Chapter 21 #2
“From now on, you call him whatever you like,” I said. “I had no idea who your father was when I suggested one’s parent shouldn’t be spoken about discourteously. Burnsby has not earned your respect.”
“He’s a slug,” Ophelia said with evident satisfaction. “A slimy slug.”
I was holding Godric’s hand so tightly that he was in danger of losing circulation. “I can’t live here another minute. Not after hearing this. I cannot.”
“We will leave as soon as the snow lets up,” Godric reminded me. “One or two more days.”
“How can we escape if the road is blocked?” I asked, my voice rasping as I clung to his hand. “I could walk, if we have to. Ophelia, you could walk, couldn’t you?”
“No,” Ophelia said flatly. “The wolves would eat us up.”
Godric dusted a kiss on my brow. “No need to walk. I’ve already spoken with Crumpsall. The household has three sleighs for use in emergencies. We shall take them after the storm breaks.”
“Clifford put his will behind the portrait,” Mima said abruptly. “That way no one can destroy it. He’s afraid Lance will do that.”
I felt a sudden, piercing loneliness for my family. If my father had a shilling to his name when he passed away—doubtful—he would split it between myself and Rosie. We were his children. He loved us.
“Why would Burnsby have done that?” Godric said, frowning at her.
She didn’t answer.
“Aunt Mima?” Ophelia asked.
Her head tipped to the other side, and then snapped upright. “What did you say, dear?”
“Why would Burnsby worry about Lance destroying his will?” I asked.
She blinked. “He’s like that, isn’t he?”
“Like what?”
“He’s not a good man. I’ve always known it.”
I met Godric’s eyes, silently acknowledging that he’d used the same words, about the same man.
Mima stood up and ambled toward the door, listing to one side like a ship heeling in the wind. Her footman took down a thick cloak from its hook, wrapped her in it, and escorted her away—hopefully to her bedchamber, not on some midnight perambulation through the attics.
“Mima has grown worse since I arrived,” Godric said.
“What will she do when I leave? She’ll be alone. She ate supper with me in the nursery, because she despises Sophonisba,” Ophelia said.
“I’ll take her to London,” I decided. “Perhaps a doctor there could help. If not, at least I can keep her safe.”
Godric began smiling, the bleak expression gone from his eyes. “You’ll try to save Mima, too? You never told me exactly how you came to adopt Peony.”
I blinked at the change of subject. “How is that relevant?”
“Peony was on the way to the butcher’s,” Ophelia said helpfully. “Evie scooped her off the street and saved her life.”
“You try to save everyone,” he said. “Be they your sister or a stray piglet.”
The way he was smiling at me was shockingly intimate. I shifted in my seat.
“You plan to move to Burnsby’s London townhouse?” he asked.
I nodded.
“A townhouse with a madwoman in the attic and a piglet in the kitchen belongs in a novel.”
“Don’t forget the virgin bride,” Ophelia said impudently.
“Ophelia!” I said, giving her a true scowl.
She ignored it. “Burnsby will be too afraid of Evie to come to London.”
“Afraid of me?” I echoed.
Ophelia nodded. “They told me in the kitchens that Sophonisba tried to have Peony stewed, but Burnsby didn’t back her up—and he always backs her up. You don’t see it, but when you pass him in the courtyard, he flinches at your expression.”
“Homicidal,” Godric agreed. “I say that as a prosecutor familiar with murderous expressions.”
“So I needn’t move to France,” Ophelia said. “I could live in London with you and Peony and Aunt Mima.”
“I would love that,” I said, smiling at her.
“After all, I need to be mothered,” Ophelia added, clasping her hands in a dramatic, imploring expression. “Hecuba gave me to you. I’m an orphan, like Peony. I need to be saved.”
“You needn’t convince me,” I said, drawing her close. She put her head on my shoulder. “Even had I never wandered into the chapel, I’d have happily mothered you.”
“What about Godric?”
“I don’t need a mother.” His eyes told me that he needed a wife.
A lover.
Me.
“Godric already lives in London,” I said. “He will pay us visits.”
He gave me that amused look that doesn’t reach his lips but is no less genuine for it.
“We’ll summon him whenever we want a man to chaperone us to the theater. Shakespeare every week. Twice a week.”
His expression changed to something like apprehension.
Ophelia raised her head, eyes shining. “That sounds like so much fun!”
“I will—if you wish—introduce you to society.”
“Burnsby always said that no man would want me,” Ophelia said.
When Godric and I gave her incredulous looks, she added, “I’m just saying.”
“They said unkind things about Colette, but she chose Lance over two dukes,” I reminded her.
“Burnsby was wrong, Ophelia,” Godric said, his voice stern. “If your father doesn’t give you a dowry, Lance and Colette will. I’ll double it, and you’ll be the wealthiest heiress on the marriage market.”
“Why would you do that?” Ophelia asked, squinting at him.
I flashed her a look. I may have decided to reject the rules of propriety, but expressions of gratitude are simple civility.
“Thank you for offering me a dowry, Godric,” she amended, “but why would you do that? Do I need a huge dowry to lure a man into marriage?”
He was obviously startled by that idea. “Not at all!”
“Lance is Godric’s brother, which makes you his sister,” I said. “The two of you are family. Luckily, I can teach you all the pig-herding skills necessary to find a husband. You’ll have your very own piglet, but the skills apply to London gentlemen as well.”
I had imagined myself avoiding London ballrooms after Rosie’s debut—but I would do it for Ophelia, when her turn came to debut. She had spent far too much time in that freezing nursery eating stale toast, thanks to my rotten husband.
I also felt a debt to her mother not just for saving my life, but for giving me such an original, intelligent daughter.
I would teach Ophelia whatever I could.
And she would teach me how to live in the world without building prison walls around myself.