Page 289 of Historical Hotties
“Love is good,” she said quietly. “God loves you and is happy when we show love to others. Especially our family. I love you, Jane. I have loved you since you were born. Madam Madonna tried to kill that love you have for me by telling you lies about me. None of it is true. I only want to love you and make you happy. I want to hug you and feed you tasty food and teach you how to paint and how to write. I want to see you grow up happy and find a good husband who will love you, too. I am not the devil. Sometimes, the devil tells lies, and that is all Madam Madonna told you. Lies.Shewas the devil, Jane. Only the devil would take a child from her mother.”
Jane shrieked. “That is not true!”
“It is,” Caledonia insisted. “If you continue to do as Madam Madonna wished, then you are allowing the devil to control you. Do you understand me? Do not let the devil win!”
Panicking, Jane bit the fingers that held her. With a yelp, Caledonia released her with that hand, but when Jane went in to bite the other hand, Caledonia slapped her across the mouth to stop her from doing it. Jane was behaving like an animal and Caledonia’s reaction was instinctive. The slap shocked Jane, who tripped back onto her arse as Caledonia released her.
“You will not bite me again,” Caledonia said sternly, though she was shaken. The entire conversation had shaken her. “Jane, you are my daughter and I love you. I want to show you that I love you, but I cannot do that if you are going to behave terribly. God is not happy with children who disobey their parents. One of his commandments is to honor thy father and thy mother. I would suggest you follow His commandment and stop your ridiculous behavior.”
With that, she turned for the solar as Jane sat there a moment, watching her, before scrambling to her feet. Caledonia slammed the solar door with such force that it echoed in the entryway.
Jane turned and ran. She ran until she ended up in the stables, in front of her equine audience, weeping and praying and preaching. She didn’t know anything else.
And that was how Thor found her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He thought he’dseen a shooting star blast through the bailey.
As it turned out, it was only Jane.
He had no idea why the child was running from the keep, but he could guess. When it came to Jane, and Caledonia for that matter, there was always volatility involved. Thor had considered himself merely an interested bystander for the first couple of days at Stafford, but he’d shared a conversation with Caledonia one night that forced him to realize that he wasn’t simply that. He was Caledonia’s husband and, by default, now had three daughters through that marriage. Three little girls who had been emotionally starved and abused by those entrusted to their care.
That was when he ceased being a bystander.
He followed Jane’s trail.
She’d run into the stables, which seemed to be her favorite place. She could hear her sobbing as she preached to the horses yet again, her preferred congregation because they didn’t question her or try to engage her in conversation, something she was also afraid of. The child had many fears that they’d all been trying to help her with, but she was very much a solitary creature. Fearful of living, fearful of dying.
The truth was that he felt rather sorry for her.
“She went in here.”
A voice came from behind him, and he turned to see Darius walking up. “I know,” he said quietly. “I’ve been following her from the keep.”
Darius nodded, coming to a pause beside Thor as they both looked over the darkened innards. It didn’t take long before they heard open sobbing, intermittent between bouts of preaching. Carefully, Thor and Darius entered the stable, peering around a corner to see Jane standing in front of a row of stalls that housed the knights’ horses. Big horse butts were facing her, but she was crying and quoting the Ten Commandments. Something about honoring parents. As they’d found out, she couldn’t actually read, but simply repeated what she’d been told.
Thor stepped out of the shadows.
“Jane?” he said quietly. “What’s amiss, my love?”
She turned to him, startled by his appearance. It took her a moment, but she began to point at him.
“G-go away,” she wept. “I d-do not want to talk to you.”
Thor kept coming, with Darius emerging from the shadows behind him. “You do realize that I am here because I am concerned,” he said. “I saw you run out of the keep and came to see why. What happened?”
Jane was wiping furiously at her eyes, streaking dirt down her cheek. Unlike her sisters, she hadn’t allowed her mother to bathe or dress her, so she was still in her rags—only her rags were growing tight on her because the one thing she would accept was the food she was given during the day. Like the other two, she was eating constantly.
But she was a confused little girl.
“Sh-she told me that I am sinning,” she sobbed. “I am breaking a commandment.”
It made sense to him now that he’d heard her speaking about honoring her parents. “Aye,” he said evenly. “That is a commandment from God, and you have been breaking it since your mother arrived.”
Jane’s eyes widened and she burst into a fresh round of sobs. “I am not going to heaven!”
She was so dramatic that Thor had to fight off a smile. “If you continue to break the commandment, God will be displeased,” he said. “But if you ask for forgiveness and begin being kind to your mother, God will see that you are sincere. He will forgive you. Do you understand?”
