White Rose by Gao Yang (ink book reader .TXT) 📕

"Yes sir?" He bowed down.

"Take this bach of woods to the carriage, my father will be needing them tomorrow." The guard nodded as he picked up the wood from the shed and carried it to the carriage.

"David, dinner's ready!" Mrs. Valet's voice was heard from inside the house.

"Oh yes, I know I've mentioned it before, but would you like to stay for dinner tonight?" The young Duncan son smiled and nodded.

"I'd love to." They walked inside and into the dining room next to the kitchen.

As they walked into the dining room, all the plates were set in place nicely. All the spoons and forks were set on each side of the plates, napkins were folded and placed on top of the plates.

"Please have a seat, any seat!" Mr. Valet said he appointed Bryce to take any seat.

Mr. and Mrs. Valet took the ends of the table. Isabella and Jack sat next to each other one side while Bryce sat on the other side of the table, across from Isabella.

The maids walked into the dining room with the dinner trays. They all set down the trays on the table.

Bryce kept his eyes laid on Isabella as she moved the dish in place across the table. Isabella glanced at Bryce for a second. He saw her as a princess, but she saw him as a complete stranger.

* * *

"Bryce, you wouldn't mind telling us what your father is planning for the Fall Festival this year, now wouldn't you?" Mr. Valet asked Bryce as Isabella finished her plate.

"Oh, I wouldn't. My father told me it's a surprise." There was a suspicion in Bryce's voice, and Isabella could feel it.

"Father, may I be dismissed?" She asked before she got up from the table.

"Why, yes." He nodded as he wiped his mouth with a napkin. She stood up and brushed off her dress and walked outside through the back door.

Bryce watched her as she walked out the back door, and he found it to be suspicious for her to be out after nightfall.

"Mr. Valet, don't you think it's suspicious for your beloved daughter to be out at night?" Mr. Valet looked around and he didn't see his daughter anywhere.

"Isabella?" He called out. "Isabella?!" He got up from the dinner table and went upstairs to her room. He opened her bedroom door and she wasn't there. "Isabella?!"

"David, what's wrong?" Mrs. Valet asked confusingly.

"Holly, our daughter is missing!" Her face immediately changes into shock. Their youngest daughter was missing.

"Isabella?!" Mr. and Mrs. Valet began looking for their daughter.

Jack and Bryce exchanged looks and stood up from the table and joined the search.

"Isabella?!" Jack shouted as he opened the back door.

Bryce saw Jack at the back door; he ran up to him, it was of course dark outside, the only light outside was the street lights from the village and bright shining moon in the night sky. They both walked outside and started looking around for her.

"Isabella!" She heard her name from the distance and she knew whose voice it was. She walked into a flower fountain garden outside the palace and the village.

Her face lit up as she saw the love of her life. "Colin!" He started running to her and she did as well. Their bodies collided as they both held each other tightly in each other's arms. She lets go of him and looks at him, caressing his cheek and then looks at his lips. More than anything, she wanted to kiss him, and so she did.

They both kissed each other in the dark midnight under the bright moon in the flower fountain garden.

She breaks away from the kiss and she starts crying as she finally saw the love of her life and she was finally holding him in her arms for the first time in four years. They were both separated by her parents and she was forbidden to go meet Shawn after what happened between both of their families.

"I've missed you so much, Colin. You don't know how many times I've been dreaming about this to happen." She said as she held Colin in her arms tightly and never wanting to let him go.

Colin caresses her soft pink cheek, wiping away her tears. "I've missed you too." He then caresses her soft small lips. "Do you know how long I've been waiting to kiss you? To hold you in my arms again? To tell you that I love you?" His eyes start tearing up as he spoke each word to her for her to hear. "These past four years of being separated away from you has been tortured for me. I've always wanted to sneak out to see you but my father has been supervising me lately and has been monitoring on what I've been doing." He looks at her.

"Colin, we can't stay here for long, or else we could find another to place to stay. We can even run away together." She held onto Colin's arm and urged him.

"Isabella, as much as I want to run away with you, I also don't want to fail my parents." He tells her in a kindly tone, she lowers her head in sadness as Colin denied her request. "But I will always love you no matter what obstacles, or how many of them are; I will always love you." He cups her left cheek, lifting up her head to level with his. "But what's more important to me is your happiness. I've been yearning to see your smile."

She forms a smile for Colin to see in the dimmed moonlight. Colin saw a faint smile on her, but he knew she was smiling at him.

