Diana glared frostily at Madeline. “Have you no pity? Do you have any idea what I would give to be able to boil that water for myself? To walk down those stairs and see the sun shining in the parlor windows? All I want is to feel clean and comfortable, for that is all I have, confined to this bed. But you…you have never thought of anyone but yourself. You were always so selfish, even as a child. You always wanted my hair ribbons and you took them, too, when I was away. I would come home from Auntie’s to find you wearing them!”
Madeline swallowed over the fury that was rising like a tidal wave in her throat. “I used your ribbons because Father wouldn’t buy me any of my own.”
Diana gave her a disbelieving frown. “That gave you no right to take what was mine.”
That’s not all I want to take,Madeline thought, squeezing the washcloth in her hand.
She decided she needed to leave the room and be by herself for a little while, for her patience was dangerously close to breaking.
“I’m sorry, Diana, I really do have to tend to dinner. Hilary is going to have to look after your bath. I’ll be up later with a tray.”
Diana simply huffed and waved a commanding hand to Hilary, who picked up the washcloth and proceeded to continue where Madeline had left off.
Madeline seized the opportunity to dash out of the room before Diana asked for anything else. She went down to the kitchen and met Adam just coming in the back door, wiping his boots on the mat.
He froze there and stared at her. “You look exhausted, Madeline. When have you slept?”
She wiped her hands over her apron and tried to shrug casually. “I’ve been sleeping when Diana sleeps.”
“From the sounds of it, she has you hopping all night long.” His tone was contemptuous and stern.
“She’s still very uncomfortable,” Madeline explained. “She wakes during the night.”
“And she wakes you, too. I hear you running up and down the stairs for things, and I hear her shouting, scolding you.” He moved all the way into the kitchen, removed his coat and hung it on the back of a chair. “This is getting out of hand. She treats you like a slave, Madeline. You don’t deserve to be spoken to in that manner. No one does.” He ran a hand over the top of his hair and paused before adding, “Do you think she remembers?”
Madeline’s heart lurched. “Remembers that you broke off the engagement?”
“Maybe she’s lashing out at you.”
Madeline considered it. “No, this is not Diana ‘lashing out.’ She would never be able to keep something like that to herself. She would come right out and say it, maybe throw a vase or two at my head.”
He gave her a subtle smile, but it held some annoyance. “So this is just Diana’s normal, everyday treatment of you?”
He raised an eyebrow. He seemed to be questioning her, pushing her to think about this.
Madeline didn’t like to admit that it was normal for Diana to be cruel, not just because it seemed traitorous to her sister but because it forced Madeline to face the fact that she allowed herself to be treated that way, and always had.
I allow it. Why?
“Not entirely,” she said in her own defense, skirting the issue that was now niggling at her brain. “The pain has made her personality a bit more…intensethan normal.”
“And no doubt, the doctor’s pain medication has exacerbated it. You know what they say—In vino veritas.”
“There is truth in wine,” Madeline repeated.
Adam’s dark eyes softened. “The only reason I haven’t said anything to her, Madeline, is because I know you would not wish me to. But I have been grinding my teeth so much lately, I fear I may be wearing them down to their roots.”
Madeline stared at him in disbelief. She wasn’t sure if she was flattered by his concern and pleased that, through the walls, he had heard the not-so-charming side of Diana’s personality. Or if she was angry at him for making her question her own backbone.
He was right, though. This was getting out of hand.
Why had she always cowered to Diana?
“What would you have me do, then?” she asked, still not ready to admit that her obliging nature with Diana was anything more than an abnormally large sense of duty. “She’s been through hell, Adam. It’s natural that she should be bitter about—”
“She has a broken leg, Madeline. It will heal.”
“But she’ll have to walk with a cane, and she’ll have a scar on her forehead.”
