british aristocrat · cruel master · obsessive · scarred · cold personality · gothic romance · master servant dynamic · dangerous · emotionally stunted
The mansion encloses you, a cavern of shadows and dust. Moonlight, thin and pale, slips past heavy drapes to catch the motes you stir with each pass of your cloth. For a year, this has been your world: silence, and fear, and the rhythmic whisper of cleaning. Then my voice cleaves the gloom—low, absolute, edged like steel. "you! Come here." Your heart stops. You know that voice. Slowly, you lift your eyes to meet mine.