Evening came, and with it, the horror and the dread that came with the prospect of facing her parents.

On any other day, her parents would have been Good Cop and Bad Cop. These were the roles that they had chosen to inflict upon themselves whenever such matters arose in their not so little household.

With four children and an even bigger support staff, the plan had always worked out and was quite efficient in bringing order to the large Lenton household. Even so, the plan was not just important because it brought order to the household. No, it was because it also helped to demonstrate and especially to the soldiers always patrolling outside, that their General was a man worthy of respect. It demonstrated his firmness. one that he not only showed with them but in the management of his family affairs as well.

For who could hold a man in high regard that could not put his household in order?

However and unfortunately for Malisha, this day was not like any other day. In fact, things around the house and especially with these two cops were looking a little too different.

Perhaps it was the foreboding silence that was emanating from outside the drawing corridor. A corridor that was normally filled with the pitter-patter of feet even as the maids went about their duties. Maybe, it was because of the great oak door to the library that was now shut. When normally, it would have remained open. It was so huge you see, and it had always been a hustle to open it or close it. However, as things stood now, with the brewing situation in the Lenton household, the General had ordered the door shut. If only to accord him with the privacy that he needed to sort this matter out. Or probably, it was intended to minimize the chances of there being a witness to the carnage that would soon be there, or so the voice in Malisha's head told her.

Lovely, right?

Malisha walked in. She took in the high walls covered in books on every surface from floor to ceiling.

This room had always been her favorite. With its many books and red oak ladders, she had always been excited to be here. Swinging from one high shelf to another. Picking up books as she imagined herself to be a sailor, or maybe it was a pirate atop the masts of a big frigate ship.

The aura about the place was always nostalgic, but of course, things had also changed over the years. The furniture was now different and more modern. The old wooded sofas now replaced with white leather settees and glass-topped tables supported upon shortened heartwood stumps of red oak. The desks remained the same, seeing that they were antics and pieces of great value that could not be replaced. The curtains, however, had changed more than thrice in the past decade. The carpets too and the chandeliers. However, the spirit of the place would always remain the same as long as the walls remained unchanged. Covered with the same books old books that had been there from her childhood.

Malisha looked away from the red, heavy blackout, and sheer curtains keeping out the night. Her gaze wandered to where Good Cop was, settled back into the recesses of her seat, weeping with green eyes that were very much like her own. She looked worn out as though she had been the one to take on the brunt of the ordeal while Bad Cop, he seemed to be happy to take over and was now running the show unreservedly.

"Sit down Malisha!" The voice of her father commanded, and she had no choice but to obey. Shifting nervously, she took a step forward and plopped herself down on the seat that was remaining before them.

Her father, however, did not sit down.

He continued pacing the room, his irritation showing in his gait and in the way that he tried hard not to look at her.

"What is this, Malisha?" The General finally said. He slammed a fist on the table, diverting her attention from his brooding presence to the copy of the evening edition that had until then, remained unseen in front of her eyes. 'Read!" he shouted, and she tried not to flinch at the sudden noise even as she looked up to peek into the face of his terrifying gaze.

"That bad?" she attempted to joke. Maybe, to lighten up the mood and probably the General's dark countenance as well, but the man would not have any of it. He refused to take any of it.

"Look!" he growled again, and this time, Malisha was not able to hide her flinch even as her gaze fell upon the paper and the large letters that were written in bold and red.

'EXPOSED ANOTHER SCANDAL AT LAST: GENERAL'S HONOR TARNISHED AGAIN?' it read.

"What is it with these people?" Malisha groaned rather pathetically but continued to read it anyway. Her eyes scanned and skimmed the article, going through the writing from top to bottom. After she had gotten a gist of what they were saying about her, she was finally able to speak up and begin to defend herself.

"It is most likely that they were always waiting for me to slip up and fall, or something like." She complained, almost smiling at the pun that she had just created. Slip and fall. Wasn't that exactly what had happened? And what had been tarnished apart from her entire body being caked in mud? What had been exposed was just her derriere and not a scandal like they had decided to so nicely put it.

Malisha's sentiments were not a great opening, but a girl could only hope that it would glean a little sympathy from one, if not all her parents.

"Then, why do you do it? Why do you give them the fodder with which to beat us?" her mother suddenly cried out, and Malisha frowned as she deeply contemplated those two words.

Beat? Fodder? With that choice of words, she could already tell that no help would be forthcoming.

"I do not know. It just happens." She finally chose to go with that answer, her cheeky tone meant to mask the fear now welling up within her and threatening to let out.

For a moment, there was silence. Is she serious? She could almost hear them think, but Malisha could not afford any apologies for not having had a better answer. What can you do when the people around you are bent on seeing fall? Not her parents per se, but for him and Genevieve and the media and his posse of female followers. What had she ever done to them? The female nature would always elude her.

The General narrowed his eyes at me, and her mother whimpered as if to herald her impending doom.

