by Thea Devine
Time to think.
She didn't know what to think, actually. Maybe it was better not to think, with the ground continually shifting under her.
Lujan rode in on the following Saturday. "Well, I can see everyone is overjoyed to have me home," he said in that depre-
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cating tone that was so irritating. "Especially the little companion. How's Mother?"
"Tolerable," Kyger told him. "Could you tolerate going over accounts?"
"God, no."
And Hugo couldn't demand that he leave; it would upset Olivia too much—she was so glad he'd come to visit. Lujan spent hours entertaining her with stories of London life; he'd brought down a parcel of books for her. He'd bought her a beautiful shawl.
"It's so beautiful, Hugo. So warm. He's so thoughtful."
Hugo sent her a baleful look. Thoughtful was not a word in Lujan's vocabulary. But how could he demand that Lujan leave with Olivia positively doting on him?
Or was this some nefarious plan? And where was Jancie, the paid companion, while Lujan was casting his lures?
Jancie was staying as far away from Lujan as possible, but if she thought she was fooling anyone, she was mistaken. Kyger caught her Sunday morning, hiding in the library.
"You are ever so wise to keep out of his way, Jancie."
"Am I?" Easier to misunderstand what he was inferring, easier still to feel irritated that he understood.
Kyger started to say something and thought better of it.
Because she understood?
She was still bothered by it—the gnawing sense that there was an undercurrent to everything that had been said that evening, and that there was something she had missed.
"Well, let us just say, I'm happy you're in my way today," Kyger said, and the huskiness in his voice made her knees weak. It would be so easy, too easy to make something out of the way he spoke to her, looked at her, made her the center of his interest and concern.
"You've been so good for Mother," he added, as if he discerned her discomfort, and wanted to diffuse the awareness between them.
What was it about these brothers? They were too attractive, too arresting, too magnetic.
Too different, one from the other. Too easy to like for very different reasons. And easy to hate, exactly the same.
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"She is no trouble to care for," Jancie said, following his lead.
She could even see objectively, after this short a time, why her own father had loved Olivia; she liked Olivia, too. And comprehending that, she felt even more deeply the obligation that Hugo had placed upon her in bringing her to Waybury. "Olivia is generous, kind, and undemanding. There is no hardship here for me but the knowledge that at some point, there will be an end to it."
"We talk about it with such detachment, but in truth, we don't believe it," Kyger said. "We just don't believe it, even as we watch her slowly fade before our eyes, watch her take the laudanum to dull her pain, watch her try to act as if everything were perfectly normal. She makes us not believe it until we examine her closely under the skin. Then we know, but we still refuse to come to terms with it."
God, how he loves her, Jancie thought. And how he loyally took over Lujan's role just to be here with her. That was the real reason why he remained at Waybury, the real reason why he'd willingly taken Lujan's place. It wasn't to ease Hugo's burden—or Lujan's, for that matter. He was doing it all for his mother.
It made her feel even warmer toward him. It made her feel things she didn't understand. And it made her turn away every time Lujan came in sight, because perceiving that about Kyger, she did not know what conclusion to draw about him.
He hadn't gone back to Town. He insisted on popping up around corners when she least expected it. "Ah, it's the little companion. How diligent she is. A scurrying little mouse, afraid of the big, fat cat."
An unfortunate allusion, that. Cats were still a sore point with Olivia, and she did not hesitate to bore the point home to Jancie.
"Humph . . . I comprehend you've heard the whole awful story about Gaunt just by the look on your face every time I talk about that cat."
"Yes, ma'am. Mr. Galliard was kind enough to ease my mind by recounting just the barest details. I'm so very sorry."
"Where is it, your cat?"
"Catching mice, I hope. Cook was very sanguine about the fact there were so many mice to be caught round and about the cellars and garden that Emily could prove very useful to her in that way—out of your sight, of course, ma'am."
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Olivia shook her head. "I will not have a cat in this house."
"Yes, ma'am."
This wasn't the first conversation about it, either. But Emily had an instinctive and healthy respect for Olivia's antipathy. She stayed well out of sight, only slinking into Jancie's room deep into the night to sleep on her hip, and never, ever was she seen on the bedroom floor on the opposite side of the house.
Lujan was there quite frequently, however; his bedroom was one of those closed doors just on that end of the house, nearby the back staircase to the attic where Emily had acted so skittery. He invariably emerged from his room just when Jancie was coming out of hers, as if he were deliberately looking for any way to disconcert and discomfit her.
"Whatever did happen to the cat?" he asked the first time, waiting, Jancie thought, to hear that perhaps Olivia had had her drowned or something.
"She's fine," Jancie said. "We worked it out."
Lujan snorted. "You heard the poor, sad story."
Jancie nodded. And instantly she wondered how old he had been at the time, and whether he knew anything about his younger brother's disappearance.
