The Mute Mistress

The Mute Mistress: Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"Call the car for me, Nathan!" Karina shrilled before a slam echoed from above the gallery hall. The ladies of the house looked up to the balcony to see Karina storm down the stairs and out the front doors, with a purse in her bare feet. With the door open, the thunderstorm raged loudly into their ears.

"Oh dear," Belle shook her head and signaled for Mary to stay as she sped to the staircase.

Just as she did the day before, Mary trembled because of another callous visitor, but she couldn't let Belle investigate the issue alone and shadowed after her. The aching woman struggled with a hobble to ascend the steps with the help of the rail. Once she met the top, she reinforced fiercely, "Sweetheart, please. Don't follow me into his room."

Thunder clapped, and Mary nearly jumped out of her skin, and her attention jerked toward the open door. Karina paced back and forth beneath the underhang. Mary's concern won over her instinct to stand still. She returned to the foyer, plucked an umbrella from the stand, and stepped outside.

"He's a piece of shit," Karina blurted, pulling a cigarette from her clutch and lighting it.

Mary took a step back to steer clear of the smoke. Karina eyed the help and blew in the opposite direction. "Sorry."

Mary gestured she was okay.

Karina glanced at the umbrella. "You don't have to do that."

Mary shrugged.

"You'll get used to it." Karina sighed after taking a drag. "That's just how we work. We yell, he asks me where I'm going, I ignore him, he finds me, we fuck and then it starts all over again."

"Why?"

Karina propped her elbow on her wrist and narrowed her eyes in thought. "I don't know, but we're just good together. We make each other look better. And there's not all that much men can offer outside of money and sex when he doesn't have whiskey dick. So we take what we can get."

Mary looked out to the sheet of rain thrashing the pavement. She had heard that sentiment from women often. The pained and bleak belief didn't seem to discriminate in class or in the age of hurt women.

"By the way, a car isn't coming." She flicked her cigarette out into the rain.

Karina walked back in and under the balcony. Belle slapped her sides. Mary couldn't put the pieces together, either. But what she understood was how much all the recent stress had affected Belle's health. Mary hurried up the steps.

"Oh, I'm fine," Belle complained lightly, still under surveillance, despite hanging onto the rail. Before reaching the bottom, Mary glanced around the incredible space. It was still as breathtaking as the first time she walked through the front doors, but it was too much for one man and his caretaker, who suffered from inflammatory arthritis.

They met the ground and Mary pointed back up the stairs with her brows curved inwards. Belle looked over the balcony and murmured, "He's drinking again."

Mary closed her eyes for a moment before Belle squeezed her forearm gently, gesturing a return to the kitchen.

As an hour passed, Belle distracted herself with emails, inventory, and preparation for the following week's meals, schedules, and landscaping.

Belle closed her small laptop on the island and slid off the stool to announce she would check on Nathan. Many minutes later, she returned just as forlorn and said dryly, "The best thing to do is leave them."

Are they still fighting? Mary typed.

Belle sighed with her palm to her forehead. "No, Ms. Burke is in the great room and Nathan is in his suite. I wish I could convince him to eat something."