Rejection Runs Deep (The Canleigh Series, book 1: A chilling psychological family drama) by Carole Williams (uplifting novels TXT) 📕

Hot tears were welling up in her eyes but she wasn’t going to cry in front of them.  She blinked rapidly, not knowing what to say or do.  Her world really was crashing down around her now.  This was torture, sheer agony.  She looked at the men who should have been on her side, should have been pleased she wanted to work hard for the family and for Canleigh and she felt hate.  Pure unadulterated hate.   Just a few short days ago she was looking forward to having everything she ever wanted and then Philip had started to kill her dreams and then these two, her closest family, were completing her demoralisation.  She was impotent, useless, unwanted, not needed and there he stood, her pompous, autocratic father, the Duke … the Duke of Canleigh … with the power to make her feel like nothing … a non-person … only good for the marriage bed and for procreation … just like thousands of aristocratic females before her.  The unfairness of it all sent a sheet of red mist across her eyes.  She had never felt so angry in her entire life.  She hated her father with every inch … every fibre of her being.

There was nothing left to live for.  All her hopes were dashed.  Richard and her father had heaped the final humiliation on her.  She was no good for anything or anyone.  No-one wanted her.  Her mother, Philip and now her father and brother.  She was just an inconvenience, a mere female.  By a quirk of fate, she had been born a girl so she was passed over for Richard, who was feigning some sort of sense of responsibility for his heritage … but he couldn’t fool her.  His first love was, and always would be, medicine.  His passion wasn’t Canleigh.  It was his birthright but he didn’t really want it.  She knew him.  It would be a millstone around his neck … and she, she who loved and cherished their home so intensely and could have been so very good for it, was being ostracised by these two pompous, superior males.  How stupid she had been to think they would fall in with her plans.  She looked at them both … her father … her brother.  A poisonous loathing tore through her very being.  How she despised them.  They were abominations, detestable.  They nauseated her.

“You’re both bastards!” she screamed, waving her hands in total despair.  “And you’re going to be sorry for this … very sorry indeed.”

“You are becoming hysterical, Delia.  Calm yourself,” ordered Charles in desperation.

“What did you expect you foolish old man?  You’re a selfish, bombastic fool … and as for you,” she turned her wrath on Richard.  “You’re nothing but a creep, promising the earth and then snatching it away.  This estate is going to be mine one day, even if I have to kill you for it.  Watch your back, Richard, because I won’t rest until then.  That’s my promise to you.”

“Stop this at once!” Charles roared, his calm demeanour disappearing in a flash.  This was getting completely out of hand and he began to have a nagging worry about Delia’s sanity.  She looked almost deranged.  Her eyes were wild and she was pacing the room, wringing her hands and then clutching at her neck, gulping the sobs away.  It was horrible to see her so distressed but she had to face up to facts and couldn’t delude herself any longer.

She suddenly stopped still and turned to him.  “And don’t think you’re going to get away with it either.  Mark my words, you’ll live to regret this day,” she snarled viciously.  “and it will give me the greatest pleasure to dance on your grave,” she yelled, storming out of the library.  The heavy door crashed shut behind her, leaving Richard and Charles staring at each other in total disbelief.

CHAPTER 21 CANLEIGH – JUNE 1972

With her skirts held high, Delia tore upstairs to her room, flung open the door and slammed it shut behind her.  Tears of rage and grief had ravaged her face, waterproof mascara denying its maker’s claims as unsightly black streaks and blotches blended hideously with her foundation.

Delia looked in the mirror, dismayed at the pathetic figure she presented.  Gone was the arrogance and confidence she had felt before dinner.  Now she looked desperate and weak and they had reduced her to this … her father, Richard and Philip … all the important men in her life.  They had all spurned her; treating her like an empty-headed fool … but they were going to regret it.  She didn’t know how yet but they would.  Revenge was going to be very sweet indeed.

She gripped the sides of the dressing table watching her knuckles whiten, her mind racing, wondering how she could pay them back.  She was determined they were going to suffer at her hands for the humiliation they had heaped on her.  She flashed a look around the room … she had to get out of here now … it was becoming claustrophobic … her lovely bedroom, the house, the estate.  She had to leave … get away from the people who had …

“Delia!  Open this door,” demanded Richard from the corridor, banging on it unceremoniously.

“Go away,” Delia yelled in return.  “I don’t ever want to see or speak to you again.”

Richard, unable to contain his fury with his twin, barged into the room, his face looking like thunder.

“What the hell did you think you were doing, shouting at Father like that?  You know about his heart … if he has an attack because of you ….”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Richard.  Why do we all pussy foot around each other?  Mustn’t upset Father because he might have a heart attack, mustn’t upset Vicky because her anorexia might flare up again … mustn’t