MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 77 - Seventy-Seven: Aunt Cornelia’s Gaze
//CLARA//
The morning light cut through the curtains in thin, golden blades, and I traced the scar on my wrist with the pad of my thumb. Three days had passed since the fever broke. Five since Silas’s hands had last touched me.
At least, I think it’s been five. When you spend half your time drifting through a gray, fever-dream haze and the other half fighting for a single clear breath, the calendar starts to feel like a suggestion rather than a fact.
I’ve been mostly in and out of consciousness... more a passenger in my own body than the person behind the wheel.
The marks had faded to pale silver threads, barely raised against my skin, yet I could still feel the phantom pressure of rope biting into flesh. My foot had healed as well, the splinter wound closed to a small pink circle that no longer throbbed with each step.
Even the gash on my collarbone, where the knife had grazed me, had knitted together into a thin white line I could hide beneath a high collar.
I sat at the vanity, running a comb through my hair. The woman in the mirror still looked like me—or should I say mostly Eleanor.
I set the comb down and pressed my palm flat against the cool glass, watching my breath fog the surface. For a moment, I could pretend the woman looking back was still the one who had arrived in this century with nothing but sharp words and a desperate need to survive.
But the fog faded. The reflection sharpened. And I saw her clearly for the first time. Too much had happened. Too much had changed. And I had already chosen.
The door opened behind me, and I did not need to turn to know it was him. I caught his reflection in the vanity mirror.
He was carrying a silver tray, and on it sat a bowl of steaming porridge, thick and pale and utterly unappetizing. My stomach turned at the sight of it.
"You cannot be serious," I said, turning to face him.
I had been on a liquid diet for days, and I was tired of broth and soup and anything that did not require chewing.
I wanted bread. I wanted meat. I wanted something that did not slide off a spoon and remind me of the gray sludge Silas had tried to force down my throat.
But the doctor had been clear, and Casimir was not one to ignore advice from someone who knew better. He followed it like gospel.
"The physician gave his orders." He set the tray on the bedside table and stood next to me. "You are not to have solid food until your stomach has fully settled."
"My stomach is fine."
"Your stomach is not fine. You could not keep down toast yesterday."
"That was yesterday."
"And today is today." He picked up the porridge and stirred it. "You will eat this. All of it."
I crossed my arms over my chest. "You cannot make me."
He raised an eyebrow.
"I can, and I will." He scooped a spoonful of the bland, steaming mush and held it level with my lips. "Open."
"I am not a child, Casimir."
"Then stop acting like one," he countered, his expression stone-faced, though a dangerous glint sparked in his eyes.
He didn’t pull the spoon back. "Eat it, little bird. Or so help me, I will find a more... direct way to get it into your system. Even if I have to feed it to you from my own mouth."
I choked on my next protest, my face heating up faster than the bowl of porridge. He did not even blink. He just stood there, looking perfectly prepared to turn a breakfast battle into a scandalous display of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
"You’re disgusting," I muttered, scrunching my nose at the thought.
"I’m thorough," he corrected, the corner of his mouth twitching just enough for me to see it.
"Now. Open up."
I glared at him. He did not waver. The spoon hovered in the air between us and I knew he would not leave until I had eaten every last bite.
I opened my mouth.
I hated the texture. I hated the taste. I hated that he was right, that my stomach was still weak, that I could not keep down anything heavier.
He fed me the porridge, spoon by spoon, and I let him. When the bowl was empty, he set the spoon down and brushed a stray strand of hair from my face.
"See?" he said softly. "That was not so difficult."
"I hate you."
"No, you do not."
He was right. I did not.
He moved to stand behind me, his reflection looking at me directly. Five days of worry had carved new lines around his mouth.
"You were gone," he said, so quietly that I barely heard him. "In the fever. You spoke of places I did not recognize. Names I did not know."
I stiffened beneath his hands as they settled on my shoulders, heavy and warm through the silk of my robe. I watched his thumbs trace small circles against my collarbone, careful to avoid the healing wound. The dream still clung to me like cobwebs.
Lola’s sharp laughter, the weight of a diamond bracelet where rope marks should have been. A glimpse of my old life. One where I was technically freer, yet somehow more trapped.
"I do not remember," I lied, meeting his eyes in the mirror.
His jaw tightened, but he did not press. Instead, his hands slid down my arms, his fingers tracing the faint scars on my wrists with a reverence that made my breath catch. He lifted my right hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the pale silver line where rope had once cut deepest.
The door suddenly swung open without a knock.
Aunt Cornelia stood in the doorway, her hand still on the brass handle, her eyes sweeping across the room with the precision of a hawk counting eggs. She took in the tray, the empty bowl, the way Casimir was standing behind me.
The way his hand was still holding mine.
Her gaze lingered there.
"Casimir," she said, her voice smooth as glass. "I did not realize you were still here."
"Eleanor is recovering," he said, his tone flat. "I am seeing to her care."
"You have been most attentive," she continued, stepping further into the room. "Most devoted. One might say... excessively so."
She steered her attention to me, her expression impassive for a split second before she spoke again.
"You are eating. Good. Hattie said you had no appetite."
"I have an appetite," I said, holding her gaze. "I simply prefer to exercise it at my own discretion."
Aunt Cornelia’s mouth tightened at the edges. I felt Casimir’s hand drop to his side, and I mourned the loss of his warmth.
"What do you want, Aunt Cornelia?"
"I was unaware that the Guggenheim scion had taken up a career in domestic service," she said, her voice dripping with poisonous politeness. "We have matters to discuss. Private matters. Regarding the recent... delicate situation."
Delicate situation. Why did I have a bad feeling about that?
Casimir’s jaw tightened. I could feel the tension radiating off him, a silent snarl held back only by the fact that he did not want to start a war in my bedroom.
"I will be down shortly," he said.
"Now, Casimir. Mr. Belmont’s representatives are waiting for a response regarding the recent inquiries."
He did not look at her. Instead, he kept his eyes locked on my reflection.
The world seemed to shrink until it was just the two of us again. He reached out, his hand cupping the underside of my jaw—his thumb grazing my skin—and tilted my head just enough to press a firm, lingering kiss to my crown.
It was not a guardian’s gesture. It was more than that. The weight of his lips against my hair felt like a promise made in front of an executioner. A silent declaration that he didn’t care who was watching or what it would cost him.
In that one gesture, he had drawn a line in the sand. Aunt Cornelia was standing on the other side of it, and the sight made my heart perform its own desperate acrobatics.
What is he doing?
"Rest," he whispered against my hair. "I will be back before the tea goes cold."
He turned and walked toward the door. Aunt Cornelia stepped aside to let him pass, but as they moved to leave, I caught her gaze.
Her eyes lingered on me—calculating, cold, and utterly predatory. She looked at Casimir’s back, then back at me, her lips thinning into a line.
Uh-oh. Are you digging your own grave, Casimir?
The door clicked shut behind them, and I was alone with the sinking feeling that Aunt Cornelia had just seen far more than she should have.
