Lady Jayne Disappears

by Joanna Davidson Politano

  Her eyes flew open, hands twitching over the white box. “Oh, oh . . .” Tears pooled in her glossy eyes. “It’s real, ain’t it?”

  He opened the box and she reached in, but her hand trembled so hard she couldn’t grasp the cake. Urging her to sit again, he knelt before her and broke off a piece, setting it on her lips. She gobbled it up hungrily, and he repeated with another piece. His stomach turned as he watched this woman, a human with a childhood, likes and dislikes, skills and interests, who devoured this food as a hungry dog. When the last piece had disappeared into her mouth, Silas stood, but she grabbed for the box. “If you’ve no need of it, might I keep it?”

  He lowered it back to her lap. “Of course.”

  “I want to look at it every day, and remember that I’ve tasted heaven today.” She winked at him. “And seen an angel.”

  When he pivoted to the door, Aurelie hovered in the shadows, her finely freckled face a mix of intense emotions. Had he trod on her territory? Crossed a line? Perhaps she thought him foolish. He’d brought the woman a silly luxury item, when what she really needed was clean clothes and a bath.

  “Have you more to show me? I’m ready now.” He approached her, rubbing at the grit on the back of his neck. A bath would do wonders to remove the traces of this place on his skin, but nothing could erase what he’d witnessed, or the heavy realization that Aurelie had been absolutely right.

  With a silent nod, she led him to another tenement with long rows of cells. “I have a few more I wish to visit.”

  She moved among these broken pieces of humanity, binding wounds, cleaning faces, and drawing smiles. The aura of peace and comfort glided with her down the hall like lamp glow. He felt an odd sense of honor to be in her presence. With her pure skin and neat clothes, she did not appear to belong. But neither did she belong at Lynhurst, among the flirting, the insincerity, and dramatic wardrobes. All the efforts of those people, and the people he’d always known, suddenly seemed so trivial and off the mark. They cared greatly about many small things, making them seem large, when truly big things like life and death and family love filled this place.

  Finally they left the building when his stomach growled. It must be well past lunchtime, and he’d hardly eaten breakfast. The jailer met them at the door with a hearty handshake for Silas.

  “So what did the fine gentleman think of my Mallet?”

  “Far from my expectations.” His solemn answer poured forth from his over-squeezed heart.

  With a laugh the jailer clapped him on the back. “Glad you approve. I run an efficient ship here, and no one gets away with nothing. Not a bit of waste goes on, neither.”

  “You provide their food and other needs?”

  “Aye, that’s me.”

  “What sort of food do you give them?”

  “Aw, you’ll like this, sir. I use me brain. We have horse feed brought in from the races in Bath. Buy it on the cheap when they’re through with it. Corn and oats and such. We soak it in water over the stoves, and we have food for weeks. I struck a deal with the market on Fox Haven Court for carrots and potatoes that go bad before they’re sold. Not real bad, of course. Just bad enough that they won’t bring the full shilling asked for ’em.”

  “They get no meat? No bread?”

  “Oh, some do. Depends on how well they grease me fingers.” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together with a wink, as if Silas would appreciate his shrewdness.

  “I see.” Without more to say, Silas led a white-faced Aurelie by the elbow from the prison and back onto the street where the carriage waited. Outside the gates, she leaned her narrow shoulder against his arm, almost as if by accident. Surprised by her touch, he dared not shift away or even breathe too hard. Her tenuous favor toward him would likely not last, but he would do nothing to upset it.

  She leaned on him until she’d stepped into the carriage. He climbed in after her, suddenly filled with an overwhelming urge to shield her forever from the evil of this world—not the disease-ridden prisons where she walked about like a miracle, but the parts like Lynhurst that sought to exclude and devalue her.

  The carriage jerked and bumped over the rough alley and turned down the main street of Glen Cora before either of them spoke. The letter had been posted, and the vehicle now turned toward Lynhurst.

  Aurelie watched him with bright eyes from the shadows. “Now how do you feel about debtor’s prison, Mr. Rotherham?”

