Chapter 27: Set Up

Abigail woke the next morning, and immediately reached her hand to cradle her head. She had never before felt a pain like she did right now.

She groaned and turned slowly to the dresser on her left. If she moved slowly enough, then the headache didn’t bother her so much. She turned on her side, staring at the pedestal. She wanted to message Mark, but she just needed a moment before she could move again without any pain shooting through her.

Everything from yesterday went through her mind again. Lyall was turning into a problem, a real problem. And he seemed to have Adam’s favor. Adam, who was completely oblivious to Olivia’s feelings for Lyall.

Abigail sighed. She hoped her dad wouldn’t ask anything more ridiculous out of her. She actually hoped he wouldn't ask any more out of her at all, but even she knew that was too much to hope for, now.

Without moving too much, she slowly propped herself up on her one elbow. Since that didn’t cause her too much pain, she reached for her phone.

She found Mark had messaged her last night, and again this morning.

‘Had a great time today, maybe we can do it again sometime soon.’ Read the text from last night.

‘Hey, so, my schedule got moved around a bit. And turns out I’ll be by your house today. Exactly around lunch time, actually. How do you feel about Burgers?’

Abigail decided to respond to both messages in one text, ‘I kinda like your new schedule. And burgers for lunch sounds perfect.’

Abigail bit her lip. Something had happened to her last night. And she wondered if she should tell Mark about it or not. She definitely didn’t want to just let it go. She needed to find out what caused her to pass out in the middle of her bedroom floor.

Maybe she should get to the doctor. Her head still throbbed worse than she ever had it before.

Abigail decided not to tell Mark about what had happened just yet, she would first try to find out on her own, then she would tell him. So she placed the phone back down, sighing, she lay back on her.

Then she turned to her left.

And nearly screamed at what she saw.
__________________________________

Abigail blinked, entirely confused. Her mouth opened in shock, staring at the man lying naked beside her. Abigail jumped out of bed, and realized she was also naked.

Abigail started to hyperventilate, but immediately tried to calm her breathing. Panicking right now would help absolutely nothing at all.

Her head was still pounding insanely, but she managed to push herself through the haze to find some clothes. Her room was a mess. And she had passed out last night, but she knows there was no way her room looked like this.

Someone had obviously come in after her and done this, and she could probably guess who, given she had only two possible suspects and they might even have worked together. But why would they do this? Could it all be just to make her think she was losing her mind?

Abigail pulled on her underwear, where she found it scattered closest to the bed, and then didn’t bother with searching for the rest of her clothes wherever they may be, simply going straight to her closet, and pulled on the longest and heaviest clothing she could find.

She shivered even with layers and layers of clothing covering her. There was a strange man in her bed. Naked, as far as she could tell, too. She wasn’t sure how all of this had happened, how long he’d been sleeping there, but she had been naked with a strange man in her bed.

She tried to calm her shaking, but regardless of any kind of circumstances, she felt extremely uncomfortable.

There were also bottles and bottles of wine all over her room. And honestly, Abigail thought, if anyone had drunk as much as this in one night, they would be dead come morning. There was no way any reasonable person would think that this had been a normal night of partying.

Abigail turned back to the man, and stood staring at him, unsure what to do, when her bedroom door suddenly burst open behind her. Abigail nearly sighed with relief, and turned around, hoping to see one of her servants. Those nine women that helped her the last time with her dress had been invaluable, maybe they could help her again.

But Abigail’s jaw dropped, as she saw Charlotte stride into her room.

And immediately, Abigail knew something was going on. When had Charlotte even spoken to her when she was in front of her? And now she suddenly, for the first time, comes into her room, just when a strange, naked man, happens to be in her bed?

“Oh, Abigail, your father just wanted me to check. . .” Charlotte began with a false note of concern. Then her gaze seemed to apparently fall on her bed, with the stranger in it.

“Oh my God!” Charlotte screamed at Abigail. “How dare you? How dare you use this home as your own personal brothel?!”

Abigail blinked, that was taking it just a bit too far, wasn’t it?

“We take you in,” Charlotte began in a more reasonable voice. “And this is how you repay us? With this, this, this depravity.”

“Oh, that’s a big word for you,” Abigail muttered, but Charlotte was going on such a spiel she didn’t seem to have heard her.

Abigail had thought that Olivia would have been the one to set all of this up, after all; it was Olivia’s inheritance that Abigail was taking away. But since Charlotte was the one here, the one to so conveniently discover her in bed with a random man, Abigail guessed that her step-mother must have had a hand in all of this.

“Have you no decency?” Charlotte asked, turning to Abigail, finally looking at her and not just in her general direction. “Have you no sense of decorum? Do you not care for your own reputation?”

This woman really was laying it on a bit thick, Abigail felt. There was really no reason to continue just like this. And what was the game here? Was it to show Abigail that she wasn’t safe even in her own bedroom? Or to prove that Charlotte could get to her anywhere?

“Can you at least not even respect me and your father?” Charlotte demanded of her. “After we took you in.” Though there had been absolutely no ‘we’ in that regard. “After we gave you more than your mother ever could possibly have.”

Abigail felt she had to speak up now, that this had gone on for far too long, but that it had also reached extremes. Abigail hadn’t needed to be saved from her mother. Her life had been hard, that was without a doubt, but there had been nothing to save her from.

And if Abigail was perfectly honest with herself, this life that she had here with her father, stepmother and half-sister right now, wasn’t any easier. It just had prettier fabric and finer jewels. But not one part of it had been easier.

“And you had nowhere else to go,” Charlotte was still continuing on her tangent, and Abigail decided now was the time to stop it.

“Actually,” Abigail spoke up, her voice perfectly controlled, her eyebrow arched just so. “I was perfectly fine where I was. And as for all of this, I didn’t do any of it. But I’m sure you know that, already.”

“How dare you speak back to me! This is my house you’re living in! You should show me some respect!” Charlotte’s voice could not be any louder right now if she even tried. “You ungrateful little b*stard!”

Charlotte slapped Abigail right across the cheek, and Abigail went reeling. She caught herself on her pedestal, but the bed frame shook with her falling on it.

This disturbed the sleeping occupant of her bed, and the man decided to wake up. Both Abigail and Charlotte turned to the young man, blissfully still unaware of what was going on. They both watched him silently, as he struggled to lift himself up, like he had passed out after a night of drinking.

Abigail, cheek still stinging, watched as he groggily got out of bed.

“Where am I?” He asked no one in particular, his speech slurring.

Neither Abigail nor Charlotte answered him. And after a few moments and with much difficulty, he managed to push himself out of bed.

Abigail thought, if this man was acting, he deserved all the awards.

Then, after another few moments, he laboriously stood up, using the bed for support, and turned to face them.

Absolutely naked.

And Charlotte screamed. Her voice carrying out of Abigail’s bedroom, making sure the entire house knew what was going on in Abigail’s room.

And suddenly, watching her stepmother scream, and scream, and scream, Abigail understood what was happening.