“I thought you didn’t know an earl from a marquess?” he said with a laugh that felt forced. It was forced.
“Esme’s gossip sheets forced the toffs on me. And the earl is in them regularly. He’s your father?”
Ripley nodded, trying to keep the sour taste in his mouth from becoming an equally sour expression. “The very one. He used her until she had nothing left to give. Until his son swelled in her belly and then he abandoned her with not even a farthing of support. We don’t talk. He can get fucked.”
She met his stare and he knew she saw past his façade. She measured his pain. He supposed that was what they’d always done to each other. The only two capable of such an action. That was part of why they constantly pulled away from each other. And part of why he loved her. To be seen was…something. Even if it scarred. He touched his eyebrow briefly out of habit and then cleared his throat.
“We struggled most of my life. She was celebrated, but the men who bragged about having her in their bed weren’t exactly generous. I started fighting at seventeen to help out. Was rubbish at it at first.”
“Did she ever see you come into your own?” Jane asked.
“No.” He said it and that one syllable burned like fire. “She died a year and a half before I went on the jag that led to me taking the title. She never fully benefitted from my success.”
He dropped his gaze from hers. Jane could see many things, but somehow he didn’t want to share his guilt. That he hadn’t had enough to get his mother better doctors. Or at least allow her end to be more comfortable. That was the ultimate regret of his regretful life.
Jane was quiet a moment and then she motioned to the book he had placed on the carriage seat before he came to pick her up. “What are you reading?”
She was allowing him respite from the painful subject. He appreciated it and picked up the tome. “Gulliver’s Travels,” he said. “An adventure to pass the time if you’d like. We could read it out to each other.”
Her cheeks flamed briefly. “Oh…I only learned a few years ago.” She turned her face as she said it.
He wrinkled his brow. He hadn’t known that. Of course it was very common for those of their class to not read. His mother had taught him from the start, telling him it would give him an advantage. She hadn’t been wrong.
“Well, I could read it to you if you’d like,” he said.
She nodded. “Yes. I could use the distraction.” She settled back and closed her eyes.
He watched her for a moment, memorizing her face when she wasn’t observing him in return. Then he pulled the curtain away from the carriage window to give himself more light and opened the book from the beginning, a note from the publisher to the reader.
“The author of these Travels, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, is my ancient and intimate friend; there is likewise some relation between us on the mother’s side.”
Despite the desperate nature of their travels out to Little Oak, there were times on the trip that had actually felt comfortable. Where Jane could almost forget her fears for Nora, her anticipation for what would happen when they saw her mother, and what stirred when Ripley was so close to her.
He’d read her the adventure story, giving it life, and she had been allowed to lose herself a little. And when he stopped? They’d talked. Not about his mother or her family, but just about life. About the friends they shared.
But now the carriage slowed as they reached their destination and Jane’s comfort was long gone. She reached across the carriage and caught Ripley’s hand in both of hers, seeking reassurance.
“She’s…” she began. “I don’t know what to expect, Ripley, and I?—”
He leaned forward and cupped her cheeks. He kissed her once, gently and far too briefly but it quieted her mind for a blissful moment. “I’m here.”
He released her and opened the carriage door, stepping out first before he helped her down. She knew she was digging her fingers into his bicep as they faced the old house together.
It was the same as it had ever been, and yet somehow worse. Her mother hadn’t kept it up over the years and the painted shutters were peeling, the front garden overgrown so that one had to trod on the weeds to get to the front door.
The very door that was opening now and revealed her mother. There was a moment where the two women stared at each other and a lifetime of memories overwhelmed Jane, left her unable to speak.
Her mother seemed to have none of that problem. She looked her daughter up and down, folded her arms and said, “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”
CHAPTER 6
The woman before him was drunk. That was obvious by the slur in her harsh words. But if the way Jane shrank a little at his side was any indication, the cruelty to her mother’s expression wasn’t something new. Jane’s hand gripped even tighter on his bicep and he reached over to cover it, but she didn’t look up at him.
“Mama,” she said softly.
“Well, come in.” her mother said, turning her back on them dismissively. “There’d be no way to keep you out, I’m sure.”
They entered the ramshackle home and followed the woman’s weaving steps through a shabby hall and into a parlor. It was filthy and packed with things: trinkets and broken furniture, a discarded glove draped across the back of a chair, dirty slippers perched dangerously close to the fire.
