CONSEQUENCES

CONSEQUENCES


Michael’s POV

Madison turned to me with wavering lashes. I sighed heavily and held her hand tightly. Then I cleared my throat loudly and started marching toward her father.

“We took a stroll,” I said, and then stopped in front of him. I had dragged Madidon toward him.

“Yes Dad, we took a morning stroll,” Madidon quickly added.

Lord Worthington narrowed his gaze and I wondered what he was looking at. We both had taken off the cloaks and I was trying to appear as natural as I could. Madison might have fidgeted when he first spoke but she seemed to be playing along so well. There was even a fake smile plastered across her face.

He cleared his throat loudly. “It’s 5am,”

“Yeah. We couldn’t get any sleep. The pills left Madison restless so I suggested we take a walk,” I replied.

“It’s cold out there. You guys wanted to take a stroll in that condition and didn’t even take a shawl?” Lord Worthington inquired.

I breathed a sigh.

The man seemed to be growing very inquisitive which means I need to come up with a more convincing answer. I darted my gaze to my knees and caught my frozen shoes. I stole a glance at Madison and noticed that her shoes were also covered in frost.

Shit!

What the hell was he doing out here at such an hour anyway? I lifted my head and found him staring at our shoes.

“We did wander very far,” I managed to say with a nervous smile.

He hummed. “I see,” he then turned to Madison. “You’ve barely recovered. Shouldn’t you be in bed resting?”

She smiled. “I couldn’t sleep, Papa,” she replied and turned to me. “Just like Michael said, the drugs the doctor prescribed left me restless so I suggested we take a walk. I think we got so carried away that we wandered very far,”

“Yeah. That’s true,” I quickly added.

He cleared his throat loudly and turned around. “And the carriage?”

My heart skipped a beat. Madison turned to me with a gasp.

Lord Worthington was still backing us. “I can see Eliot didn’t have enough sleep too so he tagged along,” he said and quickly turned back to us. “Didn’t he?”

“Of course,” I swallowed the lump in my throat and didn’t know when I released Madison’s hand. “We needed to,..

I stopped.

Why the hell do we need Eliot to take us in a carriage when all we wanted to do was take a walk?

I sighed.

“I know where you both went to,”

The words rang in my ear like a gunshot. I was about to take a step toward my father-in-law when I stopped.

He looked me straight in the face. “You went to the foot of the mountains. You went to see the outcasts,” he turned to Madison. “I know you’ve been going to see them,”

Madison bowed. Tears began to well up in her eyes.

I was rendered completely speechless.

He sighed. “I wake up every morning around 4 am or sometimes 5 am,” then he pointed at the rocking chair at the end of the hallway. It was facing the window.

How did we miss that? The chair has been there all along and sitting right there gives one a clear view of the house perimeters.

Lord Worthington continued. “My guards leave at 4 am and the ones who take over the morning shift don’t resume at 5 am,” then he turned to Madison. “You think I’ll be so careless with my security after losing you twenty-eight years ago?”

Madison burst into tears. “I’m sorry, Papa,” she stuttered.

He turned to me. “I watch over the house every morning for an hour or sometimes more and while I normally sit here,” he pointed back at the rocking chair. “I sometimes walk around the house. I saw Eleanor sneaking into the house one night and I decided to pay more attention,”

He walked up to Madison who was already trembling.

“You leave the house every Wednesday, covered in a cloak after getting dressed like a commoner. You take one of the carriages loaded with supplies you have our maidens collect and fetch some blankets from our store room. You ride to the outskirts of the city and hand them over to those bastards!” He snarled.

Madison shut her eyes and broke into tears. I quickly moved closer to her and held her. There was no denying that Lord Worthington had already figured everything out.

I couldn’t help but wonder. Why didn’t he stop her? If he knew that Madison had been sneaking out all this time then why didn’t he approach her If we hadn’t run into him at this moment, would he have still acted ignorantly?

“You have disappointed me greatly, Eleanor. I never thought it would come to this. I thought you’d stop after the first trip. I thought you’d come to your senses, stop going there, or maybe approach me with a confession but instead, you recruited your husband,”

Madison’s sobs were already rising through every corner of the hallway.

I sighed. “This was supposed to be her last..

He stretched a hand toward me and I immediately went mute. It was a crime to go ahead and speak when a Lord asks one not to. He might be my father-in-law and might have elevated me to the position of being his son but right now, it wasn’t time to play family.

Madison couldn’t even look her father in the eyes. She held my shirt tightly and continued sobbing.

I lifted my head and saw Lord Worthington fuming like a volcano that was about to erupt. His eyes had fire in them and his jaws were clenched.

“Leave my presence at once,” he spat.

Madison finally looked up to her father. She was met with a hostile gaze. She gasped.

I’m sure it was the first time she was seeing him this mad. He had always been the cheerful and simple parent.

“Let’s go,” I held her and pulled her away from his presence.

Lord Worthington clenched his fists and angrily turned around. Then he stamped his legs hard toward his chamber.

He’s going to tell Lady Worthington and Madison will face the consequences she has been dreading.

I fear for her!