Page 54 of The Mad Baron's Bride
The girl stared straight ahead, her tiny jaw clamped tight. She was such a picture of her father in that moment that Leda felt stabbed in her heart.
“I’m here to find you a governess.”
“You want my father.” Muriel dashed a knuckle across one cheek. “He had to go far away to find a woman who wouldn’t care that he’s mad, to a place where you all gather and talk about getting husbands. And I suppose you’ll want other children, too.”
“I won’t marry again,” Leda blurted. “I’ll have no child of my own.”
Muriel blinked, her eyelashes heavy with tears. “Don’t you all want that?”
Leda’s heart twisted and thrashed in her chest, like a landed fish. Her lungs compressed, bereft of air.
“Many do,” Leda said. “But I won’t have them. Just like you.”
Muriel scrubbed at her eyes. “Why not?”
How could Leda explain to a child that she didn’t trust herself? That she might go blank again, who knew when, and wake with a knife in her hand and a body in her house. She’d never feared it with Lady Plume, but then Lady Plume did not unsettle Leda the way Jack Burham did. Make her long for things she couldn’t have, so much that she might indeed go mad with the wanting.
Jack made her long to have a home of her own with a husband who smiled at her over dinner, who touched her hand as they walked through town. To have a child to hold to her breast. A woman like her, with madness buried within her—she couldn’t risk having those things. The demon might come out and destroy them.
Because I am just like your mother, Leda almost said, but knew better to let the words emerge. She must keep Muriel safe. The moment she feared that madness was threatening, she’d flee Holme Hall the way she left Bath. She’d leave Lord Brancaster without looking back.
“I suppose some women are shaped for such things, a home and babies and fixing tea,” Leda said finally. “And some are made for other purposes.”
It wasn’t madness, yet, the things that were stirring inside of her, like rumblings from the depths of the earth or waves from the deeps of the sea. This felt like freedom. A surfacing of parts of herself she’d thought lost to her, buried under the years of fear and want. It wasn’t darkness rising in her but something fierce and bright, a joy she’d thought no longer possible for her.
When she topped the ridge and found Jack, exactly where he had said she might find him, that bright thing rose like a golden shower, shaking loose more pieces that had bricked over all the girlish dreams and desires and pleasures of her youth. She had the strangest sense that she had arrived precisely where she was supposed to be, and had always known she would find him waiting for her.
Leda was here.The day brightened, the sun that had been teasing all morning finally emerging from the clouds in full glory. The woman brought light with her, and the sense that a drab, winter-dead world was only dormant, about to burst into full bloom.
Jack stood quietly a moment, letting the new knowledge settle, absorbing its rays. She wore a round gown of sprigged muslin, the color of a new-blown rose, and a spencer of cherry red, lined with white fur, that hugged her bosom and lovely arms. Cherry blossoms from a tree that some ancestor had lodged in the hall gardens adorned her straw hat.
She pegged the ribbons over the seat as if she’d been driving for years, hopped down with a lively little spring, and came around the horse, sparing a pat on the muzzle for Pontus, to help Muriel descend from the cart. As they turned toward him,the woman holding his daughter’s hand, Jack felt as if the huge horse had kicked him in the chest.
This woman. She was smart and well-dressed for any occasion. She carried herself with confidence and composure. She was past her first blush of innocence, that was clear by her complete lack of shyness or guile. She was a woman who knew her mind and would speak it as the occasion called for. She was fully formed, so secure in herself, socomplete.
He’d never known a woman to possess such ease, such surety. Certainly not his wife. Anne-Marie had never seemed fully present, her mind always elsewhere, her heart driven by longings he couldn’t fulfill, restless fears he could never assuage for her.
Leda Wroth looked fear in the eye and stared it down.
He watched them approach, enjoying the sight of Muriel holding Leda’s hand, which she had not yet let go of. Leda paused and plucked a yellow flower, waving it beneath Muriel’s chin.
“Do you like butter? The buttercup can tell us.”
Muriel giggled.Giggled. Jack drank in the sound.
“That’s cowslip,” Muriel said.
Leda gazed at the bloom in mock despair. “Well, now what shall I do with it? Wait a moment.” She tucked the stem into the new ribbon tied to Muriel’s hat. “There, all smart and proper. What does your father think?”
“I’ve never seen anything more lovely.” Jack spoke the honest truth, betrayed by the hitch in his voice.
As if she’d just spotted him, Muriel stiffened. She pulled her hand from Leda’s and turned away. “I’ll wait here.”
“Don’t you wish to see what your father is about?”
Muriel muttered something Jack couldn’t hear. Leda’s lips tightened, but she did not chasten the girl as Muriel movedtoward a path of wildflowers. She only called, “Watch for stinging nettle.”
“That’s dead nettle.” Jack forced out the words. “It oughtn’t sting.”
