The marquess and duke were standing at our backs likesentries.
The inspector, wearing his stuffy black uniform with chestpanel buttoned across the front with brass buttons, sat opposite us.
He had a pewter fountain pen in hand, held over a sheaf ofpapers contained in a battered leather folder, and had gazed for long secondsat the bruise under my eye before he said, “Shall we begin?”
Mom and I had a plan.
We’d researched it as thoroughly as we could and blocked itall out.
I knew this world better, so I was going to take the lead.
But Mom was a mom.
Her daughter(s)’s health, welfare and safety were on theline.
Thus, instantaneously, she thwarted said plan and took over.
“Yes, indeed.My other daughter is home without me.Bothdaughters have recently, andthroughout their lives, endured trialsand tribulations at the hands oftheir father.So allow me to sharethe fullness of grievances I have againstmy husband, and do thatswiftly, so I can take my one darling daughter, and return with her to my otherdarling girl, as theybothneed me.”
She was gearing up to another “We’ll never be hungry again!”moment, I could feel it.
“Momma—” I tried to cut in.
She turned to me, reached out, curled her gloved fingersaround mine, locked eyes with me, and shook my hand.
“Darling, please.”
Oh shit.
Back she went to the inspector, but she didn’t release myhand.
“Beware, sir.My husband is a consummate actor.I know this,as he was acting with every breath when hewon me.”
“Milady,” the inspector murmured in a way it seemed he wasgoing to say more, Mom just didn’t give him the chance.
“It was not simply when I gave him twins, but before,wellbefore, when the mask slipped.But mark my words, it all fell apart when Igave him my girls.I, to this day,do notunderstand it.My daughterswere not the first twins born in this universe, or any other.”
I pressed my lips together at the “any other” thing.
“But he had an uncommon,unhealthyaversion tothem.He considered them an aberration.It was mad.He sentSatrineaway after I first nursed her.I couldn’t believe it.I wasundone.Ibegged and pleaded, but he’d hear none of it.Once she was gone, he wouldn’teven admit toSatrineexisting.She’d vanished fromhis life, and he considered that vanished from this earth.But for me, it wasthe worst moment of my existence.”She drew in a delicate breath.“Sadly, Iwould have others.”
“Countess,” the inspector tried to get in there again.
He totally failed.
“Bereft of one child, I showered attention on the other.Only for her to suffer an accident that no mother, no parent, except myhusband, could abide.But she was my baby.My other child lost to me, I didn’teven know where mySatrinewas.I grievedfor her every day and loved her sister all the more for her loss.I had everyintention, I assure you, sir,every intentionto love and care for myMaxine, regardless of her state, for as long as I was breathing.To mydeepmisfortune, this option was cruelly wrested from me.”
I gave her hand atone it downsqueeze.
She did not tone it down.
“Off I was packed toFleuridia.And off Maxine was packed to cold, desolate hospitals where others,not hermother, cared for her.Make no mistake, they did this well, and I amgrateful to them.But I amher mother, and it should have been me.Theonlyconsolation I had was that he sent mySatrinewith me.Ifinallyhad my other daughter back.”
I heard Loren and Ansley shifting behind me, I gave heranother squeeze, but Lady Corliss was on a roll and there was no stopping hernow.
“I’d no earthly clue, until recently, that he’d staged mydeath.Though, at long last, that does explain his behaviors.I would spend thenext twenty years worried about Maxine, but with mySatrine.We did not have much.He kept us in a secluded cottage, well away from anypopulace, and disallowed us to have contact with anyone but each other.Now, Iknow this was because he did not wish for anyone to see me.And, perhaps,Satrine.”
Holy wow.