  “Would it be dishonorable of me to call your home a miserable stink hole?”

  Her face lighted with the glow of a hundred candles. “It is never dishonorable to speak the truth.”

  “Have you always walked among the sick that way?”

  “Always. I know it isn’t seemly for a woman, but I think I was born with an overwhelming urge to do.”

  And an overwhelming love for people—although he did not dare say anything that forward aloud. It was one simple trait women were meant to have inherently, this extravagant love, but there were a great many of them who had evolved so far past what they were originally created to be. “You miss it a little, don’t you?”

  “Prison?” She tilted her head back. “Would you find me odd if I said yes?”

  “Wonderfully odd.” He smiled in the dark.

  “It’s cleansed my spirit to return there.” The rattling vehicle nearly drowned her soft voice. “Even though it hasn’t been long since I left, I’ve never been gone from the Mallet even for a night before. Thank you for arranging this visit.” Tears lit her eyes, shining in the dim space. “Somehow it solidifies who I am and my purpose.” She ducked her head. Her posture compelled him across the space separating them. Perching on the edge of her seat, he angled toward her, his face close enough to smell the almond scent of her hair.

  There in the privacy of the dark, the outside world and its opinions hardly mattered. He slipped his arm around her hunched shoulders, drawing her doll-like face to his chest. The heat of her emotion radiated onto him, and he held her tighter. For all the youthful years he spent craving a comforting touch, it healed some unseen thing in him to be able to bestow it so freely on someone else.

  “It was my pleasure. And in a way, you do belong there. Not because you are a debtor, but a rescuer. A healer. You are magnificent in that role, as if God created you as a special being expressly for that purpose.” He snapped his jaw shut. That thought should have remained in his head. He’d alienate her before they even reached Lynhurst.

  But she melted into his embrace. When would he remember? She was not anything like the others. He anchored her tiny frame against himself, his lips brushing the glossy strands of her hair and eliciting a pleasant tingle from them.

  When she stirred, he unfolded his arms and straightened against the seat back. She tipped her sweet face up to look at him, dewy eyes drawing him in, tugging irresistibly at the protector in him. Her mouth twitched in a pure smile, and with the outside world a blur in the tiny window, he drew close, watching those lips, unable to pull away. How could mere lips be so expressive? In a flash, he imagined skimming them with his own. What sort of passion would they return?

  But this wasn’t the time.

  He could so easily ruin everything, maybe losing this beautiful, unnameable friendship between them. Or maybe he’d come close to the most perfect kiss he’d ever experience, and everything that lay on the other side of it.

  Silas firmed his jaw. No, the timing was awful. What flitted over her rosy face—fear? Worry?

  Now returned to herself, the girl’s delicate chin tipped up and her mouth thinned, indicating she intended to push past whatever emotion had overcome her at the near kiss. It took several moments for her to speak again, but when she did, she had collected herself. “Dickens wrote so much about Marshalsea Prison and somehow the world thought it all an exaggeration. He is a man of fiction, after all. But he wrote from experience, for he himself lived there as a boy.”

  “Perhaps you should write your own commentaries on prison life. Explain to the o
utside world what occurs there.” An easy slide across the seat offered a calming distance between them. “You do have a wonderful way of spinning stories.”

  Her noncommittal smile made him want to encourage her even more. Convince her.

  “I’ve thought of it.”

  “Then why aren’t they done? Have you so many other pressing engagements at the moment?”

  Face slanted toward the window, she shrugged, allowing the silence to hang.

  “All right, then tell me one of your stories. I never seem to have my fill of them.”

  With a sleepy smile, she leaned her head against the wall of the carriage. “Have you heard the story about the princess and the knight?”

  Amused, he shook his head. “No, but I would love to.”

  Animation filled her lovely face as the story took on its own life in the carriage rattling down the open road. As the story poured forth, Silas focused on breathing in and out, achieving normalcy again within himself. What had so intoxicated him about this girl? She couldn’t be of this earth. No one really loved the way she did. Not without an audience.