"Isabella!" They finch as they both heard her name is being called from the distance.

Her breath hitches as she fears that someone will see her with Colin, then her life and Colin's, would be forfeit.

Colin pulls her in for a hug one last time and kisses the temple of her forehead. "I love you very much. Remember that."

She nodded as Colin holds her hand one last time. "I love you."

"But I love you more, to the moon." He kisses her lips. "And the back." He lets go of her hand and runs off into the woods to his house on the other side.

She runs towards the other direction towards the village. She saw her brother, Jack and somebody with him.

"Isabella!" She heard her brother called.

"Jack!" She called back.

He look ahead of him at the streets of the village and saw his sister in the street. He sprinted towards his sister and hugs her as if he nearly lost his sister.

"Where were you? Mother and Father are worried sick about you." She hesitated as soon as she heard her mother and father mentioned. She couldn't tell her brother that she met up with Colin, especially after nightfall. She'd be punished, locked in her room for doing that if they ever found out.

"I was--" Isabella hesitantly uttered as Bryce walked up to her and her brother.

She's hiding something. She did something she wasn't supposed to do. I can smell it in her, her beautiful fragrant is mixed with someone else's. But who's? Bryce thought himself as he stared at her, attentively. That scent smells very familiar. I know I've smelled it somewhere it before.

Mr. and Mrs. Valet came home from searching for their daughter. Mrs. Valet was desperately worried about her daughter and kept pacing back and forth in the living room. Meanwhile Mr. Valet was down at the table, in rage, he was furious and disappointed in his daughter.

"When that young lady steps inside my house, she'll be whipped for sneaking out after nightfall." Mr. Valet said as his hand curled up into a fist and stood up. "That young lady is to be whipped until she learns her lesson."

Mrs. Valet runs up to her husband, calming him down, she stops him from getting the whipper. "David, honey. Please contain your anger. You can ask her nicely but please don't whip her."

He looks at his wife and gasps as if she forgotten the rules around his house. "Holly, our daughter sneaked out of our house and that's a whipping punishment. And you know if." He said with no mercy in his voice.

"No! David! Please don't! I beg of you, please don't!" Holly got down on her knees, begging for her life to protect their daughter.

Then the front door swung opened and there revealed Isabella with her brother by her side. She looked at her mother who was down on her knees, and looked at her father. Her eyes filled with fear and intimidation from her father, she could feel his anger boiling inside of him.

"Isabella, over here!" She stood in the doorway. "Now!" She flinched as her father's voice raised.

She took a deep breath with her hands holding each other in front of her and lowered her head as she walked over to the living room where her father and mother were.

"Look at me!" She lifted up her chin to her father, then her cheek collided with his hand.

Her mother, still on her knees, gasped as her husband slapped Isabella. Jack, who stood on the other side of the living room, watched his sister get slapped, but it wasn't the first time he had seen his father slap anyone.

On the other hand, Isabella didn't move or speak. She just breathed heavily and thought about what her father just did. He slapped her, and it wasn't the first time.

"You are a grown young woman. You should know better than to sneak out at night." He scolded Isabella as she held in her tears. "I should not be dealing with this while the Fall Festival is in only 2 days." He said as he walked away from his daughter.

Her mother finally stood up and hugged her, kissing her.

"Everyone is dismissed." Mr. Valet said as he still stood in his position. "But Isabella has stay. I need to talk to her."

She could feel the tension building in between her and her father. Everyone obeyed and left. Isabella of course, not wanting to cross her father again, stayed.

"Tell me, why did you meet up with Colin when I specifically told you those four years ago to never see him ever again?" Her heart immediately speeds up as her father mentioned Colin's name.

"Father?" She said as she looked at her father. "What do you mean?" She lied to herself and to her father, which was the last thing she wanted to do right now.

Her father turned around and slapped her one more time, but this time it was harder. "You know better than to lie to me." He said, keeping his volume down as possible, but he was really horrible at containing his anger. "If Bryce didn't say anything about you being missing, you would've been gone all night."

Her anger also started boiling up as she heard Bryce's name, and what made it worse for her was how he mentioned her disappearance to her father.

"Hearken to me!" He yelled. "Were you with him or not?" She knew her father well and how he wanted the truth one way or another. "And don't you dare speak a lie to me." There was a long pause before she could tell her father. "So? Were you?!" He hollered.

"Yes."