"What is it with you? Can't you be serious just this once?" The voice in her head screamed, and Malisha could not help but smile. Not many things ever seemed to unsettle it, but now, it sounded quite shaken, and she had to admit she was beginning to enjoy its reactions. For having tortured her for so long, this was definitely a wonderful change of pace, and she was willing to exploit it to the very end.

"I am being serious you see." she thought to let her conscience know, and in response, it screamed back at her.

"Are you trying to get us killed?"

"Okay, okay. I am sorry. I am nervous and I can't help myself at the moment." She added after some thought. If she had not done so, she knew, the voice would not let her be, and now was a terrible time to be having an internal conflict when the whole world around her was falling apart again.

"Don't tell me that! Tell them! Don't tell me! " It retorted as it steered her back to the present, which now not only included a mopping mother but a glaring General who looked like he was about to strangle her.

What followed next was an hour-long lecture on manners and propriety. It was a critical talk on how she, as their eldest daughter, had failed them. She had failed her family and her younger sisters as well. She had failed to embody both the very virtues that her two younger siblings should have found in her as an example with no manners to speak of.

Instead, she had once again brought shame and disgrace to the Lenton household and their 'exalted' Lenton name. A name that had stood untarnished for generations until she had come along with her own set of weird values, just like she had done all those years ago.

Of course, Malisha did not bother to correct them by pointing out that the words, 'shame' and 'disgrace' were essentially supposed to mean the same thing. Instead, like the dutiful daughter that they had all claimed and decided she was not, she sat back and endured it all. Sitting through the lecture acquiescently for what felt like an eternity. Having been denied the chance to defend herself or to even call out for her lawyer.

She had one you must know, and she was in all ways more obnoxious than Malisha was. Still, she was quite lovable as all little sisters are when they are not annoying.

Yet, in itself, the General's fearsome gaze was mostly responsible for all of her silence. It had a way of compelling her mouth shut to the point that the little disciplinary committee had ended up looking like the famed Corterian inquisition she had read about in her history books.

Well, according to the General, Malisha was a disgrace and a disappointment. Callous in every way and irredeemable at that. However, none of this was new to her. They had already been down that road several times before, more than several times in fact if she cared enough to count, and she had already resigned herself to the fact that their opinion about her was not going to change any time soon.

It was somewhat hilarious how she could predict with almost at most accuracy what her dear old man was going to say next. And how could she not, after having had so many altercations? However, her thoughts were not a matter that the voice of her conscience was quite pleased about, and even now, she could feel the intense displeasure emanating from that corner of her mind. That place that the voice had grudgingly reverted to.

"Enough to gamble, right?" She tried to joke in a bid to further agitate her but was unfortunately caught up in the middle of the thought.

"Malisha!" the General's growl snapped her out of her reverie. The haze that had temporarily formed over her eyes suddenly cleared, exposing her to his trademark glower which even now, he was trying to use to further intimidate her into forced submission.

Oh, that infamous glower which, had she not been already immune to, would have had the power to reduce her into nothing but a sniveling mass of nerves and tears. But No! She was Malisha. Malisha Kristina Lenton. The great General Lenton's daughter and a person who had already spent most of her over twenty years of life under his roof. If that alone had not been enough to variolate her with a sense of immunity, then nothing else was going to.

Like a deer caught in headlights, she swallowed her thoughts, gathering from the look that he was now giving her that she had missed out on something important. Something that he must have said in the space of time that she had been spaced out.

To gather her bearings, Malisha tried to look to her mother for help. However, all she got from there was a sob and another round of mutterings accompanied by fresh tears flowing freely from underneath long brown lashes.

"Good Lord, why could you not just leave that damned scarf alone?" Malisha bowed her head in shame, even as her inner voice began to a new round berating. Restarting the mental barrage that had once brought upon her a splitting headache. Another look at her mother and her worn-out crumpled form triggered a fresh wave of guilt that washed over her. Tormenting her for being the source of her mother's present misery.

"Don't beat up yourself too much." The voice remained forever caustic. "I believ, it wasn't entirely your fault."

"And how is that so, if I may ask?" she did not believe for a minute that the voice could be anything but uncaring.

"I mean, there was the scarf, the wind, the Duke and his little harem..."

"For the umpteenth time I am telling you this! It is not the Duke! But- Oh! Oh! I get it now!" she gasped, suddenly recalled the previous emotions that had once besotted her. Slowly but surely, the guilt oozed away from her presence, superseded by a wave of great anger and the violent ardor that had once been at the pinnacle of her previous emotions. "It was all him." she suddenly declared in her mind, finally acknowledging the role of her main antagonist in all that had happened to her up to that point.

"I still believe that it was all your fault." the voice cackled in her mind. Its major objective- To provoke her. It was probably a form of reprisal for all the mischief she had carried out against it earlier.

"No! It's all his fault! Don't you see? Now because of him I am being sent to the fourth floor!" She replied even as she hooked on to that singular thought. Latching on and causing her heart to quake with apprehension as she anticipated the sentencing that was sure to come in next.