Jack held Georgie’s small hand, saying even as they walked into the dowager baroness’s sitting room, “She is a very lovely lady, Georgie. She rarely leaves her room, but that’s all right. That just means that we always know where she is.” And, Jack prayed, I hope she will not scare you witless.
Georgie just hummed, staring around her. “P-P-Pretty room,” she said, broke away from Jack, and dashed to the brilliantly colored silk shawl that lay in shimmering folds over the back of a chair near to the windows.
“Who are you?”
Jack walked quickly to Alice’s chair. “That is my little sister, ma’am. Her name is Georgina. She loves bright colors and soft materials.” Jack called out, “Georgie, love, do come here and meet her ladyship.”
The dowager baroness sucked in her breath. “Her eyes, goodness, how very strange she looks. One gold eye and one blue eye. How very odd. And delightful.”
Georgie stood her ground, staring at the lovely woman who was staring back at her.
“She’s as delightful as her eyes,” Jack said. “May we stay with you for a while? I promised Georgie she could see your beautiful room. Is that all right?”
Jack said nothing more for a good ten minutes, simply waited, watching Georgie eye the woman, then slowly walk to her and stand beside her chair, looking up at her. No one could resist that face, Jack thought. She was right. The dowager baroness wrapped the shawl around Georgie’s head, telling her that she was a sweet young miss protecting her hair from a stiff wind, and wasn’t this lovely? Then she draped it over her shoulders. She was behaving quite normally, just as someone who liked children would behave. Jack never once turned to look back toward the bedchamber door.
Finally she said, “Georgie, if her ladyship doesn’t mind, why don’t you carry that lovely shawl over to the window and hold it up so that the sun can shimmer through it and make colorful patterns on your arm. You can make it magic with the sunlight.”
“That was well done,” Alice said, after some moments of watching Georgie waving the shawl through the bright sunlight pouring through the windows. “You brought the child in here to pave your way. She is not Lev’s daughter?”
“No, she is my half sister. After Lev died, my mother remarried. You’re right, of course. That’s exactly why I brought Georgie with me. I worried that you would refuse to see me again.”
“What makes you think that I still won’t refuse to speak of anything to you? I am merely polite, you know. The child is adorable.”
“Yes, she’s mine now. Her father didn’t beat her, but he didn’t care if she lived or died. She’s safe now with me.”
“What does Gray think of her?”
“She quite has him dancing to her tune. Your son is a very good man, ma’am. I truly don’t believe it’s right for you to want to make him suffer. It isn’t fair to him. Nor is it at all fair to me or to Georgie.”
“Fairness has nothing to do with life,” Alice said staring up at Jack, her voice sharp and cold. “Look what happened to me and then sp
eak of fairness again. You’ll find it impossible.”
“I see a woman who has known tragedy, as many women have. I see a woman who can have anything she wishes to have simply by asking. I see a woman who likely hasn’t done a bit of work in all the years she’s been sitting dependent and lazy in this lovely room. I see a woman who can’t face the present because she prefers to nurture a long-dead past, a pathetic past, truth be told. I see a woman who holds the past close, lovingly remembers everything that happened to her so that she can better feel her own pain, remember her own misery, wallow in her own sense of ill-use.
“I see a beautiful woman who is as sane as I am, and the good Lord knows I’m dreadfully sane, more sane than is probably good for me and all those around me.” She stepped close, leaned down, and clasped the arms of Alice’s chair. “Why don’t you think about walking out of this damned bedchamber? Why don’t you think of running down those elegant stairs and flinging open the front doors? Why don’t you go riding with Dr. Pontefract, ma’am? There is a lovely mare in the stable named Poet. Your coloring and hers would fit together quite nicely. Ah, I see you turn all sorts of pale and lean back away from me, like I’m a witch.
“Well, perhaps I am. Perhaps it’s wise of you to be afraid of me.” Slowly Jack straightened, folding her arms over her breasts. “Don’t you look just lovely sitting there all useless, worth nothing to anyone, waiting for someone to lightly caress your forehead and tell you how lovely you are, how very fragile?
“But you’re not at all fragile, are you? Oh, no, you’re unforgiving, you’re cold. You wish to hate a man who probably saved your life many years ago. That hatred is the only thing you nurture inside you because there is naught else but emptiness. What a wondrous thing: your present and your future—both faded before they can even come to pass because you’ve done nothing to fill yourself with anything good and worthwhile.
“You hated a twelve-year-old boy—your own son—because you simply couldn’t face life by yourself, making your own decisions, never again having anyone tell you what to do.”
“Damn you. Shut up, you miserable little bitch!”
Jack rose tall. She tapped her foot. She looked mildly bored. She raised an eyebrow and said in some surprise, “Me? A bitch? At least I’m an honest bitch, ma’am. I don’t practice my die-away airs to gain my way, to garner sympathy. I don’t cut off my own flesh and blood because I’m incapable of seeing the past as it really happened.”
“No, you’re wrong. You are cruel, unfair. You don’t know what I’ve suffered.”
Jack smiled down at the woman whose cheeks were becomingly flushed with healthy, furious color, whose chest was heaving with more passion that she’d probably felt in the past dozen years. Her smile widened. “You are very lucky, ma’am. Madness becomes you. May you enjoy your madness for many years to come. May you hold it close and find it warm as a lover and nurturing as a mother because it is all you will ever know, all you will allow yourself ever to know.”
She turned on her heel, calling over her shoulder, “ Georgie, love? Are you ready to take your leave of her ladyship?”
The little girl, who was blessed with sound hearing, turned slowly to her sister and the beautiful woman whose hands were fisted on the arms of her chairs. “T-Thank you, ma’am, for letting me p-p-play with your sh-shawl.”
Alice looked at the flowing shawl that had filled and overflowed the little girl’s fingers. The sight had warmed her. Speaking to the child, the first child she’d seen in so very long, had made her wonder why she’d shut herself away from such a very simple joy. She looked at Jack, then beyond to where her son stood, arms folded over his chest, leaning against the wall beside the door, his face pale, the skin stretched tightly over his bones. The cast in his eye, that slight looking both outward and inward at the same time, it was from her.
She rose, standing tall beside her chair, and said very calmly, “You’re quite legitimate, Gray. The man you’ve despised for so very long now—you carry his blood. Yes, my face, but his blood. Perhaps someday soon you’ll want to give this girl here lessons on how to be a proper woman. Then, perhaps, your father’s blood will show itself. Go away, both of you. Take the child with you. She’s frightened by all the loud voices.”