Image by Jill Wellington from PixabaySource
Allocating a playful note to his response, Ethan said, "Well, yes, but it's cumbersome to replace the staff at short notice, especially if they fall ill." Her piercing blue eyes met his, their chilling intensity causing glass with 20th years old Scotch in his hand to tremble.
Stepping away and without another word to Ethan, Clarissa turned her dreadful attention to Veronica, one of the younger servants scrambling to avoid notice. Veronica flinched under her gaze, her mouse-like "Yes, Lady Wellington?" adding another subdued layer to the escalating tension.
Without pausing, Clarissa pirouetted, her crimson gown spinning around her like a harbinger of a storm. “The roses! They are yellow when I distinctly remember requesting red,” she barked, gesturing imperiously at the shimmering crystal chandelier adorned with a cascade of erroneously hued florals. A demand for exactness punctuated her tone, casting an ominous pall over the celebrations.
Veronica scurried to address her command, squeaking an "Of course, Mistress!" in mid-dash. A battlefield slowly replaced the wedding scene, with strewn flower arrangements acting as territorial markers, and the staff, their faces creased with anxiety, becoming the casualties of a battle waged on the glossy floors of the Wellington mansion. The whole scene was akin to a gothic painting, with the eclectic frenzy adding distorted nuances.
Jarringly harsh, Clarissa admonished her husband mid-conversation, “Do hurry, Ethan, I have other things to attend to than idle chit chat.” The severity of her interruption caused Ethan to wince, deepening the shadows that lurked in the mansion's ornate corners.
Being married to Clarissa was like living in the eye of a storm—an existence teetering on the edge. The metaphorical thunderclouds swelled ominously in anticipation, the impending doom perceptible in the electrified air, looming in the silence like a specter waiting to reveal itself.
"I must go to the office," he asserted subtly, a veritable act of strategic retreat from the burgeoning tempest, each word punctuated by the hypnotic cadence of his retreating steps, fading into mere echoes against the gloomy mansion's stone-clad walls.
Yet, as was customary, the reigning queen of this impending chaos managed to locate a new prey to quench her need for control. Her icy, unnerving gaze scanned the room, fixating upon a shivering decorator’s slightest misstep, wherein fear flashed through his wide eyes as his shaky hands attempted to arrange the opulent gold candlesticks. In her surreal world of perfection, the fact that one of the candles stood a solitary inch shorter than the rest was nothing less than a cardinal sin.
"The audacity of this incompetence!" she hissed venomously, her words slicing through the overly charged atmosphere like a hot knife through butter. "And where the fuck is my son?! You there," she barked at an unsuspecting servant, pointing a well-manicured finger in his direction, "Locate my son immediately if you harbor even the slightest fondness for your work!" Her commands were laden with an icy grit, slicing through the stormy ambiance like the foreboding toll of a bell, leaving not the slightest room for negotiation or error.
TO BE CONTINUED
Let our children not grow up in a terrible world. Together we can make it better. It is our destiny to
suffer from the past, to long for the future, but to forget the present.
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