."

"Why?" I scoffed, a jagged laugh escaping me. "Isn’t it the truth? Were you hoping, just for a second, that the water would have been faster? That I’d be halfway to the Hudson by now so you’d finally be rid of the thorn in your side?"

Her eyes drifted to the bruises on my throat.

"You might have grown sharp, young lady. But you still have a long way to go. You better be careful. Next time, your beloved uncle might not be there to save you."

Did she just threaten me? In my head, I was already drafting a snarky remark, but the way Casimir’s entire frame went rigid beside me killed the punchline. This wasn’t just her usual drama. This was a warning.

"Clean yourselves," Aunt Cornelia snapped, smoothing her skirts and turned away. "I’ll be joining you both for dinner."

Casimir gave me a single, stiff nod before turning toward his study, his spine so rigid it looked like it might snap. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Hattie’s hand closed around my arm. "Miss Eleanor, come."

Half an hour later, I was sinking into a copper tub filled with steaming water. Hattie peeled away the ruined silk and wool, and when the last layer fell away, she let out a strangled gasp.

I looked down. The bruises were everywhere. Dark fingerprints where he had gripped me, held me, pinned me against the tree.

"Oh, miss..." Hattie’s voice was small, horrified. "The rocks... they must have been so jagged. You’ve been battered."

I studied the marks, tracing each one with my eyes. I remembered exactly which bruise came from his palm and which came from his desperation.

"I fell hard, Hattie," I said, surprising myself with how steady I sounded. "Very hard."

She just knelt beside the tub, not understanding the weight of my words. Her hands trembled, her eyes fixed on the bruises blooming across my skin like flowers in the wrong season.

"Do you want me to fetch the doctor? To check for internal... damage?"

"No." I let the water run through my fingers, watching it darken. "I’m fine. It’s just bruises, Hattie. They’ll fade."

She didn’t look convinced, but she picked up the cloth and began to wash my back. I closed my eyes and let her.

Dinner was a study in silence.

Aunt Cornelia sat at Casimir’s right, perfectly coiffed as if the last forty-eight hours of her asylum exile threat hadn’t happened. She had not locked herself in her room for two days out of shame. She had been waiting and sharpening her weapons.

She had dressed for battle, I noticed. The black silk was gone, replaced by deep burgundy, the color of wine and old blood.

Casimir sat at the head of the table, his face carved from stone. He had not looked at me once since we sat down. His wine sat untouched. His food was cold. He was somewhere else entirely. Probably still at the creek, staring at the blood on his hands, still trying to fit what we had done into a framework of guilt and sin that I had already discarded.

I ate heartily, drank, and refused to let the silence crush me.

The silence shattered when Higgins appeared, a silver tray in his hands, and a single envelope resting in the center.

"A letter for Miss Eleanor Thorne."

Both Casimir and Aunt Cornelia looked up. I ignored them and took the letter, broke the seal, then unfolded the paper inside.

Oliver’s handwriting. It was rushed, written with excitement, barely legible.

Clara—

Mr. Chamberlain has accepted. He wants to move forward with the agreement. He’s offered to host the launching ceremony at his offices. The Linotype will be presented to the press in three weeks.

I’ll need you there. We’ll need to plan. Write back soon.

— O

I squealed.

I couldn’t help it. The sound escaped before I could catch it, high and bright, and I clapped my hand over my mouth too late. Aunt Cornelia’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. Casimir’s hand tightened on his wine glass.

"Eleanor." Aunt Cornelia’s voice was sharp, disapproving. "What is the meaning of this outburst?"

I lowered my hand. I was smiling and still couldn’t stop. "It’s good news. Nothing that concerns you."

Her eyes narrowed. "What could it possibly be to have you squealing like a pig being butchered and losing all your manners at the dinner table?"

I tucked the letter into my sleeve, fighting the urge to give her a look that would send her back to her room for another two days.

"Trade secrets, Auntie. You know. The kind of thing women aren’t supposed to have, so obviously I have several."

She blinked, and I kept smiling.

"It’s my business." I punctuated each word, watching her try to find a crack in a sentence that was technically not a lie. "You wouldn’t understand."

Aunt Cornelia’s lips pressed into a thin line. She looked at Casimir, waiting for him to intervene, to demand an explanation, to assert some authority over the ward who was clearly hiding something.

He did nothing. He just sat there, his wine glass forgotten, his eyes fixed on the spot where I had tucked Oliver’s letter against my skin. I could practically feel his stare burning through the fabric of my sleeve, trying to decipher words that weren’t his to read.

I pushed back from the table, already composing the reply in my head. Oliver would need details—the timeline, the guest list, what Mr. Chamberlain expected from us. I could already see the words forming, the excitement building in my chest like something alive. But then Casimir’s voice stopped me.

"You’ll finish your food first."

His face was still stone, but his voice cracked on the word first. His eyes were dark, guarded, and beneath the careful control, something was fighting to get out.

He was still trying to figure out who we were now. I realized he wasn’t asking me to stay for dinner. He was asking me to stay with him. And I was here, reading letters from another man, building a future that had nothing to do with his guilt.

I bit my lip, looked at my plate, and looked at him.

Then I sat back down.

Aunt Cornelia’s eyebrows climbed. She had never seen me comply without argument, without sarcasm, without the sharp edge she had come to expect. I ignored her. I picked up my fork and finished my food.

When my plate was clean, I looked up.

"May I go to my room now?"

My voice was soft. Almost sweet. The voice of a girl who had never thrown a teacup across a drawing room, who had never called her aunt a dusty old hag, who had never been anything but the quiet, obedient ward Casimir had taken in months ago.

Aunt Cornelia stared at me. Her mouth opened but then closed. She had no script for this.

Casimir’s jaw worked. He was fighting something, and I watched him lose.

"Go," he said.

"Thank you, Uncle."

I stood, smoothed my dress and walked toward the door. Letting the word hang in the air behind me, soft and sharp all at once.