Page 89 of An Unwilling Earl
Martha’s face paled a bit.
“I heard he was taken suddenly. Sick one moment, dead the next.”
Charlotte drew in a breath, surprised at Jacob’s crassness.
Martha eyed him shrewdly, seemingly not at all offended.
“I hear your wife died a terrible death,” she said. “Childbed fever is not an easy way to go.”
“No, it’s not.”
Charlotte could only watch in wonder as the two matched wits, trying to outdo each other, in what? Their ability to shock and bully? It was like a duel with words, with neither flinching at the pointed barbs.
“I lost my son, too,” he said. “It must be so nice that you still have Edmund to comfort you.”
Martha seemed to squirm ever so slightly in her seat. “If Edmund were a normal person then yes, it would have been nice.”
“But he’s not normal. Is he?”
She looked away, then quickly back as if she didn’t want him to sense vulnerability in her. “He’s normal enough, I guess.”
“You guess?” he raised a brow at her.
“He’s Edmund. That’s about all I can say.” She seemed to gather herself, and Charlotte tensed for a verbal attack. She’d learned early on to detect her aunt’s moods. “So, you married the girl for what? Did you tup her, and she forced your hand? It would be just like her. She’s not much different than her mother.”
Charlotte winced.
“I married her to save her from you,” he said.
Martha opened her mouth and then closed it.
“I can’t imagine from what,” she sputtered. “I took her in. I fed her, clothed her.”
“Loved her? Taught her how to be a young lady?”
“Bah. Love makes a person soft, and there’s no need for her to be a young lady when she was meant to serve me for the rest of my life. Oh, yes, didn’t you know, Charlotte?” A wicked gleam entered Martha’s eyes. “I was grooming you to take care of me in my older years. No one else to do it, might as well be the scraggly orphan.” She pointed a bony, crooked finger at Charlotte, and it took everything Charlotte had not to back away from it. “You owe me, girl.”
“I would have killed myself if I had known that was my fate,” Charlotte said.
The finger wavered, and finally she lowered it to her lap. “That’s a sin. Desecration of a body that God gave you.”
“Like killing innocent women is not a sin? Cutting their heads off? Tossing them in the river for the fish to feed off of?”
For a moment Martha was completely still, the color drained from her face. She stood quickly. Charlotte stood, too, her instincts kicking in from so many years of dodging the woman’s open hand.
She raised that hand, pulled it back, and Charlotte stood her ground, head high, not willing to let the woman see her fear. Not anymore.
Jacob stepped between them. “I think it’s best you leave, Lady Morris. And it would probably be good if you didn’t come back.”
Slowly, her hand dropped to her side, and Charlotte could see that she was trembling with rage.
What had this visit really been about? Did her aunt want to see with her own eyes that Charlotte was truly out of her reach, or did she want to assess the situation to determine what her next move would be?
With aharrumphMartha moved toward the door.
“Aunt Martha.”
The woman turned reluctantly, her hand on the doorknob. “We both know why I left, and it had little to do with your treatment of me.”
