I: Darkness
New York, 1920
The world was a dark place after 1918. The Great War sucked up its golden youth, gutting, gassing and disemboweling them before spewing them out in great stinking mounds along Ypres, Passchendaele, Sommes, and Pozières.
The United States soared to the top of the international stage in the wake of the war as crippled Great Britain, once a superpower, limped into the wings and attempted to place bandages on its festering national sores.
While the funeral pyre heightened, while grief, sorrow and anger gripped everyone in an iron fist, Bass Industries feasted upon the world's misery and benefited from the United States' rise in power. Their purses became engorged while more death notices filled the papers, and more bodies filled coffins or mass graves.
Unlike other businesses that sank after the War, Bass Industries was comfortably cushioned. They were like a reincarnation of the titan Cronus who ate all his children in the hope of preventing a usurpation of his throne, because one by one, Bass Industries took over weak corporations who offered no effective defense.
Bass Industries was merciless.
The dread king of the Upper East skyline, fifty-one year old Bartholomew Bass, and his Lucifer son, twenty-six year old Charles, lived protected from hardship in the penthouse of their new hotel, Melusine. Bartholomew and Charles were the unholy duumvirate that the Upper East Siders loathed and feared.
Indeed, Machiavelli would have been proud.
Three attempts had been made on Bart's life: firstly, a disgruntled cook tried to lace Bart's customary brandy with arsenic but Bart's brother Jack was killed instead; secondly, someone attempted to strap a poorly constructed bomb under Bart's customary Mercedes, but was blown up in the process. The third time was when a former executive of a company Bart had merged who was driven mad by the death of his son in the war and mounting debts, shot Bart. Bart seemed so close to death until his son swept into the hospital like a violent tempest, gripped his father's hand tightly, and vowed retribution if the doctors did not do everything possible to save his father. Amazingly, Bart clung to life with an unearthly tenacity, and Chuck never left his side. Medical staff were awed and whispered that the Basses must be construed of some sort of unnatural mettle, or were in league with the Devil.
Most voted for the latter.
Death always nipped at the heels of the Bass men, and lurked in the dark recesses of their lives. Evelyn Bass, who people whispered was the light angel that briefly held Bart away from a path of avarice and unbridled ruthlessness, died after a horrific childbirth.
Witnesses of the birth still could not forget the blood-sodden sheets, nor Evelyn's tortured screams and writhing body. They could not erase the memory of Bart bursting into the birthing room and holding his dying, whimpering wife; frantically kissing and caressing her as her head lolled from side to side, barely conscious as blood seeped through her filthy gown and onto his clothes. Bart did not seem to care about the blood and feces that stained the sheets. People said it was the one time he appeared as if he were a primal animal—without any hint of his customary rigid self-control—that was signaling the passing of his dying mate.
Chuck lay forgotten in the cradle.
Twenty-four years later, the roaming scythe of Death again stalked Bass Industries. Chuck's wife, Penelope, lay dying of a ravenous cancer. She only had a few months left at the most. The servants and various other retainers of Bass Industries shamefully breathed sighs of relief, for Penelope Devereux had been an unstable, mercurial woman who had been literally sold by her father to the Basses in return for being left as CEO of Devereux Investments instead of falling prey to the insatiable lust for domination that gripped the Bass father and son.
Servants whispered behind their hands and took bets as to which woman was now warming Chuck's bed. It was a well-known fact that Chuck had a roving eye and his frequent liaisons exacerbated the suspicions and paranoia that wrought havoc upon Penelope's fragmented and tortured mind.
The only bright light in the grim Bass dominion that momentarily dispersed all shadows was Chuck and Penelope's five year-old daughter Ruby. She was a gurgling, bubbly toddler that was the only one who could briefly breach the almost inhuman emotionless façade of Bart and bring a small smile to the flint face of Chuck.
Ruby was now in need of a governess, since she had just about out-grown her nursemaid. This was how twenty-four year old Blair Waldorf found herself as a governess to Ruby Bass in an eerily quiet penthouse that was occasionally punctuated by the agonizing cries of Penelope or the crash of something she had thrown.
She had not yet met Ruby's father, who had been in Boston negotiating another deal on behalf of his father. It was only Bart who she briefly conversed with upon her employment, and after that, it was only Penelope's nurse, Vanessa Abrams, and the butler, Daniel Humphrey, that she was in regular contact with.
It was now just after nine o'clock at night and Blair had finished putting Ruby down to sleep. The penthouse was Spartan sparse. The lounge in which Blair stood was like a mausoleum. The only personal touch was a massive oil painting of a beautiful woman in a lavender gown and striking mocha eyes that Blair assumed was Bart's dead wife. The fireplace had long ago cooled and Blair shivered, pulling her wrap tightly around her shoulders.
"It's a frightful place, isn't it?" came a low sardonic voice that sounded as if it was affected by alcohol.
Blair's head shot around and saw Bart's son shrouded in darkness by the drawn window. Only a sliver of light from the crack in the heavy velvet curtains drew light on his features.
"Mr. Bass," she curtly greeted him, feeling a prickling sensation in her skin.
"Mr. Bass," he mocked her voice, stepping out of the shadows and into the dim light of the candelabra on the mantelpiece. "You're my daughter's new governess, correct?"
"A good guess," she replied, acid lacing her voice.
She could see his smirk and it made her want to slap him.
"I gather you don't like me much?" he drawled, appearing unbothered by the fact.
Blair drew herself up. "I don't know you enough, sir, to draw a well-rounded opinion."
"But you've heard all the dastardly things about me, surely?"
"I don't give much credence to rumours."
"What if they're not rumours?"
Blair narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm not a child who can be frightened by weak tales of evil doings."
He laughed—a jarring, humourless one, that sent chills up her spine. His face was made of sharp contours and his intense dark eyes were like hot coals. His smirk became even more pronounced. "So I do not frighten you?"
"No."
"Then I'll tell you a secret, Miss Waldorf."
"And what would that be?"
He stepped closer to her until he was a mere arm length away from her. "You are a brave woman, Miss Waldorf, for becoming a Bass employee."
Blair raised her chin. "And why is that?"
He moved within a hairbreadth of her, his warm breath laden with Scotch stirring a loose strand of hair in her face. "Because this place will suck the lifeblood out of you. When you leave this establishment—if you leave—you will be a mere wraith and none of your loved ones will recognise you. Indeed, my mother forsook her family to marry my father against their wishes and she died in this very place in agony giving birth to me."
His speech was slurred and Blair stepped back from him. "You've been drinking. I would advise you to say nothing further that you might regret."
He let out a harsh bark of laughter. "Alright then, my prim little governess. You scurry along to your pristine white bed and dream of fluffy white clouds and sugary sweets. But I warn you—you will lose your innocence here. Get out while you can."
Blair set her mouth into a thin line. "Goodnight, Mr. Bass," she said tightly, and then she turned on her heel and left a clearly drunk Chuck staring at the portrait of his dead mother.
The End of Chapter One. Please let me know what you thought as it would be most appreciated!