My Boss Defended Me From His Cruel Mother — So She Froze Our Accounts And Tried To Starve Us
Part 1
Flour coated the rough timber of the worktable like milled bone.
My knuckles ached with a dull rhythmic throb from kneading heavy bread.
I was twenty-four, but the harsh light of the hearth fires made me look older.
I didn’t mind the work because there was no deceit in baking, unlike the world upstairs.
The heavy oak door groaned on its iron hinges.
Thomas, the master of the estate, stood near the copper resting racks.
He wore a dark navy waistcoat threaded with subtle silver.
It looked absurdly out of place among the hanging plucked pheasants and strings of garlic.
He pulled a rough-hewn stool from beneath the prep table and sat down.
He ignored the ash that transferred to his fine trousers.
A scent of damp horsehair, worn leather, and subtle soap trailed behind him.
It was a sharp contrast to the suffocating kitchen odors of roasted meat fat and burnt sugar.
He told me he was hiding from his mother, Lady Margaret.
She was upstairs entertaining guests, negotiating alliances, and discussing bloodlines.
I watched his long, uncalloused hands pick crystallized sugar off my cutting board.
I felt a dangerous pity for him because he looked exhausted and incredibly lonely.
Then the door slammed against the stone wall with the force of a cannon shot.
The overwhelming scent of crushed roses and heavy musk invaded the room.
Lady Margaret stepped into the scullery in a deep bruising plum silk gown.
Her skirts dragged through the ash and spilled grease without her seeming to care.
The entire kitchen froze.
The spit boy stopped turning the handle, letting the fat hiss violently into the fire.
Two maids dropped a porcelain plate by the washbasins.
The crash of porcelain cut sharply through the sudden quiet.
Lady Margaret leaned heavily on an ebony cane with a silver hawk’s head.
Her dark eyes swept over the frozen servants, dismissing them like a swarm of flies.
She looked at Thomas with icy disdain, then zeroed in on me.
She noticed a smudge of flour on my forehead.
She accused me of entertaining him and called the kitchen a brothel.
The insult hit me like a physical blow.
My ingrained submission vanished for a fraction of a second.
I tried to defend myself, blurting out that we were only baking.
I didn’t even see her hand move.
The slap was a short, brutally efficient strike.
Crack.
The brutal crack reverberated against the high stone arches above.
The heavy gold signet ring on her middle finger caught my cheekbone.
Pain blossomed instantly, hot and radiating into a deep bruising ache that rattled my teeth.
I stumbled backward, my hips slamming hard into the edge of the wooden work table.
I tasted copper where I had bitten my tongue.
Humiliation poured down my throat as involuntary tears of shock pooled in my eyes.
I stood there stripped naked in front of the entire staff.
I was nothing but a piece of furniture to be kicked when it was in the way.
Her chest rose and fell with exertion as she ordered me to pack my meager belongings.
She commanded me to leave the house before sunset.
She threatened to have me whipped by the magistrate for theft if I stayed.
She turned, expecting the natural order to resume.
Then Thomas spoke.
He said no.
The word was quiet, but it carried an absolute, terrifying certainty.
He stepped between us, shielding me entirely with his broader frame.
He told his mother that I was his employee and she would never strike me again.
He commanded her to leave the kitchen immediately.
Lady Margaret was stunned, searching his face for the obedient boy she had molded.
She warned him he was making a fool of himself over flour and dirt.
She realized he wouldn’t back down, spun on her heel, and stormed out.
The heavy oak door slammed shut, leaving a ringing silence in its wake.
Thomas turned to me, offering his pristine white linen handkerchief.
I flinched when he reached out.
I told him he shouldn’t have done that because she would destroy me.
He gave his word she would not succeed.
He offered to set me up in a cottage on the edge of the property with a stipend.
A cold knot pulled tight in my stomach.
I told him I provided for myself.
I was a baker with a trade, and I fed seventy people a day in this house.
I refused to become a charity case funded by his guilt.
I told him to go upstairs and figure out how to be a master without turning my life into collateral damage.
The next morning, I arrived in the scullery early.
My left eye was completely swollen shut, the skin a mottled yellow and deep plum.
I walked toward the dry stores to prep the morning bread.
The heavy iron lock was gone.
It was replaced by a gleaming brass padlock bearing Lady Margaret’s personal seal.
The estate steward scurried around the corner with his ledger.
He informed me that she had ordered a comprehensive kitchen audit.
All primary ingredients were completely sealed.
She was starving the kitchen to make me useless and turn the staff against me.
Thomas found me standing defeated before the lock.
He didn’t say a word.
He walked over to the massive hearth and picked up a heavy wrought iron poker.
He brought it down on the brass lock with a violent grunt.
The shriek of metal on metal vibrated right through my teeth.
He swung a third time, and a fourth.
The jarring rhythm of metal on brass shattered the kitchen’s stillness.
On the fifth swing, the internal pins shattered.
He ripped the mangled lock from the hasp.
His palm was bleeding from a jagged tear on the rough iron handle.
I pulled a clean linen cloth from a drawer and scrubbed the soot out of his wound with raw vinegar.
He hissed in pain, but I held his wrist in an iron grip.
I warned him that breaking a lock wouldn’t stop her.
I told him she would starve this entire house to prove a point.
I was absolutely right.
By mid-afternoon, the butcher’s carts simply did not arrive.
The village merchants had received an edict from the steward.
All estate accounts were frozen indefinitely.
All unsanctioned coin exchanges were completely banned.
The kitchen was entirely crippled.
I stood surrounded by fifty rising loaves of bread.
I had absolutely nothing to serve with them.
The accounts were frozen, the larder was empty, and I realized with a sickening dread that standing up for me was going to cost us everything.
