Chapter Seventeen #2
Both Copeland men turned smiles to her then.
But they again died, and all of them tensed when they heard
a woman’s imperious, “Do not! Do…not. No. No. No. I will no longer be
denied!”
And then a woman his father’s age with a hat more enormous
than any Satrine wore on her head, along with a
severe traveling costume encasing her body, all in black, stopped, of a sort,
in the doorway.
The “of a sort” bit was that she was batting Eaton with the
handle of a black parasol.
Ansley stood and turned to her.
Loren and Satrine followed suit.
“Mary, stop that this instant,” Ansley demanded.
She ceased assaulting Eaton and confronted Loren’s father.
“Well, I never, Ansley Copeland!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been
practically buried under your messages delivered by bird telling me,
in your inimitable way, that way being polite to the point of painful, which is
a skill you possess that has always been impossible for me to
fathom. I digress! Messages telling me with the utmost courtesy to mind
my own business when the world, it appears, is topsy-turvy!”
She was nearly shouting when she finished.
But no one was able to get a word in because she wasn’t
done.
“Who, twenty-six years ago, advised you to approach my
nephew?” She jerked her parasol handle to indicate herself. “Me. And
who received a bird with the news that contract would not come to
fruition.” She leaned forward. “Not me. The birds I received said
something else entirely! Now, I demand to know who this Satrine
is and what in the dickens is…is…” Her eyes went beyond Ansley, and she
whispered, “By the gods.”
“Aunt Mary?” Satrine asked
hesitantly.
Mary Livingstone, Baroness of Longdon, dropped her parasol,
opened the large bag hanging on her wrist, pulled out an almost equally large
fan made of lace, flipped it open, fanned herself, all this while reeling
dramatically and calling out, “By Brigid! By the Morigan!
By Cerdwin! The glorious gods have wrought a miracle.”
“Mary, calm yourself. This isn’t Maxine,” Ansley clipped.
“It’s Satrine. Maxine’s twin.”
Mary shot straight.
“Her what?”
“Edgar abhorred twins,” Ansley told her. “He sent her away
at birth. And he staged Corliss’s death after he was responsible for harming
Maxine. After that, he sent them both away. The story is long. Fraught. And I
will share it with you later. Satrine has lived it.
She doesn’t need to go through it with everyone who learns it.”
“Edgar abhorred twins?” she asked breathily.
Loren glanced at Satrine to see
her deathly pale.
“By Caylek!” Mary spat, and Loren
returned his attention to her. “He was a bad seed. I was but a child myself,
but even so, I told his mother. I said, ‘Smother that one, he’s a bad seed.’
Did she? No.”
“Oh my gods,” Satrine whispered.
It was a poor choice of thing to do.
She acquired Mary’s attention again.
As such, Mary stomped to her, lifted a hand high, as the
woman was of diminutive stature, grasped Satrine’s
chin, and dragged it side to side.
“A great beauty. Like your mother. Your father was a looker
too. Unfortunately, the rascal was born with the soul of a knave.” She let Satrine go but didn’t stop talking. “I am unsurprised he
sent you away, although I’m sorry for it, for your sake. But you were saved
having to be around him, and I daresay in the now, you take my
meaning.”
She didn’t wait for Satrine to
confirm this.
She whirled back to Ansley and finished.
“It probably wasn’t abhorrence of twins. It was probably
because he was tight-fisted with anything, unless it served his own pleasure.
One child was drain enough on his vast fortune, but two? I cannot even
begin to imagine what Corliss was thinking when she took him. Then
again, he had the uncanny ability to charm the pants off a snake when he had a
mind to.”
“Wow, you haven’t changed,” Satrine
remarked.
Mary stepped back smartly, staring at her suspiciously.
“How would you know? I’ve never met you,” she
snapped.
“Father told me all about you. I was supposed to pretend to
be Maxine. He said I’d eventually meet you. He spent three weeks instructing me
on everything I was supposed to know to be her,” Satrine
replied.
“Humph,” Mary returned. “This is all tied up in why that
cox-comb is currently gracing one of our handsome king’s lowlier institutions,
I gather?”
“Yes,” Satrine confirmed.
Mary lost some of her spectacle and asked quietly, “Word is
running amuck. I have acquaintances who’ve even seen her on the street. Your
mother lives?”
Hesitantly, Satrine smiled and
nodded.
“By Brigid,” Mary whispered.
“Would you like to sit with us and have a cup of coffee?”
Ansley offered.
“Huh! A lady doesn’t drink coffee in the mornings. She
drinks tea!”
Satrine’s gaze flew to Loren, and
she looked close to dissolving into laughter.
“You there!” she shouted at Eaton, who was five feet from
her. “Bring me a pot of tea.”
“Right away, milady.” Eaton bowed and escaped.
Loren was reminded of a thought he’d had weeks before, and
the fact he was incorrect.
He had heard a lady shout, for he’d been around
Mary Livingstone.
“Look at you,” Mary complained, regard fastened on Loren as
she rounded the table. “You’re ridiculous,” she stated.
Satrine’s back slammed straight.
Mary seated herself and said to Ansley, “Really, Ansley, a
man that handsome? It cannot be borne. You should have done something.” She
sniffed. “A scar from a blade, or mayhap, acid.”
Loren watched Satrine relax, a
smile playing at her mouth as she sank back into her chair.
After both ladies were seated, the men joined them.
Now Mary was studying Satrine.
“It’s uncanny,” she said softly.
“Hmm…” Satrine hummed
noncommittally.
“I visit your sister on the regular,” Mary announced.
Satrine’s expression gentled at
this news.
“Or I did, until Edgar put a stop to it,” Mary continued.
Satrine didn’t gentle at that.
“She’s home with us now, Aunt Mary,” she said. “And
flourishing.”
“This, too, is unsurprising. Corliss doted on that girl. She
was her very life.”
Satrine pressed her lips together.
“Sweet child, she is. So very sweet,” Mary muttered to
herself, but did it gazing at Satrine. She turned
that gaze to Ansley. “A miracle, my good man.”
“Agreed,” Ansley replied.
Satrine ducked her head, likely to
hide as she controlled her tears.
Loren stretched his leg to rest his boot beside her foot.
When she felt it, she pressed that foot closer.
And then Loren resumed eating.