Jane felt a bit sick and a bit numb. “What for?”
“Your father…”
“Do you think he knows? About Christiana?”
Lillian shrugged. “I hope he does not.”
What would her mother think? Her husband remarried to a woman not much older than Jane, who invited her former lover into their home. And that man was supposed to be a candidate for marriage to Jane.
“A great big farce, it is.” Tears blurred Jane’s vision, but she swallowed her disgust—whether for herself or for her stepmother she could not tell—and stood.
Lillian scrambled to her feet and smoothed her skirts. “Choose a husband and you can leave this farce. Have a lovely little life free from complications and stepmothers.”
Yes. She could not remain here any longer.
But first.
“I really must speak with my father, Lillian.”
“Do you think it wise? Meddling in others’ relationships is—”
“It’s not meddling. It’s helping. I’ll see what he knows, if there is a way I can help.”
“I don’t know, Jane.”
“I have to, Lillian. I must.” She could not understand what she’d just seen and heard. Her brain felt muddled, and her heart felt like a manacle wrapped around it, squeezing, squeezing. “I must speak with Papa.” What if he knew about Christiana’s infidelity? What if his heart hurt as Jane’s did? She ran for him.
* * *
Jane knocked on her father’s study door, and instead of an answer or a request for her to enter, she heard grunts, mumbled words, and the odd crash or two.
She pressed her ear to the door. “Papa? Are you all right?”
“Jane? Bollocks.”
Jane jolted away from the door. Had her father really cursed?
Laughter, high and feminine, increased Jane’s shock.
The door whipped open, and Christiana swayed through. She pouted at Jane. “Horrid timing. We barely got started.”
Jane’s shock gave way to disgust. Her stepmother had moved from kissing one man, to who knew what with another, in the span of a half hour. At the most!
Lillian had not approved of Jane’s plan to help her father, whatever form that took, but now she must. And she knew exactly what shape the help would take now, too—escape from a conniving wife!
Jane flew into the room. “Papa!”
Her father shrugged into a rumpled jacket and smiled. “Hello, Jane dear. What brings you here today?” He was missing his cravat. Wait, no, there it was, hanging over a sconce, perilously close to an open flame.
Jane dashed across the room and pulled it down. Burning with a flush over every inch of her, she handed it back to her father.
He took it, bundled it up, and shoved it in a pocket. “Ahem. Thank you.” He strode to the window and looked out for several heartbeats, then swung around to face her once more. “Your mother explained what goes on between a man and his wife before she died, yes?”
Jane nodded.
“Excellent. Excellent.”
The memory of her mother dumped a sky full of snow on top of her, burying the present in the past. Once, Jane had stood at that very window where her father stood now. The sun had set beyond the glass. Her childish romantic heart had loved to watch the sun dip low and spread its colors everywhere before dark unfolded over everything. Her parents had wandered into view between summer roses, paused, kissed.
