Anger boiled up in him, clear and hot and not at her. What had she suffered, and why did she insist on bearing those demons on her own? His anger warred with a blooming sense of relief—she’d told him a bit of her past without him having to poke about for it. It felt like progress, like more hope. True, every time she took a step forward, revealed a previously dark corner of herself, she locked herself up again. But she seemed to be able to peek out again after some time had passed, a game of hide-and-seek with much greater consequences than those children played.
They stopped at the gallery’s end next to the twins and looked up at the portrait on the wall, larger than life—his mother sitting and his father standing behind her, their eyes filled with the mirth of loyal love for one another, with the excitement of a new house filled with children, new projects to sharpen their minds.
“They,” Jackson said, the single word stretched over an inhale and an exhale, “are our parents.”
“She’s pretty,” Thomas said.
Gwendolyn tilted her head to the side, studying the portrait. “And your father is terribly handsome.”
Jackson elbowed her. “Don’t drool, Gweny.”
Nicholas looked at them over his shoulder. “Why would she drool, Jack?”
Thomas turned around. “Dogs drool.”
“She’s not a dog,” Nicholas replied. “I drool sometimes. On my pillow.”
Gwendolyn opened her mouth, perhaps to attempt a response, but then she snapped it shut and looked at him. “I see where the three of you get your good looks.”
The boys turned back around to peer at the portrait.
Jackson leaned close, inhaling her scent. Mint and rose. How could a creature of midnight smell like a noon day?
He whispered near her ear. “Excellent maneuvering away from a precarious conversation.”
“I only had tomaneuverbecause of your loose tongue.”
He dipped closer, placed his lips hot against her ear and closed his eyes, couldn’t stop a grin. “You like my tongue.” The barest of whispers, hardly alive at all.
She turned her head so their noses brushed and gazes clashed. A kiss. A small one. Nothing more. It would not take much. A mere breath would bring their lips together, and he’d take the smallest sip, the one denied him in the library—
“Look, Tom, she’s got a cat in her lap. We like cats.”
Gwendolyn jolted away. Three backwards steps, a swift turn on her toes, and five forward ones brought her to a window, and she grasped its edge, leaned into it as she’d leaned into him breaths ago. That game of hide-and-seek once more, that dance of flirtation with closeness and return to solitude. Grit at him a bit, it did. Patience. If he could play this game and dance this dance, perhaps he would eventually come out the victor. They both would; the prize—a future together.
Against the window, she was a solitary figure in her blue gown. The sun filtering through the glass made her a glowing outline with an unseeable center. Appropriate. He saw just enough of her, always, to want more.
He knelt near the boys and pulled them close in a hug, one small set of slender shoulders under each of his arms. “Mama loved animals. We had several dogs and even more cats. Do you remember?”
“A little,” said Thomas.
“Not really,” Nicholas admitted, his voice small and shamed.
Whatever they remembered would be mere dreams compared to the reality of their uncle and Sarah, of Pansy, who was more sister to them than he was brother.
Jackson tightened his grip on them, kissed the top of their heads. “Some of the animals are still about. I think Miss Smith has met one—a descendent of that cat in the portrait. Same gray fur and markings but younger. Have you met her, Miss Smith?”
“I’m not sure how you sent a cat my way, but yes. I’ve met her. It is a her?”
He nodded.
“Good to know,” Gwendolyn grumbled. “She’s become my shadow.”
“Do you hear that, boys? If we follow Miss Smith about, we’ll be sure to find the feline. Shall we, like the cat, play shadows to Miss Smith the rest of the day?”
“Yes!” They ran for her, wrapping arms around her legs. “Where is the kitten, Miss Smith? Where?” A refrain from two voices.
Gwendolyn laughed, plucking their arms from her own limbs. “I do not need two more shadows, thank you very much.”