What a wicked, horrible thought! She banished it instantly, but it crept right back into her consciousness. Why? Because Lujan was dissolute and amoral? Because his father was a liar and a thief? Because his mother had dangled two suitors and had not chosen her father? Because under the skin, and in spite of all her empathy and sadness for Olivia, she still felt that niggling anger that she had walked into a way of life that should always have been hers?
Still, it was a list of offenses wholly personal only to her. She didn't want to think about it again; she had thought she put it all aside for the moment because she felt her obligation to Olivia superseded any personal acrimony.
What was she thinking? It was obvious she wasn't thinking at all; and it was all because of Lujan's prowling around where she least expected him, and turning her head the wrong way around.
But she could not help wondering where Lujan had been when Gaunt disappeared. Where had Kyger been, for that matter?
And why did it even matter to her? It was Olivia's tragedy, and
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she lived with it fresh in her mind every day. Hugo and Olivia had done everything they could at the time; she believed that, and that they obviously had absolved their sons of any culpability. And there had been other witnesses—aunts, uncles, cousins—in the house.
Who was she to question any of this?
It was all about the cat—and Lujan.
And while she could put Emily out of sight in the cellar, she couldn't as easily make Lujan go away.
So there was dinner every evening following his arrival, with his glinting gaze following her every move, eyeing her like the hungry predator that he was. There were the walks with Olivia in the morning, when he would appear as if by magic from behind a tree or around a corner and jolly Olivia out of her gloomy moods. There were her quiet times when somehow he found and sought her out just to make the euphemistic sexually charged comment.
It was too much for her. All her experiences at St. Boniface had not prepared her for dueling with a man of such verbal skill and fleshly appetites. He'd devour her if she let him—she didn't know how to wriggle away. She couldn't understand what it was about her that fascinated him.
She found herself hiding from him rather than match wits because she knew she
must always lose.
Kyger proved her ally.
"Little brother is hiding the companion," Lujan accosted him one afternoon while Olivia was napping.
"I?" Kyger was the soul of innocence. "I think you've outstayed your welcome, big brother. I think London is calling, not our poor, innocent little companion."
"London is boring."
Kyger laughed mirthlessly. "And a week of dancing a quadrille with our father and the companion isn't? This isn't like you, old son."
"I'm thinking it's time I took an interest in what will be my inheritance and my birthright."
If Lujan had meant to shock him, Kyger didn't let it show. "That it is," he said evenly. "The account books are waiting, big brother. I can't wait to hand them over."
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Lujan brushed that comment away. "So is the little companion. Waiting for an accounting from me, that is."
"Lord," Kyger groaned. "Have you gotten away with repartee like that all these years? If that is all it takes to go on in society, then it will be easier than ever I thought to make my mark in London, and way past time I tried my mettle among the debutantes and ladies. I couldn't do worse, that's for certain."
"Two Galliards? God, that would be enough to bring any season to a standstill, little brother. I don't think so."
On the other hand, Kyger thought, it should have been exactly so. The two of them, so alike in so many ways, united in their desire to preserve family, to make marriages, to father an heir.
But that wasn't the case. They were as far apart as the sun and the moon. He wondered just what had estranged them, and what had made Lujan so contemptuous of everything. He wondered now, because the issue had been raised again, what the impact of the loss of their brother had been on Lujan; whether that, in some measure, might account for his go-for-hell-and-damn-the-consequences attitude.
He wondered why Lujan had fixed his interest on Jancie.
"So what is it about the companion?" he asked idly.
Lujan shrugged. "It just is."
"That's because you can't have her. It's ever thus with you, brother mine. Dangle a fresh carrot, and you are galloping after it hell for the horizon, ravenous until you get the first bite, which is never as juicy or delicious as you imagine, and then the rest you just cavalierly toss away. No, Lujan, you won't get that bite this time, not with Jancie."
"Really?" Lujan's tone was deceptively offhanded. "Why is that?"
"Why—there are knights errant and benevolent sorceresses among her retinue. Charms and spells to protect her, dear brother. Gallant gentlemen who are willing to do battle for her."
"Fool," Lujan mocked him. "You're the court jester, old son. You wag your arms and flap your mouth and everyone laughs."
"But—consider this, brother mine. Who knows what the court jester is, really? What an ideal disguise for some noble—or nefarious—purpose," Kyger murmured. "I'd watch out for that jester, if I were you." The thought amused him, and it struck him
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suddenly that he and Lujan had become even fiercer adversaries, squaring off about a girl who was literally a nobody.
But two days later, he understood why.
The dressmaker had delivered Jancie's new dresses and there was a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing in and out of her room while Jancie tried them on. Adjustments were made, and she finally presented herself to Olivia in the first of her two workday dresses: a plain checked linen in shades of blue and taupe, with a suggestion of draped overskirt and a matching frill around the neck, wrist, and hem.
She felt as if she were walking a foot taller, wearing a dress like this; felt herself move with a grace she was not aware she had as she paraded before Olivia's critical eye.
"Yes, yes," Olivia said. "Just what we discussed—nothing too fancy, but still in fashion. Nothing too forthcoming. Exactly right. Now the other one, please."
