Page 77 of Brave New Earl (The Way to a Lord's Heart 1)

“I suppose she started putting me there from the very beginning.”

“Jean.” He reached for her hand, but she couldn’t let him have it right now.

“The door was so tight, no light got in at all. And it was deathly quiet. Sometimes I wondered if I was dead. Especially when she forgot about me.”

“Forgot?” He seemed to choke it out.

“Mama never stayed angry long. Her temper was like a…a lightning storm. Flashes of fury and then gone. She hardly knew what she did, sometimes. When it passed, she’d go off, here and there. And then she’d recall. After a…while.”

“She left you—a small child—locked up in a cupboard for long periods of time?”

“If it was long, she’d be so sorry when she remembered.” Jean almost smiled. Not quite. “She’d run to fetch me and cry and order cakes and new hair ribbons. She could be terribly charming.”

“Terribly indeed.” He captured her hand and held it, strong and steady. “This is outrageous. No one helped you? How could that be?”

“The servants didn’t want to cross her. She shrieked so. And threw things. Our staff wasn’t very good, because we couldn’t pay them well.”

“Someone should have stopped it.”

Jean set her jaw. “Someone did. Me. Eventually, I learned to recognize her rages coming on and to disappear.” She tried to make a joke of it. “Not into the cupboard, of course. I had much pleasanter hiding places.”

He let go of her hand, but only long enough to pull her up and nestle her close against his side. His skin was hot against hers. Even under the coverlet she’d gotten chilled. “It’s a pity she’s dead,” he said. “I missed the chance to tell her off properly.”

A spurt of manic laughter escaped Jean. “She’d been forced into a life she didn’t want, you see. And that made her…”

“Cruel? Tyrannical? Heartless? No, she allowed herself to be those things.”

“But I was…”

“Blameless. You do know that, don’t you?” He looked down, his eyes boring into hers.

“I can be annoying,” Jean said in a small voice. “You’ve said so.”

His arm tightened around her. “Do you equate me with your horrible mother?”

“No, of course not. It’s just that…”

“Just nothing. You were a child, her child. You deserved her love and care. And to be shielded from her unhappiness. My God, who knows that better than you? Didn’t you teach me that very lesson with Geoffrey?”

Tears welled up. Jean tried to stop them. Crying had always brought reprisals in her childhood.

Benjamin simply pulled her closer and wrapped his other arm around her. “I could weep with you for such a childhood,” he said.

Jean choked on a sob. He held her tighter. She couldn’t hold back then; she leaned on him and cried.

It was like a tempest blowing through her. Her body shook. Her breath came in gasps. The tears seemed never-ending. Each time she thought she could stop, another sob rose in her throat. The small, frantic inner voice insisting this was forbidden went unheeded. She was swept away, shattered.

When, at long last, the weeping tapered off, Jean felt not better but…emptied. As if all those tears had hollowed her out. She drew back and took stock of her situation. She’d confessed her shameful secret. She’d turned a romantic interlude into a melodrama. But she had no emotion left for embarrassment. What was done was done. No choice but to go on. She cleared her throat and took control of her voice. “Your shoulder is wet.”

“So is your face,” Benjamin replied. He pulled up a corner of the sheet and dried both.

When it came to her running nose, Jean revolted. “Not on the bed linens!”

“I have no handkerchief at hand.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She tried to snuffle discreetly, then had to stifle a soft protest when he let her go and got up.

Benjamin walked across the room, naked in the wavering candlelight, and fetched a handkerchief from the wardrobe. Turning, he brought it back.

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