The door to the study opened without resistance and Arian stormed in. Gerald was sitting at his desk and glanced up in surprise to see her, but then immediately returned his gaze to the papers he was attending to.

“Not now Arian, there is too much to do before the banquet.”

The small benefit to her avoiding the training grounds was that no one here knew how capable of violence she was. She ignored his dismissal, walked to his desk, and punched him in the face. He floundered in shock at the blow as she grabbed his collar and slammed his head onto the desk.

“Adept at violence!” She yelled, as she pinned his face against the smooth surface of the desk, “what a polite way to describe the murderer you are trying to marry me off to!”

Someone grabbed her from behind, and she quickly brought a leg up to push off the edge of the desk as hard as she could. Off balance, her assailant stumbled backward as she wrenched out of the grip that trapped her.

She turned around to see the sour mercenary recover his steps, but he did not move to attack her again. As usual, he looked at her with hatred, but also tried to stay as far away from her as humanly possible.

“Throw her out,” Gerald ordered the man, with more anger in his voice than she had ever heard.

The mercenary took a step toward her, and she quickly raised her arms to a guarded position to deflect his attempts to grab her. As she raised her arms, the mercenary briefly flinched and closed his eyes.

“Why did you do that?” she asked, confused.

The man paused at her question, and cautiously opened his eyes. A trained mercenary flinching at a woman raising her fists in a country where women should not know any fighting techniques? This response was not just unnatural, it was asinine.

Unless.

Unless he had been sprayed in the face with pepper spray.

“Why did you try to kidnap Gwen?” Arian stated, trying her best not to show that this was a brand new revelation for her.

His jaw clenched but he made no move to speak. His eyes just flicked towards the marquess and then back to Arian.

“Harvey,” Gerald’s voice said in a dark tone, “close the door.”

Arian turned around to face Gerald, who was wiping the blood from his nose on a pristine white handkerchief. He was completely unsurprised at the accusation that the mercenary employed at the Hartfield estate tried to kidnap his niece. 

Too unsurprised. Hearing the door click behind her, Arian realized that she wasn’t dealing with a rich coward, she was stuck in a room with a villain.

“The mercenary is your man.”

“All mercenaries are my men. I bought the guild when the war started as a business investment.”

“An investment?”

“Nobles required to fight in a war for the first time ever. They clamored to secretly hire mercenaries to accompany their soft sons for protection. It is one of the largest revenues the estate has now.”

“Why would you have Gwen kidnapped?”

“Before you arrived, that was my plan to avoid my own conscription.”

“She is your niece!” Arian yelled. “Why not just take your own mercenaries with you to protect you?”

“Owning the guild has made me rather unliked by many knights, since it undermines the equality of all classes of men fighting together. Being out at war would likely be a greater risk to me than what others normally experience,” he said casually, “and Gwen would not have been harmed. Just safely held long enough for the king to defer my service requirement so that I could search for her. Similar to a countryside summer vacation.”

“With a large helping of trauma.”

“I have no doubt as the future Princess of Maltisha she would be afforded everything she needed to overcome the experience.”

“But I ruined the plan.”

“Yes, but you gave me a better one. A deferral to find and recover Gwen only helped me this year. When you marry Count Farrough it will take care of the issue indefinitely.”

“I will not marry him. You cannot make me.”

“I can and I will. If I must get the whole guild of mercenaries to drag you to the wedding, I will do so. If you run, I will ensure they find you. You can cooperate with this arrangement, or I can have you detained in an undisclosed location until the day you are to be wed. Just work with me Arian and you will only have to tolerate the man for a week. This does not have to be this hard.”

“What if this companion of yours can’t get me back home? What happens then?”

Gerald looked at her and sighed, “Then we can arrange for the count to meet an untimely demise while on the battlefield.”

“I’m a doctor, I will not conspire to murder someone. That goes against my oath.”

“That is an honorable and romantic notion; however, I doubt you will hold to it for long once you start getting thrown around.”

Invisible claws felt like they were wrapping themselves around Arian’s throat. All the rage and violence she had stormed into the room with had vanished. 

She felt absolutely cornered and knew the more she pushed to escape, the more the efforts to confine her would become. Gerald nodded at her silence, pleased that she seemed to grasp the entirety of the situation.

“Tonight, at the banquet you will be presented formally into the Hartfield family before the betrothal announcement. You must also meet Count Farrough, as he will be attending for the specific purpose of seeing you. I recommend that you charm him. The week with him will go much more smoothly if he is adequately enamored with you. You are dismissed.”

In a trance-like state she turned, and the door was opened for her by the attempted kidnapper named Harvey. Mindlessly and soundlessly, she walked to the chambers she had been given in the estate. She dared not think of them as her room anymore. This was all just a pretty prison.

The door to her room slammed behind her, though she did not recall pushing it hard. Standing in the open space in front of the bed she inhaled a deep breath. Arian held in the air until her chest burned and begged for a reprieve. When it could be contained no longer, she released the loudest scream her body could manage.

The scream was desperation and frustration that had been given claws and they shredded her throat as it was dragged from the depths of her body. A servant in the hallway dropped something from the shock of the sound. Her scream went on so long that her body shook, and her lungs became desperate for oxygen.

When she was finally silent, all the things that had happened began to crush her. She wanted to go home. She wanted to spend time at the clinic treating patients, applying the knowledge she had furtively applied herself to gaining for a decade.

She wanted to go out to dinner with her friends and laugh so loud that neighboring tables were annoyed. She wanted to buy a couch for her empty living room and binge watch a meaningless show on a Saturday with no fears robbing her rest. She wanted to swipe right through a stupid app meant to help her find an attractive date that she could casually meet for coffee on a Sunday afternoon.

All the wants manifested into sobs that choked her. She collapsed onto the bed. Finding a pillow, she curled into a ball and sobbed an endless stream of tears until she finally fell unconscious.