Inheritance

Part 2. Chapter 34: Gutted and Broken

Rory was standing nearby.

"Hello Rory," Pollyanna tried not to sound angry or tearful at him, but it was hard to avoid. "Are you well?"

Rory, who was holding a beautiful, hand-crafted, earthen bowl, stared at her searchingly. "A-are you well...? I mean, I'm really happy for you, but he is a little..."

Pollyanna couldn't help the angry tears that came unbidden to her eyes. "Do I look well, Rory?"

Rory was confused. "Why are you crying?"

Pollyanna turned away from him. "How could you be so heartless? So... So blind! You could have saved me!"

Rory looked down at his feet with a look of misery smeared across his face. "I wanted you, Pollyanna. I still want you. It's you who picked Kline over me."

Pollyanna spun around. She clenched her fists—her eyes were still stung with tears. "I needed you to ask me before he did! If you had asked, I would have said yes in a heartbeat. I don't understand... Am I too ugly for you? Was I not good enough?"

She collapsed to her knees—breaking down at the sight of one of the only people who could have rescued her.

Rory came to her side and brazenly put his arms around her—an act that could get both him and Pollyanna into deep trouble if someone saw. "I'm sorry Pollyanna. I wanted to ask you so badly—I kept trying to get up the guts, but you were so intimidating. Look at me... Look at me..."

Pollyanna, who previously could not look him in the eyes, looked at him now with wide, tearful eyes of her own.

"I was a coward. It's not that you weren't good enough, it's that I was too afraid to ask you. God, I've had trouble sleeping every night since. I know you didn't want to marry him. I know you only did it because your parents wanted you to, and good girls do what their parents ask of them. Pollyanna..." Rory murmured and thumbed some of her tears away. Pollyanna closed her eyes and felt at peace in his arms. "Will you meet with me tomorrow morning? I'll wait for you just outside your manor. I want to talk more."

Pollyanna took a moment—enjoying his embrace a little while longer, and then she nodded. "You'll wait... Inconspicuously, right?"

Rory chuckled a little. "Of course." He frowned awkwardly and looked apologetic after a moment. "Your... Husband requested a bowl at our shop. I have to deliver it now."

Pollyanna nodded sadly. "Okay."

Rory released her from his arms. He knocked on the door of Kline's manor and handed the beautiful bowl off to one of the servants after being paid a few coppers.

Rory waved goodbye to Pollyanna as she mustered her strength to knock on her mother's door.

Rory had given her some amount of courage.

She rapped her knuckles on the white door.

She heard footsteps approaching from inside.

Her mother appeared at the door with a hollow expression on her face. "Pollyanna. I've been expecting you. Why didn't you come to visit me sooner?"

Pollyanna glanced behind her to see Rory receding into the distance and she lowered her eyes sadly.

She felt so very alone under the scrutinizing gaze of her mother. "I've been busy, mother. I've been learning how to sew and cook and clean and..."

"Things that you should have already learned from me," her mother cut in. "But you never did because you're such a lazy girl."

Pollyanna closed her eyes with a frown pulling at her lips. "Y-yes mother..."