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dure it. I had to. But for how long? Later that afternoon, Rebecca summoned me to the drawing room. She sat on one of the ornate chairs, her posture regal and intimidating. A large stack of correspondence lay on the table before her, and her sharp green eyes pierced through me as I entered. "You're late," she snapped. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Rebecca," I said quietly, my hands clasped tightly in front of me. She waved a dismissive hand. "Sit. You're going to help me with these letters. Since you're married to my son, you might as well make yourself useful to us." I sat down and reached for one of the letters, but Rebecca's voice stopped me cold. "Not like that!" she barked. "Do you have no sense of decorum? Hold it properly. Honestly, you're such a waste." Her words, each one sharper than the last, cut through my fragile composure. I tried to follow her instructions, but my hands shook so badly that I accidentally knocked over a pen. Rebecca sighed dramatically. "You're hopeless," she muttered. "How Maxwell ended up with someone as useless as you, I'll never understand." I lowered my head, the sting of her words mingling with the ache in my chest. I wanted to defend myself, to tell her that this wasn't the life I had chosen, that I had been pushed into this marriage just as much as Maxwell had. But I knew better than to argue. As the days passed, the staff seemed to take their cues from Rebecca. Their glares grew bolder, their whispers louder. Tasks that should have been theirs were suddenly mine. Cleaning up the dining room, fetching drinks for guests, scrubbing the floors-things no one else in my position would ever be asked to do. One morning, I found myself in the grand foyer, scrubbing a particularly stubborn stain from the marble floor. My knees ached against the cold, hard surface, and my hands were raw from the harsh cleaning solution. "Amelia," one of the senior maids, Clarissa, called out from the top of the staircase. Her voice was tinged with mockery. "When you're done there, the upstairs hallway needs dusting. And don't take all