Chapter 3
1742 Words
✨Under Watchful Eyes.✨
Flora Pov
Earlier, before dusk had fully settled, Trump had understood.
He paused at the bottom of the stairs, one hand resting on the banister. Listened.
“Flora,” he called, not loud. Certain.
Nothing answered.
His boots were slow on the steps, deliberate. He opened her bedroom door without knocking.
The bed was made.
Too neatly.
The window was closed. The wardrobe untouched. But the small stool near the wall had been nudged from its place.
Barely. Enough.
His jaw tightened.
“Margery.”
Her name cracked through the house like a whip.
Margery appeared in the hallway, already pale, already knowing. She took one look past him into the room and stopped short.
“No,” she whispered. “She wouldn’t—”
Trump crossed the room in three strides and opened the drawer beneath the bed. Empty. The small cloth bag Flora used for sewing—gone.
He smiled then.
It was not a warm thing.
“So,” he said quietly, “she learned to dream.”
Margery’s hands trembled. “Trump, please. If she’s frightened—”
“She should be.”
He turned and walked back into the hall.
“Wake the others.”
Finn appeared first, hair uncombed, eyes wide. Cambilly hovered behind him, already crying. Even Marcus stood rigid at the doorway, his expression unreadable.
“She’s not in her room,” Margery said, voice thin.
Trump did not raise his voice. That was worse.
“She didn’t walk out,” he said. “She planned.”
"Finn," he bellowed.
Finn swallowed. “Yes, sir. I—I didn’t hear anything.”
Trump stepped closer. “That’s because you weren’t listening.”
He turned his gaze on Cambilly next. “And you. Always whispering. Always too close.”
Cambilly shook her head violently. “I swear, I didn’t know. I didn’t help her.”
Trump studied her face, measuring truth not by words, but by fear.
“We’ll see.”
Margery stepped forward then, placing herself between him and the children without thinking. “Let me go after her. She can’t be far. She doesn’t know the roads—”
Trump laughed once. Sharp. Brief.
“She’ll come back.”
Margery stared at him. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because everything she owns is here,” he said. “Because she’s been taught to need permission to breathe. And because fear runs faster than hope.”
He turned toward the front door, already pulling on his coat. “Lock the gates.”
Finn hesitated—just a second too long.
Trump stopped walking.
“You will not fail me again,” he said without turning. “All of you will watch her more closely when she returns. And she will return.”
The door slammed behind him.
Outside, the morning stretched wide and indifferent, the road empty in both directions.
Trump stood on the porch, scanning the horizon like a man who had never doubted ownership.
“Run,” he murmured to the quiet fields.
“I’ll teach you what it costs.”
---
Flora moved through the house with a new kind of caution. Each step felt heavier, each glance more scrutinized. The new rules weren’t just restrictions; they were constant reminders of her failure.
In the kitchen, Margery’s silence was more pronounced, her eyes betraying worry as she set the table. Cambilly, too, kept her distance, her usual defiant spark dampened by the weight of their father’s gaze. Finn’s attempts at lightheartedness fell flat, his jokes swallowed by the tension.
Flora’s own reactions were muted, her spirit dampened. When she caught Finn’s eye, she offered only a faint, weary smile. The comfort of her mother’s touch was now a fleeting thing, replaced by an unspoken fear of repercussions.
Even the simplest actions were now laden with caution. Flora found herself second-guessing every movement, every word. The house, once a space of possible refuge, now felt like a cage, its walls lined with unspoken rules.
Yet, within this confinement, Flora’s resolve quietly grew. Each day, as the rules tightened, she learned to adapt, to find small ways to keep her spirit intact.
In the quiet moments, when the house fell silent and the watchful eyes retreated, Flora found fragments of herself that refused to be silenced. And in that resilience, she began to see a path forward, even if it was shrouded in shadows.
Trump noticed obedience the way other men noticed beauty.
It wasn’t just compliance that pleased him—it was anticipation.
Flora had become very good at this.
She woke before dawn, slipping from her bed while the house still slept. The floorboards in the hall were treacherous, but she knew them intimately now—where to step, where to avoid. She dressed in soft colors, brushed her hair until it lay flat and neat, and pulled on the sweater Trump preferred. The one that made her look smaller.
In the kitchen, she moved with careful efficiency. She set the table, aligned the chairs, wiped down the counter even though it was already clean. She poured water into Trump’s glass and placed it exactly where he liked it—two inches from the edge, coaster centered beneath.
