Betrayal

Chapter 8

Cecilia closed the curtains as swiftly as she could. She must not be seen at all costs. Their lives could be in great peril if they were caught. She heard shuffling behind her and turned to the source. 
 

Her mysterious stranger was sitting on the bed with his hair tousled beyond repair. Cecilia was suddenly jealous of the amount of hair on his head. Her own while plentiful was never that wonderful a texture or thickness. 

"Who was making all that noise?" He asked hoarsely while rubbing his eyes. 

"I can only guess," She whispered back.

The girl was suddenly aware her dressing gown was draped on her side of the bed but the man either seemed too drowsy to notice or was too polite to stare. She quickly tiptoed back to her bedside behind the hanging curtain between their beds. 

"Wasn't there a curfew?" She sensed the man was lying down again as the shoddy bed creaked under his weight. 

"I believe the curfew is to protect the townsfolk from the men outside. Anyone who has business at this time of the night cannot possibly be good."

The man hummed in response and it seemed he was once again falling asleep. His breath evened out instantly. 

Cecilia sat on her own bed with a sigh. Beth besides her was not particularly bothered by the sounds and neither was Simon who was snoring away on the floor. 

Her mind turned to her nightmare. 

It was him. 

And the pain of his betrayal hit her all over again. 

She could never forgive him for forsaking her during her time of need. She never expected him to sit at her bedside to share her fate. Love did not mean being suicidal. It was afterwards when she had ventured back into polite society that his coldness had struck a dagger to her heart. 

Their eyes had met and he had looked at her as if she was a stranger. 

They had been in love. He had promised he would marry her as soon as possible. None of it had mattered to him when he had shunned her publicly.

She loathed every fibre of his being. At least that's what she told herself as tears silently slid down her face. 

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Cecilia in her hooded garb did not blend in no matter how common her clothes and how good her acting. It was a fact that she stood out if not because of her pretty face but then by her mannerisms. She walked far too confidently for her to be a mousy village girl. 

She wandered around the town in Beth's clothes trying to look the part but it was all in vain. The shopkeeper at the clothes shop she had stopped at jumped to assist her the moment she entered it. 

"What will it be, my Lady!" The youngish girl at the counter eagerly eyed up the stranger in too short clothes.

"I need a wardrobe for me and my guests. You see we lost a bit of our luggage," Cecilia tried to sound meek and sad. 

"Travelling far?" The girl asked curiously. 

"No, not much. We come from Thorton. It's not far from here."

"Well, we have many outfits for you to see..." Cecilia took her fill of the outfits presented to her and chose something or the other for both herself and her companion that was durable but utterly unremarkable. She did not want to stand out in the slightest. 

"I heard about the curfew. I've never heard of anything like this," Cecilia probed casually. 

"Miss, I live here and even I'm lost. It's very baffling.They say it's for our protection.  But from what? The East has been peaceful for as long as I've been alive."