She nodded at the wall across the room. “The painting there. Is that your mother?”
“It is.”
“Very pretty.”
“And very kind. And intelligent.”
“You loved her.”
“I did.” His face brightened a bit. “I do.”
She took a shaky breath. “I’m going to tell you something I never thought to tell you. Because”—she sighed—“I don’t know why. I shouldn’t tell you. None of it matters. But I do not like to see you so doubtful of yourself.” She spoke slowly, but a fire had entered her eye, as if she’d become a forge in which to fashion a sword to swing in his name and for his protection.
He held his breath, ready to handle whatever she offered him with the utmost care, afraid a single misplaced gust of air might push her back into silence.
“My mother was… distracted,” she said. “I’m not sure she knew I existed unless she needed something of me. I admit I thought the wet nurse my mother for the first four years of my life. I lived in the village with her. A quiet, sweet little life. But I was sent back to my mother when I was five, and… ha!” More a gust of wind than a laugh. “I cried myself to sleep for half a year. At least.”
Bloody hell. He’d not know what to expect when she finally started talking, but somehow it wasn’t this. He went stone still. No unnecessary movement on his part would dam up the flow of her words.
“My mama in the village, for that’s what I thought of her as, had seemed to love me,” Gwendolyn continued. “But my mother at the big house seemed put out by my presence. She did not often need anything from me. Except perhaps my absence when I was young. And then, once I’d come of age, for me to… marry.” Her entire body jerked away from the word.
Such a visceral reaction. What had caused it? Just her mother? No. There was more. There had to be. But she’d turned back to the window, drew circles on its glass, an abrupt end to her unexpected tale. “Do not punish yourself, Jackson. You have better ways to spend your time. You have a brilliant mind, a silly, loyal heart too big and too good for most. If your mother loved you, you should rejoice in that, not heap guilt upon your own head because of it.”
He studied the painting of his mother across the room. Her dark-red hair, patrician nose, and the mouth that rounded so readily into a grin. Shehadloved him, and he her, and what good would his guilt do her? Couldn’t save her. Nor him.
“You are quite right, Gwendolyn,” he said. “It is useless to sit around blaming myself.” He found himself torn between glee she’d shared a hidden bit of herself with him and horror at what that bit entailed. But he grasped at the way she’d defended him, self-forged sword in hand, and clung to it. He’d name her sword Hope.
Silence softened the space between them, and he leaned through, bowed his head toward hers.
“Gwendolyn, I wish you’d had a mother like mine.”
She shrugged, turned to face the window.
“Even though yours was… less than desirable,” he continued, “thank you for telling me of her. Especially because visiting memories of her cannot be pleasant.”
“Is it so easy for you?” She spoke so low a breath could dissipate her speech. “So easy to face the things in your past you’d rather lock away?”
“Not easy at all.” He ruffled a hand through his hair. “Ha. I’m finding all this much more difficult, in fact, than I expected it to be.”
She stepped away from the window. “We must continue the search. I’ll tackle this room, and you may take the kitchen.”
He stopped her with an outstretched hand. “No. I’ll stay and finish searching this room.”
She tilted her head to the side, her eyes soft and curious. “It does not pain you too much to be here, in a place so full of them?”
He shrugged. “I do not think so.” Facing his guilt, speaking of it, had lightened the weight of it a bit. His words had blasted the walls he’d placed around his heart to bits, and it lay open and vulnerable now, but… free. Hewantedto be here, in this room, remembering.
Odd. He’d spent so much time traveling the world, coming home only when necessary, running from his guilt. And today, when he should be running fastest and farthest, he wanted to stay. In his father’s study, in his father’s chair, and see what he could discover.
Eight
The next morning, Gwendolyn hovered in the doorway of the small parlor on the second floor. Asking forgiveness was no easy task, but it must be done because she would leave soon. She wished to move into her new life knowing she’d given what little she had to the family who had given her more than she could ever repay.
But she’d been so hard to Lady Eaden, the woman sitting before the parlor fire, legs pulled up into her skirts, nose stuck in a book. This final goodbye, these words of gratitude, would be most difficult to grind out.
She stepped silently into the parlor. Jackson expected her in the study, but this came first. She’d known it as soon as she’d finished her story about her mother yesterday in his father’s private study. She’d never thought to share so much with him, with anyone, but out it had come. He’d shared his ghosts when he’d never done so before, so she did what she’d never done before and shared hers too. They’d done it together, and it had been less terrifying than she’d expected, less thorny and tangled. As if his venturing into grief had opened up a clear and smooth path for her to do so. He’d stepped so easily onto it, and she’d followed without thought. He’d been brave, and she could not let him outdo her.
She trod it even now, in the parlor. The path was new and still tangled, and she trembled a bit to step foot on it. But it beckoned nonetheless, and it led not only to her mother, but also to Lady Eden, a woman so much better than the one who had brought Gwendolyn into the world then promptly tossed her away.
