Nila #4
She’s rough as sandpaper and tough as steel.
Jasmine could lie like the best of them, but beneath that silk and satin facade, she outweighed me in strength of temper ten to one.
Why tell Bonnie that then? Shut up.
Bonnie shoved her finger in my face. “Don’t talk about her. Jasmine is a woman of eloquence. She knows how to speak three languages, play the piano, stitch, sing, and run a time-worn estate. She outranks you in every conceivable way.”
She has you fooled as wonderfully as she did me.
My respect for Jasmine increased a hundred-fold.
If any of us were playing the game best—it was her. She was the true chameleon, pulling the wool over not just her grandmother’s eyes but her father’s and brother’s, too.
She’s a powerful ally to have.
I couldn’t stop pride and annoyance from blurting: “Shame you’re delusional as well as decrepit.”
Bonnie’s papery hand struck my cheek. Her palm didn’t make a sound on my flesh, merely a swat with no sting. She might have the power of speech and ferocity, but when it came to physical threats—she was brittle and weak.
“My family eclipses yours in every way. It’s a shame you didn’t have such an upbringing. Perhaps you would be more pleasing company if you—”
I couldn’t listen to her cackling drone anymore.
“You’re right. It is a shame I didn’t have someone there to teach me how to do my makeup or bake cakes or learn an instrument.
I’m sure I would’ve been happier and more rounded if I grew up with a mother.
But she was taken from me by you. Don’t twist my past and make it seem like I’m some underprivileged girl who’s here by the grace of your family because I’m not.
I’m your prisoner, and I hate you.” I backed away from the table.
“I hate you, and you will pay for what you’ve done. ”
Her face twisted with rage. “You ungrateful little—”
“I agree. I have been ungrateful. I’ve been ungrateful for falling in love with a good man only for it to be too late.
I’ve been ungrateful for a brother I adore and a father who’s been lost since his wife was taken.
But I’m not ungrateful for this. I’ve found a fucking backbone, and I mean to use it. ”
Marquise stomped forward. “Madame. Just give the word.”
I threw a caustic look at both of them. “You’re proving Bonnie’s too weak to discipline me herself.”
“Enough!” Bonnie brought her walking stick down onto the table with a resounding thwack. “Don’t you dare use my name without my permission!”
“Tell me what you want then, so I don’t have to look at you. I don’t want to be here another minute.”
Don’t go too far.
Bonnie convulsed. Her face turned puce, and for a second, I hoped she’d die—just keel over from exploding blood pressure or ruptured ego.
Don’t get yourself killed over pettiness.
I had a lot more to achieve before that day.
Swallowing hard, Bonnie clasped both hands on her cane. Her thick skirts rustled as her ancient carcass bristled. “Fine. I’ll take great pleasure in doing so.”
God, I feel sick. I don’t want to know.
“Just let me leave. I’ve had enough.” Storming to the door, I tried the handle, only to find it locked. The air turned thick, the heating too hot. I’d drenched my system in too much adrenaline and now paid the price.
Pacing in a circle, I ran my hands through my hair. “You hear me? You make me sick, and unless you let me out, I’ll just vomit all over your precious study.”
Vertigo swooped in, throwing me to the side.
Jethro’s alive.
He’s alive.
I need to stay that way, too.
I gulped, needing fresh air. I’d never been claustrophobic, but the walls loomed closer, triggering another vertigo wave, forcing me to bend forward to keep the room steady.
Bonnie limped closer. “You’re not going anywhere. You want to know why I summoned you? Time to find out.”
Every cell urged me to back away, but I held my ground. I refused to be intimidated. Swallowing back nausea and dizziness, I gritted my teeth.
Bonnie pointed at the wall behind me with her walking stick. “Go on. Look over there. You want me to get on with my point? The answers are there.”
Suspicion and rancour ran rampant in my blood, but I found the courage to turn my back on her and face the wall.
My skin crawled to have her behind me—like some viper about to strike, but then my eyes fell on a few grainy sepia-toned photographs.
The pictures’ time-weathered quality hinted that they were old. Older than Bonnie, by far.
Drifting closer, I inspected the image. In browns and sienna, the fuzzy photograph depicted a man in a fur coat with a pipe furling with smoke. Snow banks hid parts of Hawksridge, making it seem like some fantastical castle.
There’s something about him.
I peered harder at the man’s face and froze.
Oh, my God.
Jethro?
It couldn’t be. The picture was ancient. There was no way it could be him.