When he entered the room, she was already standing.
“Good morning,” she said quietly.
Trump paused, his gaze flicking over the table, the room, her. A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“You’re learning,” he said.
Flora lowered her eyes. “I am.”
That pleased him.
Cambilly hovered near the doorway, arms crossed tightly over her chest. She said nothing. Her silence was deliberate—she had learned her role now, too. Where Flora softened, Cambilly hardened. Where Flora smoothed the path, Cambilly became the obstruction.
Trump sat and lifted his glass. “You’ve always been the good one,” he said casually. “Unlike your sister.”
Flora did not respond. Agreement was assumed.
“A man appreciates peace,” Trump continued.
“Order. Respect.”
“Yes,” Flora said.
The word pressed against her chest like a weight.
He watched her closely as she moved about the kitchen, clearing a plate that wasn’t dirty, adjusting a napkin that hadn’t shifted. When she finished, she stood with her hands folded, waiting.
“You may sit,” he said.
Flora sat.
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “I’ve been thinking about your future.”
Her breath hitched—but she kept her face neutral.
“I trust you’ll continue to behave appropriately,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be disappointed.”
Flora nodded once. “No, sir.”
He reached out and tugged gently at the sleeve of her sweater, pulling it lower over her wrist. The gesture was intimate without being affectionate—claiming rather than comforting.
“You understand what’s expected of you,” he said.
“Yes.”
That was the shape of yes. Not enthusiasm.
Not resistance. Just acceptance, molded clean and smooth.
Later, after dinner was served and dishes were cleared Trump summoned Flora into the living room.
Alone.
The room felt wrong without Cambilly’s presence—too quiet, too exposed. Flora stood where she was told, back straight, eyes lowered.
“Sit,” Trump said.
She obeyed.
He circled her slowly, like a man inspecting merchandise. Flora stared at the carpet, counting the threads in the pattern to steady herself.
“You’ve been sheltered,” he said. “Protected.”
“I know,” Flora replied.
“That protection came at a cost,” he continued. “Obedience buys safety. You understand that.”
“Yes.”
He stopped in front of her. “Look at me.”
She did.
His eyes were sharp, calculating. There was no warmth there—only ownership.
“You won’t disappoint me,” he said.
It wasn’t a question this time.
“No,” Flora said.
He smiled faintly. “Good girl.”
The words made her stomach turn, but she did not react only counted.
Finally you're ready for your future husband.
When he finally dismissed her, she went directly to her room without the safety of a door.
Only then did she allow herself to sit on the bed and breathe.
Her hands trembled.
She pressed them together until they stilled.
Then, Cambilly found her there.
“He talked to you,” Cambilly said.
Flora nodded.
“What did he say?”
“That I won’t disappoint him.”
Cambilly swore under her breath and paced the room. “He’s accelerating.”
“I know.”
Cambilly stopped and stared at her. “You’re already halfway gone, aren’t you?”
Flora didn’t answer.
“That’s not a no,” Cambilly muttered.
Flora reached for her sister’s hand. “Please don’t do anything reckless.”
Flora’s thoughts lingered in the quiet corners of her mind. Not once did she let the idea of her engagement cross her thoughts. The promise of it, the plans her father had so carefully woven, remained a distant echo—unspoken, ignored, and pushed aside by the weight of her immediate reality.
In the solitude of her room, Flora found a small comfort in that absence. It was as if the silence of the engagement offered her a space to breathe, to contemplate her other paths rather than the one laid out for her.
And in that quiet space, a small spark of something new began to form—a silent rebellion, a quiet hope, and a quiet determination to find her own way forward.
Flora lay awake that night, heart steady now, imagining quiet moments between watchful eyes—seconds slipping through cracks, chances hiding in plain sight.
Trump had tightened his grip so hard he’d revealed the shape of the cage.
Under the weight of rules, something
unexpected stirred.
Not defiance. Not yet.
But awareness.
And for the first time, Flora understood something dangerous and bright:
Cages had weaknesses.
She counted footsteps again—but differently this time. Not with fear alone. With memory. With mapping.
Three steps from her door to the stair. Seven from the stair to the hall bend. The house had a rhythm. A pattern.
And patterns could be learned.
And somewhere deep inside her, beneath obedience and fear, a new thought took its first breath.
Next time, she promised herself, she will not turn back.
- Writer