  A fleeting ache squeezed his gut. What would it be like to have that immense love directed toward him?

  The carriage delivered us to the front door of Lynhurst Manor as the first glow of sunset tinged the horizon. Had it really grown that late? I stepped out and nodded my thanks to the coachman.

  Silas landed on the gravel next and shoved his hands into his pockets. “It was a lovely time.”

  Somehow those moments of being supremely comfortable together only led to increased awkwardness afterward. Had I nearly let him kiss me? I’d never been that relaxed—and yet remarkably alive—in my life. Not even when crafting the perfect scene. And now we had to walk back into Lynhurst, sit across from one another at meals, and pretend the whole blessed day had not happened.

  But it would never be forgotten. It would spur my work, driving me to it with even more purpose and love for the truths I’d write about.

  The early-warning dinner bell sounded, sending us scurrying into the house. At least we were free from awkward conversation for the moment. I climbed the stairs to my room and dug through my wardrobe for a dress that fit my mood—serene and soft, and far from flashy.

  But Papa’s coat tossed over the corner of my bed caught my eye. Papa. My wonderful, dear Papa. I walked to it and buried my face against the smooth leather collar and worn fabric, breathing in the lingering essence of him. Oh, Papa. Going back to the Mallet, to the space we’d shared for years, had perhaps been a mistake. I needed to heal and move forward, not backtrack into my pit of grief. Sobs rose to my throat, threatening to spill over.

  With a wavering breath in and out, I pulled myself away from the musty coat and perched at my desk. For a writer, no pain was ever without purpose. The tears dripped down my face without permission. I instinctively walled off the grief, but as my defenses rose, I intentionally released them.

  I dipped the pen in the inkwell and closed my eyes. What if someone else felt this same hurt? What if something I wrote could speak to them and make them feel less alone or bring truth into their struggle? For the sake of another hurting soul that might happen upon this installment, I braced myself over my desk and allowed the pain to rise and crest over me.

  I walked again through our tower cell, mentally touching each precious object. His crooked bed. The neat row of blank books. Scattered envelopes from Marsh House Press torn open and discarded. The messy but honored stack of reader responses in their own corner. His rich voice floated back to me, and I let it play through my aching heart, slicing through me.

  That desperation of being kept from the one person who loved you for yourself—that’s what Jayne Windham felt right now for Charles Sterling Clavey. Maybe Lady Jayne had to watch him court other women, perhaps even marry someone, knowing that she would never be free to sink into that beloved relationship. She would crave it so desperately, just as I craved the father lost to me through death.

  I understand, Lady Jayne. Oh, how terribly I understand.

  Then, with my grief at its peak, I bled my pain onto the page, spreading its black inkiness in perfect swooping letters. Raw, concise phrases revealed the true hurt of fresh loss. How cleansing to cut one’s own heart open and lay it on the page. Cleansing, yet terrifying. These were the feelings most people worked to hide from the outside world—even loved ones who might sympathize. And here I was, setting them down in black and white, ready to ship into a world of strangers who did not know me.

  I poured out my pain until my skin warmed with the weight of emotion. Dropping the pen, I sighed and stood. Fresh air would help. I tugged open the tall window and stuck my face into the breeze. The heaviness dissipated into a pleasant afterglow. This time my writing had been good. Not waffly, look-at-me prose, but beautiful heartache and real struggle.

  16

  No one understood her love of reading, but to Lady Jayne, fiction was far better than real life—it always had to make sense, and real life seldom did.

  ~Nathaniel Droll, Lady Jayne Disappears

  Why could I no longer meet Silas’s gaze whenever I saw him? For days I avoided direct conversation with him for reasons I could not pinpoint. I craved it and feared it at the same time. Would that wonderful day evaporate into foolishness in the light of reality?

  A knock at my door snapped my attention back to the moment, with the sun setting and the dinner hour approaching. “Come in.”

  Silas? My heart tripped a little. No. Of course he wouldn’t come to my bedchamber.