Bonnie sidled up beside me, dabbing her nose with a handkerchief. “Notice the resemblance?”
I hated that she’d intrigued me when I wanted nothing more than to act uninterested and aloof. My lips pinched together, refusing to ask what she was obviously dying to say.
“That’s Jethro’s great, great grandfather. They look similar. Don’t you think?”
Similar?
They looked like the same person.
Thick tinsel hair swept back off sculptured cheekbones and highbrows. Lips sensual but masculine, body regal and powerful, even the man’s hands looked like Jethro’s, wrapped around his pipe tenderly as if it were a woman’s breast.
My breast.
My cheeks warmed, thinking what good hands Jethro had. What a good lover he was. How cruel he could be but so utterly tender, too.
My heart raced, falling in love all over again as memories bombarded me.
Jethro, I miss you.
Having a likeness of him only made our separation that much more painful. My fingertips itched to trace the photograph, wanting to transmit a hug to him—let him know I hadn’t forgotten him. That I was fighting for him, fighting for a future together.
Bonnie coughed wetly. “Answer me, child.”
“Yes, they look similar. Eerily so.” My eyes trailed to the following photographs, hidden between cross-stitches.
One picture had the entire household staff standing in ranking order on the front steps of Hawksridge.
Butlers and housekeepers, maids and footmen.
All sombre and fierce, staring into the camera.
“These are the few remaining images after an unfortunate fire a few decades ago.” Bonnie inched with me as I moved from picture to picture. I didn’t know why I cared. This wasn’t my heritage. But something told me I was about to learn something invaluable.
I was right.
Two more photographs before I discovered what Bonnie alluded to.
My eyes fell on a woman surrounded by dark fabric as if she swam in an ocean of it. Her tied-up hair cascaded from the top of her head thanks to a piece of white ribbon, and her eyes were alight with her craft. Her hands held a needle and thread, lace scattered like snow around her.
It was like staring into a mirror.
No...
My heart bucked, rejecting the image, unable to make sense of how it was possible. Unable to stop myself, one hand went to the photo, tracing the brow and lips of the mystery woman, while my other sketched my own forehead and mouth.
I was the perfect replica of this stranger. A mirror image.
She’s me...I’m her...it doesn’t make any sense.
“Know who that is?” Bonnie asked smugly.
I shook my head. There was no date or name. Only a woman caught in her element, sewing peacefully.
“That was your great, great grandmother, Elisa.” Bonnie stroked the photo with swollen fingers. I wanted to snatch her hand away. She was my family, not hers.
Don’t touch her.
Why didn’t our family albums contain images of Elisa? Why had we kept no records or comprehensive history of what happened to our ancestors? Were we so weak a lineage that we preferred to bury our heads in the sand rather than learn from past mistakes and fight?
Who are we?
Dropping my hands, I breathed deeply. “What is her image doing on your wall?”
“To remind me that history isn’t in the past.”
I turned to face her. “What do you mean?”
Bonnie’s hazel gaze was sharp and cruel.
“I mean history repeats itself. You only have to look through generations of photographs to see the same person over and over again. It skips a few bloodlines; cheekbones are different, eye colours change, bodies evolve. But then along comes an offspring who defies logic. Neither looking like their current parents, or taking on the traits of evolution. Oh, no. Out pops an exact imposter of someone who lived over a century ago.”
She looked me up and down, her nose wrinkling. “I don’t believe in reincarnation, but I do believe in anomalies, and you, my child are the exact image of Elisa, and I fear the exact temperament, too.”
A chill darted down my spine. “You say it like it’s a bad thing.” My eyes returned to the image. She looked fierce but content—resigned but strong.
She chuckled. “It is if you know the history.”
Wrapping her seized fingers around my elbow, she pushed me onward, following a timeline of photos of Elisa and Jethro’s great, great grandfather.
Seeing Jethro’s doppelganger in images side by side with Elisa sent goosebumps scattering over my skin. “What was his name?”
“Owen.” She paused by a particular one of Elisa and Owen staring sternly into the camera, spring buds on rose bushes and apple blossoms in the orchard behind them. They both looked distraught, trapped, afraid. “Owen ‘Harrier’ Hawk.”
Did you have the same condition Jethro has, Owen? Were you the first to hate your family? Why didn’t you do anything to change your future?
Bonnie let me go. “I could rattle off tales and incidents of what befell those two, but I’ll let the images speak for themselves. After all, what is the common phrase? A picture tells a thousand words?” She laughed softly as I repelled away from her, drinking in image after image.