Chapter 51: The Wonders Of Prestige
LOUISE’S POV
Louise has always believed that hell, if it exists, would look and feel like her mother’s sitting room— as immaculate as it is.
The cream walls are pristine. The antique furniture is arranged precisely to inspire awe. Fresh lilies sit in crystal vases, their sweet scent failing to mask the underlying chill permeating the room.
Nothing here looks lived in or loved. It just exists to draw attention.
Louise stands beside the marble fireplace with her arms folded across her chest while her mother sits elegantly on one of the sofas, legs crossed, a porcelain teacup balanced delicately between her fingers.
Alice Dubois is a vision. She is the kind of woman who looks like she just stepped out of a magazine dedicated to impossibly stunning women.
She’s wearing black, as always. Alice always wears black.
She has on an understated silk dress that somehow still manages to look expensive enough to feed an entire village. Her dark hair falls in glossy waves over one shoulder, framing a beautiful face that has grown sharper, rather than softer, with age.
People often call Louise beautiful, but Alice is always described as terrifying—which is an accurate description.
"You’ve embarrassed me."
The statement is delivered in the same tone Alice will use when commenting on poor weather.
Louise fights the urge to roll her eyes. "We’ve barely spoken in a while and you’ve already started."
"I shouldn’t have to start." Alice places her teacup down carefully. "You should possess enough sense not to publicly antagonize your fiancé."
"Leon is not my fiancé."
"You’re correct." Alice nods. "But he will be."
Louise laughs. It comes out harsher than intended. "I don’t understand why I have to act according to your ridiculous plan."
Alice regards her silently, her eyes sweeping across her figure. She’s looking down on her with those eyes. Louise hates her eyes, but more than that, she hates that they share them.
The only difference is the shade. Louise inherited emerald-green eyes from her mother, bright and striking enough that even the proudest elite would describe them as jewels.
But, that means that Alice’s eyes are green too. A venomous green. So dark, it appears black under most lighting.
Looking into them always reminds Louise of staring down into deep water and realizing something with teeth is staring back.
The resemblance between them is undeniable. Louise despises it. High society noticed the resemblance too.
Her mother earned the nickname ’The Crow’ decades ago. Not even the proudest elite could call her that to her face, but behind her back is another story.
The nickname was created because she always seemed to appear wherever scandals occurred or secrets were spilled.
She’ll always be there, wearing black with her eyes trained sharply to pick apart every single detail. She watches and waits with an almost infinite patience.
Louise, by extension, became The Crow’s Daughter.
She loathes the title. Not just because it suggested that she was something to be owned by her mother, but because it also suggested that she is similar to the woman.
Worst of all, it isn’t entirely wrong to think that.
"Leon Vassilis remains your best option," Alice says calmly.
"I despise him."
"Your feelings on the matter are inconsequential," she says as she sips her tea. "Besides, many successful marriages are built on considerably less."
Louise barks out another laugh. "How wonderful, Mother. You’ve perfectly described what every woman dreams of. A marriage to a man whom they despise."
"You’ll learn to tolerate him."
"How reassuring."
Alice’s expression doesn’t change. "I’m not interested in your dramatics tonight, Louise."
Louise’s eyes narrow. "Then, maybe you should stop attempting to sell me any wealthy man who happens to possess a family fortune."
"You say that as though you’re not benefiting from this union."
"Oh, forgive me. I forgot. I should be grateful."
Alice ignores the sarcasm in favor of taking a long sip of her tea. "Leon still possesses approximately a sixty percent likelihood of inheriting the Vassilis fortune."
"Sixty?" Louise scoffs. "I know he isn’t worth much, but you didn’t have to reduce him to percentages."
"Even unimportant things can be reduced into percentages, Louise."
Of course, she’d say that.
Louise has watched her mother calculate the emotional fallout of a scandal the same way other people balance household accounts.
To Alice, people are assets or liabilities, nothing in between.
"Orion is wealthier. Considerably so." Louise says deliberately.
Alice’s eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. How interesting. Even now, she is still incapable of dealing with the chaos that is Orion.
"Orion is unsuitable."
Louise sighs. "Because he is insane?"