The second dress was a beautiful shade of navy with a thin filet of red ribbon on the skirt, around the high neck, and at the wrists of the pared-down muttonchop sleeves.
Jancie liked this one even more. So did Olivia. The simplicity. The fit. Jancie in proper clothes was as elegant and desirable as any debutante in the whole of London, Olivia thought. And the lack of expensive ornamentation did not detract from the lines of Jancie's body, either. There was a full-bodied woman hiding under those dowdy clothes she had worn.
And those dresses could easily be made over, Olivia decided. They wanted but some taking in, a drape of the skirt, a ruffle, a piece of lace, a bow. The dressmaker could do that in a day.
She liked taking charge of Jancie like that, she thought; it was like having a daughter without all the fuss of having had to raise her. And any mother would adore a daughter like Jancie. Jancie could have been her daughter, if things had worked out differently.
Funny she'd never thought of that before.
So it was gratifying to see her family's response as she and Jancie came downstairs for lunch. Dumbstruck would be the word for it—Hugo calculating the cost in pounds even as he gaped, and Lujan and Kyger rushing to pull out a chair for Jancie and nearly colliding in the process.
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Their reaction made Olivia catch her breath—the way they looked at Jancie—did she want—what she thought she was seeing?
What had she intended to accomplish, really? Not that, surely. Her boys would never think of looking at Jancie as anything but what she was—a paid companion. Someone whose meager compensation included some dresses from a generous employer. She could have just as easily had several of her own made over for Jancie if she had even thought for a moment that either of her sons would evince this kind of interest.
Maybe she ought to have. She didn't like the look in Lujan's eyes. But he was ever the wild card, playing his usual games and holding his aces close, ever the joker. And he was never serious. She could almost count on that.
It was just that he was bored, staying around, waiting for the end.
No, dressing Jancie had been a way to pass the time, she thought. A diversion. Something else to do other than watch the sun go up and down and watch the creeping grief over her illness insinuate itself into her life while she tried to pretend it wasn't there, and that what was inevitable would never happen.
That was all. Just a way to occupy time.
******************
But in that warm moment, Jancie felt something shift inside her. The sensation was so strong, it was almost palpable. She felt as if Olivia had waved a magic wand and made her into a princess. Given her the glass slipper in the form of these beautiful clothes. Made her feel like Cinderella, just as Lujan had said. Up from the ashes and into the light—desirable, eligible, marriageable.
It felt so right, so exactly how things should always have been, as if now she had taken her proper place—a place where her father would have been at the head of the table, and her mother would still be alive.
And she felt her gratitude ebb away, and the truth of the hardships of her life came roaring back, and she felt something change, and more than that, that finally she was ready to do something about it.
***
54 / Thea Devine
Watching her, he felt something shift.
Had he thought this was a child? This was not a child. This was a woman, fully formed, with intelligence, wit, and opinions. Obedient and grateful, as she should be, but clear-sighted about the circumstances as well. So different from the tattered bundle of gratitude and obsequiousness they had expected. She was no fool, and everyone else around the table knew it.
But they didn't know that she knew it, too.
It was the way she looked in a fashionable, well-fitted dress, with her hair properly arranged, that had caught everyone off guard. Nobody had expected she would look like this.
It changed things. It was like a lightning bolt to his vitals. He saw it all clearly, in one soul-clarifying moment. And he saw what he needed to do, and what modifications he
needed to make. And for the first time in a long time, he really felt as if he could make a change.
He would do it—he decided in that instant. It was the perfect answer, the perfect end of the story for someone who didn't believe in fairy tales.
But fate had dropped Jancie right in his lap. A man could do no less with that kind of temptation. It wouldn't be heroic at all. It would solve every problem, absolve every sin, wash away every stain.
It would be a blessing, really. For her. For him.
He couldn't keep his eyes off of her, which only cemented his resolve. He would do it—for himself first—but he'd be lying to himself if he didn't admit he was doing it because of her.
As any hot-blooded man would .. .
******************
And then, Lujan decided to stay on at Waybury House for an indeterminate time. This was not happy news, for Hugo or for Kyger.
But it was especially bad news for Jancie.
There was something about those new dresses that made each one of them treat her differently, and she decided, after their first reaction, that she didn't like it. And then, when she thought to just put on her old shapeless dresses, she found they were gone.
She accosted the maid. "Where are my dresses?"
It was one of the tween maids, a girl who was pretty nearly
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her own age, and scared witless of her. Jancie could almost see her trembling with fear that she thought the maid had stolen her dresses.
"The dresses, miss?" The voice quavered. "The madam had them taken to the dressmaker to be made over, miss. I hope that's all right."
Well, she couldn't be as ungracious as to demand that Olivia return them without alteration when Olivia's motives had been so kind.
Jancie sank onto the bed and looked at Emily, who was curled up on the pillow. Emily stared at her.
"What?"
That was nice of Olivia.