Yesterday she had farewelled her father Lord Sutton as they laid him to rest next to his beloved wife and her mother Lady Miranda. Hopefully now, after all these years of lonely grief, he was at peace and back in the arms of his wife.

He had lost his life in a card game he could never win against the rogue Lord Templeton. Since her mothers death giving birth to her sister Cecily, her father had fallen into the darkest pits of despair, drinking and gambling, trying to blot out the grief and in doing so, over time had lost nearly everything they owned.
When her mother had died, she being a mere child herself, unable to raise her baby sister and her father having no care for this new child, Cecily was, as Chelsea had found out much later in life, handed over to a childless couple to rear as their own. Her father could not bear to bring himself to look at the child who had taken his beloved Lady Miranda from him. Chelsea had never seen Cecily again.

As Chelsea was growing up, she would quietly play about the house as her father would sleep off the effects of the drink from the night before and in the nights when he would leave the house she would lose herself in her story books, reading by candlelight for hours till in the wee hours of the morning she would hear her father stumbling about the house in his drunken stupor calling out to her mother, who never responded. Sometimes after such nights, strangers would come calling on her father and after they had left, something of their home had always gone with them. Firstly it was her mother’s jewellery, then the silverware and over time the priceless paintings and more recently furniture. Their home was almost barren of furnishings now, their existence was meagre and more often than not they were fed by the loyalty of her mothers servants who all lived near their home, for they had no money and nothing to sell to feed them.
Sometimes, on very rare occasions, her father would win at these card games and they would feed like kings, Chelsea always managing to secret away as much of the food as she could for from one night of gambling to the next, she never knew when and if they would ever feed like this again.

The night before last her father had left their home once again but this time he didn’t return alone. It was well in the early hours of yesterday morning that she had been woken from a fitful sleep by the incessant banging on the great doors of their Manor. She had hurriedly pulled on her dressing robe and flew down the steps thinking that her father had lost his key. But when she had opened the door, there were two men either side of her father holding him up, his crisp white shirt crimson with his blood, his face pale and lifeless.
Standing behind them was Lord Templeton, a lecherous smirk on his face as he looked past her father and the men and was staring at Chelsea, who's night robe had fallen open allowing the light of the moon to capture the soft sensual shape of her breasts beneath the light gauze of her nightdress.

They had taken her father into the parlour, laid him out on the chaise and as she turned with questioning eyes to Lord Templeton he spoke.

"Girl, your father lost a bet. The bet was for this fine Manor and all in it. I won the bet but he accused me of cheating and challenged me to a duel. I am sorry for your loss but wish to inform you that this Manor and all in it now belongs to me. That includes you.....
I will give you this day to lay your father to rest but know that on the following day, I will return to claim what is rightfully mine."

Today the sun did not rise, instead the heavens opened up as if they were crying for her plight. The lightning enhancing her beauty, the grief etched on her beautiful face, she knew that she has no choice. By the hands of her father, she was destitute and now parentless. She had no money to look after herself, and nowhere to go. She was to become a victim of her father’s grief. But she did know this......that Lord Templeton would not have a willing prize.....




Stock:

for the use of her wonderful exclusive non stock shots of as Chelsea in this piece
for the use of her non stock photograph of Knights on Parade - original [link]
Gateway - original [link]
Landscape Scene
Rain Brushes
Flames
Torches
Celtic Cross

Sky are various shots manipulated from ASW [link] who so kindly allows me use of their photographs in my manipulations.


Hope you all like "The Unwilling Prize"
Eni


I give permission to post this piece and the story in her personal "Myspace" blog.