"No. Because he lacks ambition."
Louise just stares at her mother in silence, because of all the criticisms Orion Vassilis, she had never expected to hear ambition as part of them.
Alice continues speaking, either oblivious to or just plain ignoring Louise’s confusion.
"He has power, enough that it would be foolish to doubt it, and more influence and connections than anyone I’ve seen." She pauses. "But, he does not care about prestige."
There it is. Prestige. Always prestige.
Alice cares about wealth. Certainly. But, wealth alone has never satisfied her. Alice wants reverence and admiration.
She wants old families— the same families who once whispered about her origins and mocked her behind hand covered in lace and silk— to kneel.
Most importantly, she wants them to know she has won.
Louise understands her mother’s obsession, but that doesn’t mean she can’t hate it.
"Orion’s business interests are useful but unconventional," Alice says in faint distaste. "He has no desire to participate in society beyond using it when convenient."
"Unlike Leon?" Louise mutters.
"Unlike Leon." Alice agrees.
Leon attends galas, sits on charitable boards, and maintains appearances. He represents legitimacy. Like a golden coward.
Orion represents something else entirely. He’s powerful but doesn’t care enough to use his power for anything outside of his interests. He’s influential without having to lift a single finger to garner that influence.
Old society finds him deeply unsettling. Alice finds him useless because of his lack of interest in prestige. And the fact that she still doesn’t know how to deal with him.
Orion simply isn’t someone she can handle, so Leon has to become the chosen sacrifice. Unfortunately for Louise, she’s the one being tied to the sacrificial ram.
"You’re condemning me to a lifetime with a man whose existence I can barely tolerate."
Alice’s expression remains serene. "Feelings are irrelevant, Louise."
"Easy for you to say."
Alice smiles. It’s a mockery of what an actual smile should look like. "You know nothing about what is easy for me, Child."
Louise almost laughs, because that statement, coming from a woman like Alice Dubois, borders on comedy.
Alice, who attends church every Sunday, sits primly in the front pew like virtue incarnate, staring at the Reverend Father whom she had on his knees eating her out barely an hour ago in the confessional.
Louise had discovered that particular hypocrisy when she was twelve and wished she hadn’t. The memory alone is enough to make her lose her appetite.
Her mother excels at appearances, but beneath them lives something cold and ravenous. Louise has spent her entire life trying not to resemble her. Sometimes she fears she has failed.
’You feed on people. That’s what your family does...You circle anyone useful, strip them to the bone, then move on when there’s nothing left’
"Why must I marry Leon?" She asks. "Really? Why must I?"
"Because," Alice says quietly, "Leon Vassilis will someday sit at the center of one of the most respected families in Europe."
"Orion belongs to that same family. He’s the true heir, Mother."
Alice’s lips curl upwards. "You and I both know the Vassilis name is worth nothing to him."
She smiles into her cup of tea. "When I step into a room, they all remember where I come from. They may smile at me and flatter me, yet they remember every imperfection, and every rumor centered around me."
Louise suddenly understands. Prestige had never been an ambition for her mother, it had been revenge. Alice wants to climb so high that she becomes the one looking down on everyone else.
"So, I am to be your weapon? I am to marry him so we can both be useful to you after?"
"No." Alice lifts her head to face her. "You are my daughter. You were born to be my weapon, Louise."
Louise shivers. Her jaw clenches. She wants to refuse or rage, or even do both, but she knows that resistance has limits, and she has reached hers.
Alice will win. She always won. Adrien proved to Louise how ruthless her mother can be.
Thinking about Adrien sends an unpleasant chill down her spine. Louise truly hates him, but even she could admit that there are lines she did not cross then.
Lines that Alice had crossed without hesitation and with sadistic glee. Whenever she considers the full extent of Alice’s hatred towards Adrien, she feels something close to fear.
Almost as if reading her thoughts, Alice speaks again. "Whatever conflict that exists between you and Adrien, conclude it quickly, then focus on Leon."
"What are you talking about?"
"Get rid of him if you must," Alice says dismissively. "But do it intelligently, or I’ll have to step in and do it myself. And we both know you wouldn’t want that."
Truly, what a monstrous woman.
