Page 89 of Tamed

“Of course,” Caleb said with equal cool. “She’s all yours. My security will be outside.” Then with a final squeeze of my hand, he let me go and left the room, closing the door firmly behind him.

Charlotte said nothing for a moment, surveying me.

My heartbeat thumped uncomfortably in my head.

“He seems to be very concerned that I’m going to do something horrible to you,” she said in tones as crisp as her tailoring.

I eyed her. “And are you?”

For a moment her expression remained cool. “You think I would?”

“No. Though you’d dearly like to get one over on my father, I suspect.”

She nodded, though I didn’t think it was in agreement. “Is that what he told you?”

“Yes. And Caleb too.”

“Yet Mr. Cross was the one who approached me to organize this meeting,” she pointed out calmly. “And apparently your father doesn’t know about it. I’m sure there’s a reason for that.”

“Caleb did it for me,” I admitted. “I…wanted to meet you. I’ve wanted to meet you for years.”

Charlotte’s sharp features softened slightly. “Your father made that difficult, didn’t he?”

“My father made it impossible. Though I’m not sure he’s entirely to blame.” I stared at her. “You were going to take me away from him.”

“I was. He was a foolish upstart who didn’t deserve my daughter.” She paused a moment and gave me a slow, careful scan. “He didn’t deserve you either.”

I flushed, defensive anger on Dad’s behalf gathering inside me. “You don’t know me, so you really can’t comment.”

Strangely, the cool expression left her face, a faint smile taking its place. “Now, that sounds like Juliana.” There was warmth in her voice now. “You look like her very much.”

I didn’t want to admit that Dad hadn’t talked about her — it felt like a betrayal — so all I said was, “What was she like?”

Something of my anguish must have showed in my face because Charlotte said, “I don’t blame you, child, to be clear. Not for her death. That was no one’s fault, least of all yours.”

I wanted to say that I didn’t think it was my fault, because I didn’t like the idea of this stranger — that’s who she essentially was to me — seeing right down to the doubt in my soul. But I couldn’t deny it. It was true. There was that small part of me deep down that believed I was to blame for my mother’s death. That if she hadn’t had me, she wouldn’t have died.

“I didn’t say it was my fault,” I said, trying to regain some dignity.

But her sharp green gaze missed nothing. “He blamed you, did he?”

She didn’t explain who ‘he’ was. She didn’t have to.

“No,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure it was true. “He didn’t. But you should know that her death devastated him. He loved her.”

“She wasn’t his to love. He stole her.”

“Look,” I said before I could stop myself. “I know she was your daughter, and you didn’t approve. But it was years ago, and you can’t change anything now. I don’t care about your argument with Dad, I’m here to talk to you about my mother.”

It was perhaps an unwise thing to say, but I was good at saying unwise things. And it didn’t seem to count against me, because Charlotte’s features softened even further, her smile wider and warmer. “Oh yes,” she said approvingly, “you are so like Juliana. You want to know what she was like? Well, she always said what she thought and didn’t much care if people liked it or not.” Her mouth quirked. “Especially if that person was me.”

There was something about the way she admitted it — maybe even that she admitted it at all — that made me like her. “I suppose she got that from her mother too,” I said.

Charlotte gave a surprised sounding laugh. “Yes, perhaps she did.” She paused a moment then patted the couch next to her. “Come here. Come and sit down and I’ll tell you about my daughter.”

So, I did.

Juliana Hamilton it seemed had been a tempestuous woman, fiery in her passions, fiercely loyal and very outspoken, and also very much loved. Her death had devastated the family and they’d been even more devastated when Dad had hidden me away.

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