Chapter 5 In The Wake of a New Scandal Part 2

In the Wake of a Scandal.

What followed next was an hour-long lecture on manners and propriety. It was a critical talk on how she, as their eldest daughter, had failed them. She had failed her family and her younger sisters as well. She had failed to embody both the very virtues that her two younger siblings should have found in her as an example with no manners to speak of.

Instead, she had once again brought shame and disgrace to the Lenton household and their 'exalted' Lenton name. A name that had stood untarnished for generations until she had come along with her own set of weird values, just like she had done all those years ago.

Of course, Malisha did not bother to correct them by pointing out that the words, 'shame' and 'disgrace' were essentially supposed to mean the same thing. Instead, like the dutiful daughter that they had all claimed and decided she was not, she sat back and endured it all. Sitting through the lecture acquiescently for what felt like an eternity. Having been denied the chance to defend herself or to even call out for her lawyer.

She had one you must know, and she was in all ways more obnoxious than Malisha was. Still, she was quite lovable as all little sisters are when they are not annoying.

Yet, in itself, the General's fearsome gaze was mostly responsible for all of her silence. It had a way of compelling her mouth shut to the point that the little disciplinary committee had ended up looking like the famed Corterian inquisition she had read about in her history books.

Well, according to the General, Malisha was a disgrace and a disappointment. Callous in every way and irredeemable at that. However, none of this was new to her. They had already been down that road several times before, more than several times in fact if she cared enough to count, and she had already resigned herself to the fact that their opinion about her was not going to change any time soon.

It was somewhat hilarious how she could predict with almost at most accuracy what her dear old man was going to say next. And how could she not, after having had so many altercations? However, her thoughts were not a matter that the voice of her conscience was quite pleased about, and even now, she could feel the intense displeasure emanating from that corner of her mind. That place that the voice had grudgingly reverted to.

"Enough to gamble, right?" She tried to joke in a bid to further agitate her but was unfortunately caught up in the middle of the thought.

"Malisha!" the General's growl snapped her out of her reverie. The haze that had temporarily formed over her eyes suddenly cleared, exposing her to his trademark glower which even now, he was trying to use to further intimidate her into forced submission.

Oh, that infamous glower which, had she not been already immune to, would have had the power to reduce her into nothing but a sniveling mass of nerves and tears. But No! She was Malisha. Malisha Kristina Lenton. The great General Lenton's daughter and a person who had already spent most of her over twenty years of life under his roof. If that alone had not been enough to variolate her with a sense of immunity, then nothing else was going to.

Like a deer caught in headlights, she swallowed her thoughts, gathering from the look that he was now giving her that she had missed out on something important. Something that he must have said in the space of time that she had been spaced out.

To gather her bearings, Malisha tried to look to her mother for help. However, all she got from there was a sob and another round of mutterings accompanied by fresh tears flowing freely from underneath long brown lashes.

"Good Lord, why could you not just leave that damned scarf alone?" Malisha bowed her head in shame, even as her inner voice began to a new round berating. Restarting the mental barrage that had once brought upon her a splitting headache. Another look at her mother and her worn-out crumpled form triggered a fresh wave of guilt that washed over her. Tormenting her for being the source of her mother's present misery.

"Don't beat up yourself too much." The voice remained forever caustic. "I believ, it wasn't entirely your fault."

"And how is that so, if I may ask?" she did not believe for a minute that the voice could be anything but uncaring.

"I mean, there was the scarf, the wind, the Duke and his little harem..."

"For the umpteenth time I am telling you this! It is not the Duke! But- Oh! Oh! I get it now!" she gasped, suddenly recalled the previous emotions that had once besotted her. Slowly but surely, the guilt oozed away from her presence, superseded by a wave of great anger and the violent ardor that had once been at the pinnacle of her previous emotions. "It was all him." she suddenly declared in her mind, finally acknowledging the role of her main antagonist in all that had happened to her up to that point.

"I still believe that it was all your fault." the voice cackled in her mind. Its major objective- To provoke her. It was probably a form of reprisal for all the mischief she had carried out against it earlier.

"No! It's all his fault! Don't you see? Now because of him I am being sent to the fourth floor!" She replied even as she hooked on to that singular thought. Latching on and causing her heart to quake with apprehension as she anticipated the sentencing that was sure to come in next.