Pleasant Surprises

The door slammed open with a bone jarring crack as it hit the panelled wall behind it. The deep voice that had previously been droning through the oak door fell quiet immediately and an awkward silence followed. It seemed like an age before anyone spoke again and I could feel the air closing in around me as it hung heavy with expectant glares and raised eyebrows at such an intrusive interruption.

“Mr Harvard, I would like to introduce to you my daughter, Elizabeth.” It was my father who finally broke the silence and projected into the void, shattering my resolve with a gentle push on my shoulder.

Inside I was slowly falling to pieces. I dreaded the moment I would be forced to lay eyes on this man. I had clamped my eyelids shut as soon as my father had reached for the ornately decorated door handle that led to Mr Harvard’s study, in order to prolong the torturous wait that I had already endured for many weeks.

Mr Harvard, even the name reeked of self-importance. It was the kind of name you could only speak out loud in a very highly dignified accent because anything less would be like throwing his name in the gutter.

I could only imagine what this man would look like; I only knew what my parents had told me of him. So I had created an image in my head on the long ride over from Stanton Manor. At the moment his appearance was somewhere between an overweight, aristocratic old professor and a weedy, dishevelled little college boy, and both disgusted me greatly considering neither were really my type. Especially if you compared them to Thomas, who was bound to be nothing like this man – my parents had been intent on achieving that much in their search for a new man for me.

They didn’t want to risk me getting attached like I did last time.

The moment for me to open my eyes finally came with a shuddering snap back to reality and a painful elbow in the ribs. “Elizabeth! Open your eyes this instant!” My mother’s taunt voice hissed, stinging the air like a whip being cracked.

I slowly forced my eyes open, drawing out the process for as long as possible. My eyes drank in my surroundings despairingly, my stomach dropping as if it were being pulled out through my feet with a hook.

The room was exactly how I remembered it, forebodingly dark with its richly stained walls and the thousands upon thousands of books lining the bookcases. The green leather seat I had sat in so many times before was still there, sitting in the corner like a constant reminder of what I was about to do. My eyes travelled around the room and finally landed on whom I presumed to be Mr Harvard sitting behind the desk, Thomas’s desk, in the centre of the room, his fingers in a steeple before him and resting on his bottom lip as he watched me.

His appearance struck like a cold knife through my heart at the same time as the warm rush of relief rushed through my body. He’s nothing like Thomas, I reassured myself as I stared at him, and he was most definitely not the chubby old man or the chortling little twig from my imagination either.

My mind immediately began drawing the comparisons between the two men. Where Tom had seemed to fill up the room with warmth and make your heart swell as you took in his beautiful smile, unruly hair and sparkling brown eyes, Mr Harvard made your blood turn to ice and freeze in your veins like you’d been left out in the cold.

He dominated the room in a completely different way, his presence demanded that you admired him from afar while keeping a wary eye on him and fearing the moment he would pounce as soon as your back was turned.

“Well, what an unexpectedly, pleasant surprise,” he said smoothly, getting to his feet and moving around the desk to stand before me. His cool blue eyes reading straight through my confident looking facade.

“Pleased to meet you Mr Harvard,” I acknowledged passively, not letting my emotions seep into the tone of my voice. I dropped into a slight curtsy, feeling his eyes on me the entire time. I looked up again and caught the smirk on his face.

He moved his gaze from me, looking past me to address the rest of the room. “Leave us please,” he dismissed everyone with a flick of his hand.

I glanced back and caught my mother’s eye as she turned to leave, she nodded once, a million words conveyed in that single gesture. I stared after her as my father pulled the door shut and left me and him alone.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” he drawled, pulling my attention back to him. He began circling close behind me, his face so close to mine that I could feel his breath on my cheek. I clenched my teeth and remained completely still as he walked around me, his disgusting eyes creeping over me until I finally felt his hand slip around my waist, pulling me closer to him.

In that one move he made it a million times easier for me to what I did next. In one quick move I had him pushed against the closest wall, my face close to his and our bodies pressed together.

He smirked down at me, obviously enjoying himself. If only he’d known what was about to come. “I didn’t realize you wanted me so badly, Elizabeth,” he sneered, drawing out my name until it hardly sounded like my own.

“In,” I snapped viciously, pulling the knife out from between the folds in my skirt. “Your.” I pushed the sharp blade against his throat. “Dreams,” I hissed, watching as he gaped in shock, no words managing to escape past his severed windpipe, the blood spilling onto his finely pressed, pristine white shirt.

I wiped the blade clean quickly then slipped it back into my skirts, making my way over to the window as quickly as I could. It would only be a matter of time before his men came in to find out how we were both doing, and of course what my response to the question he was supposed to have asked was. They’d be quite surprised to find Mr Harvard lying dead on his study floor instead of the marriage proposal they would have been expecting.

I glanced back at him once more as I crouched on the window sill; my skirts bundled up around me. He’d slumped to the floor in the place that he’d been standing only a few seconds ago, the blood already spreading to meet with the faded brown stain a few feet away from him that marked the place that Thomas had died only four months ago. When I’d killed him it had been so much harder then this, this time I was able to smirk in satisfaction before disappearing into the darkness to find my parents and confirm that I’d completed the task.

Only one thought crossing my mind as I fled.

Two down, three to go.