  Nelle slipped through the door, a cream-colored gown draped across her arms. “Two bits of news.” Her lips pressed into a thin line around the words.

  “One includes wearing that dress, I imagine.”

  “While you were out a few days ago, you kindly accepted a dinner invitation. Lady Pochard said no, but Juliette claimed it would be rude to decline, since the Naughtons attended the benefit.”

  “So rude.” I crossed to Nelle and ran my fingertips over the satiny dress. Mauve rosebuds accented the sash and neckline. “And the other bad news?” I ached to share my experience with Silas Rotherham, but how would I phrase it? I could hear the scorn in my friend’s voice. “Really—him?” Besides, what was there to tell? A few moments of shared conversation and a near kiss that never evolved.

  “This came for you-know-who.” Shuffling the dress to free one hand, Nelle drew a letter from her apron pocket and held it out. The missive was for Nathaniel Droll from Marsh House Press. I’d forgotten about the letter posted days ago on our trip to Glen Cora.

  “Thank you, I’ll deliver it to him.” My words felt dishonest as soon as they were out.

  “I’ll send Annie up to help you dress.” With an affectionate arm squeeze and a smile, she wished me luck and darted from the room.

  Crossing to the desk, I slit open the envelope and pulled out the paper with bold writing.

  We received your request to change the specified details. Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate your wishes. We print most of your installments the minute they arrive, as we are accommodating your other demand that you be allowed to write until the last possible moment. It is a highly unorthodox practice, but we are pleased to honor the wishes of our most esteemed author. Please accept our apologies that we cannot also meet this request.

  RAM

  The paper trembled in my hand as I pictured them all sitting around reading the next installment in the drawing room, narrowing down their list of suspects. Would my downcast face give me away? Something must be done before the installment released.

  Tugged and corseted into the cream-colored dress an hour later, I swept down the stairs to meet the others. The sight of my cousin dissipated my fear for the moment, packing it neatly away for the inevitable “later.”

  Juliette’s drop-neck gold gown covered only what it must, and I frowned. How had I forgotten? Juliette, Jasper, the garden in the early morning. She was dressing this way for h
im. They were probably even attending the party to be together.

  “Dear, you look radiant. I cannot wait to show you off.” Juliette glided toward me and reached up to adjust tendrils of my hair. “I do hope you’ll let me introduce you as my protégé.”

  I flexed my gloved fingers. “Only if you do one favor for me.” It was time. If I didn’t speak quickly, my heart would thud out of my chest.

  “Of course.” Her pretty red lips parted in a smile.

  “Ignore that man from the benefit—the one who was not invited. He seems a dodgy sort.”

  Gaze hard and nostrils flaring, Juliette withdrew her hands from where they had been twisting my curls into place. “Why would you say such a thing?”

  I dropped my gaze evasively. “I know people, and he isn’t a decent man. Not the type you should spend time with.”

  Anger froze the statuesque face. “You can have Silas all to yourself. Or any other one for that matter, but Jasper Grupp is not yours. You had your chance once. He told me all about that.”

  “Juliette—”

  “Perhaps Mother was right about you needing to leave Lynhurst.” The girl jerked her arm away and marched toward the front door. Our escorts emerged together from the library, trailing an aura of pipe smoke with them.

  “Oh Silas, dear.” Juliette’s gloved hand slid effortlessly into the crook of his arm as they walked toward the door. She leaned close and spoke in a stage whisper that still managed to wind its way around the hall. “I was hoping you would escort Aurelie this time. It isn’t that I don’t adore your company, but no one else seems to care for the poor thing. I’d hate for my dear cousin to go without, when I can make a small sacrifice for her dignity. You don’t mind, do you, darling?” She slid her hand from his arm and moved toward Kendrick.

  He must think I’d arranged this. That I was becoming one of them, scheming and maneuvering.

  Silas, who’d avoided eye contact with me until then, turned his solemn gray eyes to mine and held my gaze. “It would be a distinct honor.”