CWMBR 2

Chapter 2

****

Returning home late at night, Ain was out the door before the sun rose. It was as if he had only come to the manor in the first place to deliver a brief message.

And Bridget was once again left alone in the mansion. The only difference was that now the air surrounding her was not just chilly, but faintly repulsive.

"I knew it was coming from the beginning."

"I told you so."

Even the hired hands, at least the ones who'd been trying to keep their mouths shut, were no longer looking away. They didn't even hide their glances. Someone had overheard the conversation in the lobby, and the couple's argument had spread throughout the vast place.

Nothing had been revealed, nothing had been decided, and yet they already seemed to think Ain was the winner of this case.

As would anyone. Bridget and Ain's marriage was doomed from the start. Some might even admire her for holding out so long.

Bridget glanced at the servants with a pale face, then back at her bedroom. The clock was already ticking toward noon, but her bedroom was still the same as she had left it in the morning. It seemed that the servants no longer attended to her.

The manor had a small number of hired help. There weren't enough people to take care of a pregnant hostess, and Bridget had always been poorly taken care of.

....But at least they did the basics.

"If it were me, I'd be ashamed of myself and leave."

"Oh, but if she leaves now, she won't get alimony."

"What  alimony, she’s not entitled to a dime once the marriage vows are officially annulled, and she’ll be lucky if she doesn’t get thrown in jail?"

"So, you're saying that's true?"

Bridget ignored the gossip and moved toward the bed. As she quietly straightened the disheveled comforter and gathered the heavy curtains, she kept her eyes on the bedroom doorway, but when she didn't react, their interest seemed to wane.

Bridget's calm tying of the curtains slowed to a crawl.

In truth, she knew. From the beginning, the mansion had no servants for her.

They were merely those who stayed to perform routine maintenance on one of the many mansions Ein Wise owned.

So, officially, their job was to take care of the property, not the hostess.

"Bridget Pennington is worth less than this dilapidated mansion in the mountains.”

The tacitly defined value had now come to the surface. Bridget smiled bitterly and lowered her gaze. She should have known it would come to this. Nothing had ever gone right in her life since her parents died, and she wasn't about to get lucky again.

Why did she put up with that kind of treatment? Some might ask.

Bridget had her own reasons.

First of all, Bridget was in love with Ain. That sounded incredibly stupid, but it was true. She loved Ain, and she secretly dreamed of having some sort of relationship with him, though it didn't look like this in her imagination.

 She also thought that the misunderstanding between them was a solvable enough problem, because it was literally a misunderstanding. He firmly believed that she had drugged him and forced him to do certain things, but it wasn't all true. In no way would she ever commit such a crime to save her life. She thought he would know that about her. Even though she couldn't explain it right away...................

But the biggest reason was the child.

The baby, the product of a one-night stand, felt like fate to Bridget. A baby that was his and her blood.

It would complete their precious family. Would she be considered crazy if she felt like she was being led down this path by her child?

She had no intention of hiding the identity of the child's father. She saw no reason to raise the child alone. A child deserved to grow up with the care of both parents, and it was an incomparably better life to be the child of Ain Wise than the child of a poor theater owner.

That was why she came to this manor, and that was why she endured it. Even though she was resentful and angry at the way her employees treated her, she thought that once she had a child, everything would be fine. Besides, at the moment, her pregnant body was in so much pain and suffering that she didn't want to add to the pile of problems she had to deal with.

If she hadn't told Ain Wise anything, if she had been alone and quiet and taken care of herself, would the child have seen the light? Out of habit, her thoughts drifted to the unborn child. If she had done this, she might not have lost him, or if she had done that.....................

Then Bridget, having managed to cut off the tail of her thoughts, looked up.

It was funny, she thought to herself, that for once, she could let go of all her worries and troubles. If she could go back, she'd walk away from it all, never looking back.

Growling.

Bridget, standing there in a daze, was startled out of her reverie by the sound of her stomach. Apparently, this body was still hungry, even though she hadn’t eaten in days. She felt like an animal for being hungry when things were at their worst.

Oh, and the day after she lost her child, hunger was the first thing Bridget felt when she woke up from a night of fainting.

It was a miserable, horrible feeling, and she barely managed to keep her body from wanting to strangle her with its instinctive needs. She hadn't let go of any hope, because maybe the child in her belly was still alive and well, maybe all that blood was just a dream.

Maybe this hunger was a sign that the child had survived the struggle.........

"Ugh, that's a lot of blood. I can't seem to get the blood off."

The thought of the insensitive maid's muttering made Bridget sit down, unable to bear it.

Sunlight flooded into the bedroom through the large windows, but the crouching Bridget could only cower beneath them, in the tiny shade.

The sobs were soundless.

***

Bridget Wise.................. No. Bridget Pennington was the owner of the Glynford Grand Theater.

Or, more accurately, her parents had built it after they settled in Glynford. At the time of their settlement, Glynford was just one of many rural towns in Alensia, but the opening of the Glynford Grand Theater transformed the unremarkable town into a city of free artists.

The Penningtons ran the theater, drawing on their education and travels around the world as young men, and poor but aspiring artists began to flock to Glynford. At one point, the theater was considered Glynford's premier cultural institution.

Until the Penningtons' untimely deaths.

Bridget Pennington, their only child, inherited the theater, but a young woman panicked by her parents' deaths was unlikely to be able to take on an unfamiliar business and run it properly. To help her, her uncle Ronan Pennington stepped in as her agent.

Her father's twin brother, Ronan Pennington, a man who had tried his hand at many different businesses, took the helm of the theater. Nevertheless, the theater's debts grew endlessly, and it was hard to see where things had gone wrong.

Then, the theater was finally saved. A new actor was hired by the theater.

Ronan recruited Donna Greene, the theater's signature actress, who had burst onto the scene and captured the hearts of the people of Glynford.

"This is the only way to save the theater, Bridget."

After the Penningtons' deaths, the theater, which had been struggling for funds, was finally able to turn its fortunes around with the arrival of the glamorous and beautiful Donna Green.

Ronan was right. Donna was the only way to save the theater. The theater was saved by the people who loved her, the fans who adored her.

It didn't take long for Donna to gain unchecked power over the theater.

Donna Greene was the theater's bread and butter. Bridget couldn't give up the theater her parents had left her, so she naturally had to start living under Donna's thumb. Even though she thought her relationship with Donna was a bad one, she couldn't give up the money and the theatergoers.

Ah, if only she hadn't gotten involved with Donna in the first place, she wouldn't be in this situation today.

As she thought about it, Bridget swallowed her mockery with an impassive glance. It was a ridiculous assumption, and she knew it wasn't really the whole story.

***

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