Dark Obsession | Open Novella Contest

Chapter 1

April 12th, 1912

The sound of guests talking amongst one another filled the air of the large ballroom of the Fallon family mansion. Everyone was gathered there for the twenty-third birthday for the youngest child of shipping magnate, William Fallon. All the guests were dressed in their finest outfits as they mingled together, drinking expensive wine and chatting about the latest gossip that had been going around the city.

But for one certain person this day was certainly not enjoyable. In fact, for Grace Fallon today was absolutely dreadful for her and to be honest she would have much rather wanted to be back in her room reading several of the new books that she had recently purchased. Truthfully she hated coming to these type of parties because she knew what was going to happen. She was to have to watch her father and her siblings flaunt their riches off to the other guests. She hated seeing her family's false sincerity the sight of it just made her want to vomit.

As she sat there at one of the many laced covered table while sipping at her wine she watched as the family servants walked around the room carrying trays containing either the glasses of expensive red wine that her father had imported from France or horderves that one of the family chefs had put together. As she continued to look around the expensively decorated ballroom, Grace noticed one of the servants looking like he was having trouble maneuvering around the huge crowd of guests.

The young red-haired servant bumped into several of the guests as he tried to offer a new fresh glass of wine to her father. But as her father reached for the glass a female guest who looked like she had way to much to drink, bumped into the young man causing him to drop the tray and spill the glasses of red wine all over the white marbled floor and on her father's expensive leather shoes.

The shattering of the glass made a horrendous noise inside the ballroom and all the guests immediately stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to where the noise had come from. Some of the guests stared silently at the young servant while others whispered and giggled at the man.

As she continued to watch, Grace noticed the look of anger coming from her father, dreading what her father would do to the young man, Grace immediately placed her half-drunken glass of wine onto the table beside her and rushed over to where the young man was trying to picked the pieces of glass up.

Once she was beside the young man, Grace gently picked up several pieces of the broken glass and placed them on the tray all the while feeling the intensity of her father's angered stare upon her. She tried her best to ignore him and turned her head slightly to the side and looked over to the young man before talking. "It's okay. Don't worry about them. You didn't do anything wrong I mean accidents happen all the time."

The young man turned his head to the side and looked over to Grace. He was astonished that someone of her standing would dare to help out someone like him a mere servant. "Please ma'am, you don't have to help me I can do this myself. I don't want to cause problems any problems for you. I don't want you to be the cause of controversy." He said as he continued to pick up the glass and along the way nicking his finger on one of the pieces.

Grace watched as the young man placed his bleeding finger into his mouth to try and stop the bleeding. She knew that his finger was bound to be infected by him doing that, Grace quickly removed the small fabric band that she had been using to keep her hair in place and grabbed the young man by the hand and wrapped his finger in the a small truncate and then smiled at him. "There you go. Now it should stop bleeding. By the way what is your name?"

"My name is Peter, Peter Byrne. Ma'am." The young man replied, astonished that the Grace Fallon would ask for his name.

"That's a lovely name. So how long have you been working here?" Grace asked curiously.